What's up Wisecrack, Jared again.
Today, we’re diving into the film series that’s equal parts heart and fart —Dreamworks’
enduring fairy tale sendup, Shrek.
The Shrek franchise is well-known for its signature brand of humor, which parodies fairy
tales by juxtaposing classic tropes of the genre with modern-day language, attitudes,
and pop culture references.
When the films are working (and they don’t always), they make us laugh by showing what
happens when the way we think the world ought to be crashes up against the way that it actually
is.
At their best, the films are a radical celebration of diversity, love, and the chaotic messiness
of real life overthrowing pretension, rigidity, and prejudice.
At their worst, well...
But we’ll get to that later.
Welcome to this Wisecrack Edition on The Shrek movies: Deep or Dumb?
As always, spoilers for an 18-year-old franchise about a Scottish ogre and an annoying
talking donkey.
Alright guys first, a quick recap of the series-to-date.
We meet Shrek, an ornery bachelor of an ogre, enjoying his life of solitude and Smash Mouth.
Shrek’s idyllic existence is turned upside-down when one Lord Farquaad transforms his beloved
swamp into a forced resettlement camp for fairy tale creatures.
“We were forced to come here!”
“By who?”
“Lord Farquaad.
He hoofed und he poofed und he...signed an eviction notice.”
To get his land back, Shrek agrees to go on a quest: He—and chatterbox sidekick Donkey—will
rescue Princess Fionna from a dragon’s lair, so that Farquaad can marry her and become
a legitimate king.
“What I mean is, you’re not a king yet.
But you can become one!
All you have to do is marry a princess.”
On the way back to Duloc, Shrek and Fionna inadvertently fall in love, and are eventually
married.
The rest of the films in the series follow Shrek and Fionna through several stereotypical
hallmarks of newlywed life: meeting the parents in Shrek 2; preparing for parenthood in Shrek
the Third; and adjusting to a more settled lifestyle in Shrek Forever After.
In the first film, main antagonist Lord Farquaad is obsessed with the pursuit of “perfection.”
“I’m not the monster here—you are!
You and the rest of that fairy tale trash, poisoning my perfect world...”
But what is “perfection?”
According to Farquaad, it is a clean, well-ordered kingdom, populated by citizens mechanically
going about the roles he has assigned them:
”Don’t make waves, stay in line, and we’ll get along fine, Duloc is the perfect place.”
Even his desire to marry Fionna is driven more by compulsive completionism more than
any real political need.
As lord of Duloc, it is clear that he already wields absolute power over his subjects, to
the point of establishing a cult of personality around his image:
But to be de facto ruler is not enough for Farquaad; he insists upon ruling, as he puts
it: “the most perfect kingdom of them all”
His desire to marry Fionna comes not from love, but from a need to satisfy the Magic
Mirror’s definition of kingship -
“Will you be the perfect bride for the perfect groom?”
Farquaad and Duloc are rigid and inflexible, insisting on arbitrary rules and ideals, rather
than adapting to the situation at hand.
Many of the film’s best jokes work by drawing attention to the vast gulf between their delusions
and their reality:
Shrek thus serves as a neat illustration of a theory of humor developed by Henri Bergson
in his 1900 essay collection, Laughter.
Bergson argues that “The laughable element [...] consists of a certain MECHANICAL INELASTICITY,
just where one would expect to find the wide-awake adaptability and the living pliableness of
a human being.”
In other words, continuing to move as a result of momentum, or continuing to act out a preconceived
notion of how the world works.
This covers everything from slipping on a surprise banana peel to failing to adapt to
changing social circumstances.
Enter Shrek.
Shrek is everything Farquaad is not: filthy, smelly, and pragmatic, rather than idealistic.
These traits make him the ideal comic foil to a man with his head firmly up his own ass—and
to the society he has created.
Shrek is the ugly green reality check Duloc desperately needs.
Whenever he encounters an unnecessarily complex system or highfalutin attitude, his blunt
approach to life brings it crashing down.
Where there is a stifling order, he deflates it with humor, or creative disorder:
“I’m an agent of chaos”
To kick the movie off, Shrek literally wipes his ass with a book of fairy tales:
“Oh Lordy!”
Later, he blatantly ignores social norms which the human citizens of Duloc follow.
even when they believe their lives are in immediate danger:
His no-nonsense approach to Fiona’s rescue highlights the obvious flaws in the princess’s
(and, by proxy, the audience’s) understanding of heroism:
“You’re meant to charge in, sword drawn, banner flying—that’s what all the other
knights did!”
“Yeah, right before they burst into flame!”
Even his speech patterns undercut the pompous and fake “medieval” dialogue used by characters
caught up in their own delusional stories.
“Wait, sir knight!
This beeth our first meeting.
Should it not be a wonderful, romantic moment?”
“Yeah.
Sorry lady, there’s no time.”
