A children's film, or family film, is a
film genre
A film genre is a stylistic or thematic category for motion pictures based on similarities either in the narrative elements, aesthetic approach, or the emotional response to the film.
Drawing heavily from the theories of literary-genre cri ...
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 a general audience, while family films are made for a wider appeal with a general audience in mind. Children's films come in several major genres like
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
,
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...
,
adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...
,
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
,
musicals,
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
, and
literary adaptation
Literary adaptation is the adapting of a literary source (e.g. a novel, short story, poem) to another genre or medium, such as a film, stage play, or video game.
It can also involve adapting the same literary work in the same genre or medium ju ...
s.
Psychological aspects
Children are born with certain innate biological dispositions as a product of long
evolutionary history
The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as ''Ga'', for ''gigaannum'') and ev ...
. 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.
[Grodal Torben (2009) Embodied Visions, Oxford University Press. P 27] According to Grodal, films like ''
Finding Nemo'' (2003), ''
Bambi
''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten ...
'' (1942), or
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widel ...
's ''
Spirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi and distrib ...
'' (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
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
Play may refer also to:
Computers and technology
* Google Play, a digital content service
* Play Framework, a Java framework
* P ...
.
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