Efforts to censor or restrict violent images are actions by which a culture imagines itself through its relationship to aggression and violence. Throughout the twentieth century critics and audiences of violent content in film, television, theatre, and video games have renegotiated their relationship to the images and the degree to which those images affect a national identity. Through an examination of five moments in North American history when controls were publicly discussed or imposed, an analysis of the scientific rhetoric used to support these discussions, and an examination of the possible hegemonic benefits of censorship, this thesis examines attempts to proscribe visual content using Allen Freedman's "scopic regime" as a theoretical framework.