Just by being himself, Shrek points out the absurdities of people like Farquaad and places
like Duloc—he simplifies and loosens up things that have gotten over-complicated and
inflexible.
At the same time, he complicates ideas the rest of his world takes for granted.
Most importantly, in standing up for himself and ogres in general, he calls into question
the idea that there can be simple, binary divisions between “good” and “bad”;
beauty and ugliness; perfection and imperfection.
He explains this to Donkey in one of the film’s most iconic scenes:
“Onions have layers; ogres have layers.
Onions have layers - you get it!
We both have layers”
and later:
“Man they ain’t nothing but a bunch of little dots.”
“You know, Donkey, sometimes things are more than they appear.”
And in spite of Shrek’s sarcasm—and for all the film’s reputation as a smart-alecky,
postmodern irony-fest—the film revolves around a remarkably hopeful and earnest central
idea: that real life, in all its stench and ugliness, is way more fun and full of love
than the fantasies we dream up for ourselves—and that enjoying its imperfections is the key
to fulfillment.
In the film’s final moments, the reality of the friendship and love between Shrek and
his band of misfits overcomes the fantasy of a tyrant (and turns him into dragon chow):
“I will have order!
I will have perfection!
I will have—AHHH!”
Ultimately, these unorthodox but real relationships break Shrek out of his own self-involved fantasies
of contented solitude:
“They judge me before they even know me...
That’s why I’m better off alone.”
Shrek takes a decisive step towards happiness—”ugly ever after,” in the movie’s language—when
he finally accepts his developing friendship with Donkey and his feelings for Fiona.
So, the first Shrek movie: Deep!
And score for Jeffrey Katzenberg’s upstart Dreamworks studio sticking it to the Disney
machine.
Sorry, Michael Eisner.
“It’s okay.
It’s okay.”
Shrek 2 builds on the foundation Shrek lays down.
Like the first film, the sequel gets a lot of its laughs by dragging pompous figures
like Prince Charming through the mess of the physical world.
“He will rue the very day he stole my kingdom from me!”
Also like Shrek, Shrek 2 takes a dim view of government and the politicians who run
it.
While from the outside he appears to be a decent enough king, Fiona’s father Harold
is ultimately revealed to be in debt to, and under the control of, the Fairy Godmother—in
other words, he is in the pocket of big business.
Indeed, by turning the Fairy Godmother into a literal manufacturer of happy endings,
Shrek 2 raises interesting questions about one of the first film’s guiding ideas.
Specifically, in a world where the strongest of human emotions are sold by the gallon,
what is this “true love” that the characters have been talking about all this time?
Is it even real?
“You can’t force someone to fall in love.”
“Oh I beg to differ!
I do it all the time.”
To break it down even further: the Fairy Godmother, maker of happy endings and fake emotions,
isn’t queen bitch of just any old kingdom.
She secretly wields power over a town that is explicitly designed to lampoon that place
that brews up a lot a piping-hot majority of our own cultural BS: Beverly Hills, and
nearby Hollywood.
From the letters on a hill mimicking the iconic Hollywood sign
to the storefronts and movie posters,
to the red carpet that greets Shrek and Fionna as they step out of their horse-drawn limousine,
Far, Far Away is full of visual cues linking it to a town with a worldwide reputation for
superficiality, run by an industry whose main output is fictional stories meant to stir
up emotion.
By setting its story in such a place, the film draws attention to the roles played by
major Hollywood studios—and the system in which they operate—in creating the out-of-touch
fantasies about love, heroism, and perfection that inspired the series in the first place.
Adorno, eat your heart out.
Ultimately, the film answers its questions about “true” love in much the same way
Shrek did, while raising the stakes like a good sequel should.
Let’s take a look:
Like Farquaad before him, Harold is possessed by the need to project an image of perfection—to
the point where he sold away his daughter’s future to transform himself from a frog into
a human.
Unlike Farquaad, Harold eventually redeems himself by saving Fionna from the Fairy Godmother’s
love potion, accepting his unusual son-in-law for who he is, and finally dropping his human
disguise:
“You’re more that man today than you ever were.
Warts and all.”
Then, as the clock strikes midnight, Fionna deliberately waits for the beauty potion to
wear off, so she and Shrek can revert back to their usual selves:
“I want what any princess wants.
To live happily ever after—with the ogre I married."
Both of these demonstrations of love for others involve acceptance of imperfection, but with
a twist.
Unlike in the first movie, both Harold and Fionna are given opportunities (represented
by the potions) to live out the rest of their lives according to a societally sanctioned
model of happiness.
Harold can maintain his kingly appearance by roofying his daughter; Fionna can have
a body that fits normative standards of hotness by sealing the beauty potion with a kiss.
Imbued with this new power of choice, both father and daughter still reject superficial
perfection in favor of imperfect, but “true” love.
So Shrek 2 also gets a “Deep.”
And this, unfortunately, is where things take a turn for the stupid.
