For the record, I respect and love the achievements of Disney in the world of animation. If this review seems critical of Disney it is only because I believe that this film is a critique of Disney's lofty position in the animated world. It is a complete inversion of all things Disneyesque: the sacharine, the happy and the large-eyed. Shrek focusses on that which is repressed by Disney: the grotesque creatures of fairy tales who have no dimensions other than to be villainized or slain.
It begins (before the credits) with a fairy tale book that Shrek is reading on the toilet and reveals what the plot is. Shrek rips a page out of the book to wipe his rump with to let us know what Dreamworks is going to do with traditional Disney style fairy tales. After Shrek has been attacked by village people, we find out that fairy tale creatures (many of whom are Disney characters like Pinocchio) are being captured and taken to a camp. We are later informed that these fairy tale creatures have been imprisoned by a Lord Farquaad to Shrek's swamp in a kind of fairytale prison camp.
Shrek, after meeting Donkey goes to Lord Farquaad's castle to protest the invasion of his swamp. Much to his and our surprise, the castle bears an uncanny resemblance to Disneyworld: it has parking, a ticket queue complete with turnstiles and a cardboard-facade appearance to its architecture. There is a humorous scene where Lord Farquaad is trying to get the Gingerbread Man to reveal where hidden fairytale creatures are in true Scarface fashion: he has already broken off his legs and is threatening to take away his jelly buttons. The Lord Farquaad we discover is a tyrant over the poor fairy tale creatures. He has captured the Magic Mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and coerces it to reveal whether he is king. The Mirror informs him that he won't be king until he marries a princess, and thus he holds his competition to find his champion.
After soundly thrashing Lord Farquaad's men in a WWF styled fight, Lord Farquaad bargains with Shrek to rescue the princess in exchange for a deed to his swamp. Shrek goes to slay the dragon with his sidekick, Donkey who provides comic relief with humming and inane conversation. The dragon however is not just a typical monster to be slain; it is an amorous female with a personality. It has become smitten by Donkey and there is a gender reversed scene of King Kong playing with Jessica Lange.
Along the way back to the castle, there is a scene which literally pokes fun at the uber Disney movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The princess has just woken up and is outside singing a duet with a bird. The bird and the Princess exchange librettoes much like in Snow White but in Shrek, the Princess's high pitch is enough to blow up the bird. So she decides to cook the bird's eggs for breakfast.
Unlike the pre-fifties ideal of lady qualities as epitomized by Snow White (modest, squeaky-voiced with fastidious domestic abilities) Princess Fiona burps, eats rats and sports a mean karate kick; she is a strong individual woman (even when being rescued she is pro-active in her search for her "true love's first kiss"). Although Shrek has a happy ending, it is yet another subversion. Contrary to the Disney status quo the princess does not become beautiful after her kiss from Shrek but retains her ogresse-like features. Shrek ends in an Austen Powers singalong which is rock music, not an adult contemporary anthem. Just as Donkey is not like Eddie Murphy but is Eddie Murphy to our collective ears, one can see that Shrek was made to be a part of mainstream culture in its endless references to popular culture. Although epitomizing certain values of their times, Disney movies of the Golden Age were timeless in their intentions.
Disney has a monopoly over all the famous fairy tales. To create an animation now based on any of the Grimm Brothers' stories would be an infringement of copyright over Disney. Dreamworks has found a way to animate a fairy tale despite and in spite of this while at the same time subverting the Disney empire over the imagination.
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