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How the makers of “Shrek” use presentational devices to subvert fairytale conventions?
Shrek is an animated feature film created by Jeffrey Katzenberg together with DreamWorks, one of the rivals of Walt Disney; it was believed that Katzenberg created the movie Shrek to take revenge to Walt Disney for firing him. Katzenberg joined up with David Geffen and Steven Spielberg to form “DreamWorks SKG”.
The message of the story of Shrek is still something that the young people can learn from, even though they’ve ‘broken the rule book’, they still showed a good moral values and something to teach to the children who watches the film, like, good always wins against evil, beauty is not always on the outside, it’s skin-deep, means always in what the person is and not what he/she looks like. As the same as other stories, Shrek has similar lessons, like Fiona being beautiful, same as in “The Ugly Duckling”, the duckling is ugly and very different to other duckling, but when she grew up she became a beautiful swan, Also in the Frog Prince, the princess still kisses the frog even he’s a frog, because she sees the frog, who the he is and not in the way he looks. as for Fiona, it’s the opposite from the Ugly, she becomes ugly from being beautiful, but Shrek loved her in not what the way she looks but in what she is, just like in The Frog Prince.
The also bring a message that heroes in fairytales isn’t always the same, just like Shrek. Shrek is the main hero of the film, when he tried to save the princess, he saved her not to be his love but to bring back his swamp, unlike in other stories like Sleeping Beauty, the prince saves the princess to be his loved and not for anything else. Also when a hero-prince saves a damsel, they always defeat the obstacles just to get her, like slaying a dragon. In Shrek, Shrek didn’t slay the dragon, all he did is to save the princess and get the hell out of there. Another one is, princes always have a noble steed, or a magnificent horse, but in Shrek, he only have a very talkative and coward donkey, as Fiona said, “My Hero and his Noble Steed”, she defines donkey as a noble steed.
The film Shrek is mainly emphasizing in breaking the rule book of fairy tales, from Damsels to villains. They also parodied mostly the fairytale characters created by Walt Disney Productions, such of this are Snow White, Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and The Three Bears and many more and parodied them in a very conventional way, especially for Damsels in Distress.
The film opens with a book that has a very classic design and has fairytale contents inside it, making us think that what we’re about to experience is another traditional story with the damsels in distress, princes, good vs. bad etc. The camera angle is a high angle shot, which makes it look like we’re reading the book as it opens. As the book being emphasized, it is combined with an old fashioned, classic and very traditional music, which makes the audience totally think that the film is going to be a conventional fairytale. A narrator can also be heard reading the book, as he is like story-telling, the book contained characters like princesses, princes, fairies, and dragons that makes the audience think more that this is going to be a conventional fairytale. But suddenly, in the middle of the reading, “a green, big hand” appeared from nowhere and ripped the page of the book. The audience might probably get surprised and think, “What just happened, isn’t this supposed to be a traditional fairytale story?”, the ripping off of the page shows that it’s like “ripping off the rule book”. As the green hand ripped the page, a flush can be heard from the background, this maybe shows that Jeffrey Katzenberg is bringing a message to Disney that they’re stories are very old fashioned and should be flushed in the toilet. After this, the music suddenly changes into a modern, funky music, an ugly ogre appears going out from a toilet room, which shows that fairytales only appears in “toilet reading?!?”. This brings a message to the audience that, “something is very wrong”.
The attention of the film is then focused to the ogre, instead of continuing the fairytale story. This might bring a message to the audience that, “He’s a villain in stories, why is it being focused to him.”. The ogre has been introduced as Shrek.
As in other traditional stories, ogres are always villains, they’re always shown as a man-eating, ugly and very scary, but the ogre being shown is very different from the stories being told. The house of the ogre is not inhospitable or ugly, its very homely, like a very peaceful family leaves on it, the ogre also seems to be very peaceful and civilised, he does everything like a normal person, not as a dirty man-eating monster, he does a daily cleaning routines, cleans himself and brushes his teeth just like human beings. He also paints, he’s not a just a clean and civilised being but also a well-educated and talented ogre. This scene brings a message to the audience that, “This is definitely not going to be a traditional fairytale story”
Suddenly, as the story continues, a group of men can be heard talking about the ogre, but the different thing is, they refer to him as an ‘it’ and a ‘thing’, the men are clearly looks scared and whispering to each other that the ogre is one dangerous beast, that “it’ll grind your bones for it’s bread”, in this moment, the audience will be surely confused and might think, “this is totally different ogre that was introduced before…”. When the character met eh ogre, they look very scared and defines him as a “terrifying beast”.
