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At different points in DC cartoons, comics, and various adaptations, the Joker has choked Harley, thrown her out of a window, shot her, and left her chained in a dungeon to die. This does tend to get watered down sometimes. A scene in Suicide Squad wherein he punched her in the face was cut, which left them just looking like Bonnie and Clyde with pet hyenas and laughing gas. Damn, even I think that sounds fun.

It's hard to make healthy relationships that are fun to watch on screen (there's a reason TV shows almost always flounder after a "will they or won't they" storyline gets resolved). It's easy to make a bad relationship look exciting and cool, because that's the fantasy -- the partner who gives you permission to break society's oppressive norms.

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So it's not that weird that Twilight has a whole subplot about a girl whose werewolf boyfriend permanently disfigured her after losing his temper during an argument. Of course, she still loves him, because he couldn't help it and now he's extremely vigilant about keeping himself under control. You know how guys like that are always able to keep that promise.

This has all been discussed elsewhere, of course, but even in an intentionally edgy story like Fifty Shades Of Grey, the morality police focused more on the consensual BDSM stuff, and not the fact that Christian pulls Anna everywhere like she's a rolling suitcase, isolates her from her friends, and tells her what she can and can't eat. And women love it! It sold 125 million copies.

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Because romances have to have dramatic conflict, these dark outbursts are written as the obstacle the pretty people have to overcome, the midnight before the dawn. In real life, these arcs repeat themselves over and over -- lashing out, profuse apology, peace, lashing out again -- until it reveals itself to be a cycle that the victim can't escape.