The 1993 murder of a 2-year-old by two 10-year-olds in England illustrates the potential influence of the media. The fields of sociology, cultural, and media studies have focused mainly on power relationships in films, but this focus is inadequate. Instead, we must recognize the crucial role of imagination in our everyday lives and why it is therefore reasonable to worry about media representations of violence. When we are engaged with media representations, we value not only what is represented but also how we are prescribed to imagine and thus understand it. Character identification is one major way in which our imaginative understanding is developed. The easy access children have to films makes representations of violence particularly worrisome, because children, unlike adults, may have no other experience of the kinds of events and feelings supposedly represented. Similarly, adults have different levels of moral understanding. It is crucial that we protect the most vulnerable people, especially children, from intensifying their baser appetites. Ideally, film makers, program producers and writers should censor themselves and families and groups should use discretion to match violent representations to the probable audience's level of understanding. Case examples