I am personally a
huge advocate of not forcing this stuff on high schoolers, on the grounds that it has the effect of inhibiting them from ever getting into ever again because they think they already tried it. I believe we should find ways to get the same ideas across, but with works that are more approachable to people of that age, and build a pathway for them forward into the great works of the past instead of trying to teleport them directly to the end goal. But until people in general stop essentially
celebrating how awesome it is that we force students into unpleasant and unapproachable works, and consider their distaste and writing off of literature forever as a sign that things are being done correctly, nothing will change.
I've often thought I could make a pretty decent literature-appreciation course around the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which, no sarcasm, is what really opened my eyes to these issues for the first time, somewhere in my mid-20s. It would piss people off who would assume that it simply can't be possible that we could learn how to appreciate literature from such an accessible and fun (and not-stuffy) source, but I know it can be.