Or, I would suggest that it may be that young viewers respond most to the film's deeply frightening aspects that have something of the primal about them, as do classical fairy tales that enthrall kids over and over. I myself remember being haunted for a very long time by the wicked stepmother and the horrible witch of Snow White, and by the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. I did not "identify with" Snow White or Dorothy, though; in fact I wanted to be a witch, and I now think that what I really wanted was her power over others and her deliciously transgressive way of life. It may be that something like this attraction to the transgressive pulls children into Pinocchio's story, not because they want him or themselves to be "real," but because they relish his brushes with danger and death, vicariously thrilling to experiences that are otherwise out of their reach.