Clocking in at a loooong ninety-two minutes, Shrek the Third represents a bizarre departure
from everything the series has stood for thus far.
With Harold dead and Fionna pregnant, Shrek is terrified by the looming responsibilities
of kingship and fatherhood.
Yeesh.
Hoping to get at least one thing off his plate, Shrek tracks down Arthur Pendragon, Harold’s
nephew and the only other viable heir to the throne.
In his absence, Prince Charming raises an army of jealous villains to invade Far, Far
Away and secure their own “happily-ever-afters.”
The final showdown sees young Arthur step into his role as king by convincing the villains
that only they have the power to make themselves happy.
While the film does have a few great standalone jokes:
“Well, well, well.
If it isn’t Peter Pan.”
“His name’s not Peter!”
“Shut it, Wendy.”
It’s missing the core of what made the first two movies in the series so powerful.
Listen to Arthur’s big speech to the villains:
“You’re telling me you just want to be villains your whole lives?
Didn’t you ever wish you could be something else?
If there’s something you really want, or someone you really want to be, then the only
person standing in your way is you."
"Me?"
Coming from this series, this is really, really dumb.
Putting aside for a moment that Arthur seems to have lifted his dialogue straight from
a YouTube workout motivation video, what’s so off about this moment is that it completely
undercuts what the series has done so far.
Shrek and Shrek 2 point out the inherent problems in black-and-white thinking: dividing people
into camps of “good” and “bad,” “heroes” and “villains,” is both unrealistic and
harmful.
The films culminate in main characters accepting, and even celebrating, the inevitably flawed
reality they inhabit.
Shrek the Turd (you heard me) uncritically promotes the idea of “villainy” as an
objective state of being — one that villains can escape only by aligning their behavior
with what is socially acceptable.
It completely sh*tcans the complex discussion around acceptance that carries the first two
films, and opts instead for warmed-over cliches from a self-help seminar.
Oh, and you get the privilege of watching a group of teenage girls hit on a middle-aged
man.
“This is like totally embarrassing, but my friend Tiffany thinkest thou vex her so
soothly, and she thought perchance thou would wanna ask her to the Homecoming Dance or something.”
“Uh, excuse me?”
“It’s like whatever.
She’s just totally into college guys and mythical creatures and stuff.”
This movie is Dumb.
Shrek Forever After doesn’t fare much better.
Like Shrek the Third, it does have some stand-out moments:
Also like Shrek the Third, it completely abandons the take on happiness and imperfection that
made the first two entries in the series so interesting.
The film is a Shrek-style spin on the It’s a Wonderful Life formula you’ll remember
from: the original Jimmy Stewart production; that Muppet Christmas movie where Kermit gets
traumatized by a restaurant serving frog legs; and many other iterations.
Feeling trapped by the daily grind of responsible parenthood, Shrek makes an impulsive deal
with Rumpelstiltskin, and winds up stuck in a world in which he was never born, and therefore
never married Fionna, met his friends, or had his children.
After learning the value of what he lost, Shrek is able to nullify his contract with
Rumpel by sucking face with underground - ogre - resistance - leader Fionna, and return to
his family.
All of which sounds just fine and dandy, until you look at the fine print.
“His fine print is crafty.”
Listen to the last thing Fionna says to Shrek before he makes his deal:
"You have three beautiful children.
A wife who loves you.
Friends who adore you.
You have everything.”
Now, membership in a nuclear family and the support of a good network may be great things
to have—but the Fionna who gorged on Weed Rat Rotisserie Style, challenged her husband
to a fart contest in a mud bath, and chose to remain an ogre, rather than change the
person she loved would not say that these conventional markers of success and happiness
are “everything.”
The film puts Shrek in a position similar to that of the villains at the end of Shrek
the Third.
Above and beyond attending to the responsibilities of fatherhood, he is being asked to abandon
key parts of an identity that brings him joy and a sense of purpose.
Although people inevitably, and rightfully, sacrifice a lot for their families, it’s
romanticized in a way reminiscent of Duloc.
He is expected to insert himself into an accepted cultural narrative of the “perfect” life
is — in other words, to buy completely into the story manufactured in Far, Far Away: a
fairy tale that the series spent two remarkable movies trying to dismantle.
Shrek Forever After is Dumb—and no amount of bestiarii-Gingy can make it Deep.
So it looks like we have a tie.
While there’s no getting around the fact that the series lost a lot of its depth as
time went on, the later films still offer their fair share of weird, clever jokes, not
all of them grounded in pop-culture references:
“It's time to pay the piper.
Griselda seriously, it's time to pay the piper!
Now go get my check book!
Go, move, get out!
And the films’ best work is often more complex than the series as a whole gets credit for.
"Well maybe you're right princess!"
What do you think, Wisecrack?
Are these films deeper or dumber than we’ve determined here today?
Did you spot something we missed?
Is “Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party” canon, and could Lord Farquaad still be alive
inside Dragon’s cavernous stomach?