Hollywood Villains Heath Ledger, who played the Joker in The Dark Knight, described him as “a psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown.” The film was criticized for perpetuating negative stereotypes about mental illness, but the “insane killer” is a standard plot device in many films and television dramas (Camp & others, 2010). Sometimes horrific events seem to confirm the stereotype, such as when a mentally disturbed young man shot 70 people at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. But research shows that most people with a mental illness are not violent.

Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection