Why will children prefer classic films to standard children’s programming?
If you start them young, they won’t prefer classic films so much as welcome them as an alternative programming stream to the regular fare they and their peers slurp up every day. You certainly don’t want to tell your children that a Preston Sturges comedy is better (faster, smarter, sassier) than one of their stock Nickelodeon farces. Some kids will figure that out on their own while still keeping one foot in the media in which they need to stay conversant. Q: How are classic films more engaging? A: The breadth of genres is refreshing to a modern kid who gets mostly computer-animated farces, noisy fantasies, or carefully crafted book adaptations. Suddenly you’re giving them access to detective stories, suspense films, tough dramas, high-flying musicals, spine-tingling sci fi. The old stars, too, have a charisma that’s hard to miss: Natalie took one look at Jimmy Cagney and was hooked. The screwball comedies of the 1930s are snappy and fast. Most kids assume, wrongly, that anything old
