Children's films

A children's film, or family film, is a film genre that contains children or relates to them in the context of home and family. Children's films are made specifically for children and not necessarily for the general audience, while family films are made for a wider appeal with a general audience in mind. Children's films come in several major forms like realism, fantasy, adventure, animation, war, musicals, and literary adaptations.

Children are born with certain innate biological dispositions as a product of long evolutionary history. This provides an underlying biological framework for what may fascinate a child and also impose limitations on the same. These can be seen in certain universal features shared in children's films. According to Grodal, films like Finding Nemo (2003), Bambi (1942), or Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001) are based on certain strong emotions like fear, that lead to the activation of what Boyer and Lienard called the hazard-precaution system. This enables the brain to take precautions in case of danger. Children's films such as these explore various topics such as: attachment to parenting agency; the development of friendship; reciprocal relationships between individuals; or deal with the necessity or need in children and young people to explore and to engage in play. Thus these diverse films deal with certain aspects that are not mere social constructions, but rather emotions relevant to all children and therefore have an appeal to a wider universal audience. While cultural aspects shape how various films are created, these films refer to underlying universal aspects that are innate and biological. University of Melbourne scholar Timothy Laurie criticises the emphasis placed on children's innate psychic tendencies, noting that "pedagogical norms have been tirelessly heaped onto children's media,", and that rather than deriving from hardwired biology, " the quality of childhood is more likely shaped by social policy, political oppportunism, pedagogical institutions, and youth-specific market segmentation".

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