In the film Snow White, the villain is the Evil Queen. The Queen is a stereotypical villain as she possesses dark powers and knowledge, including the ability to summon wind and lightning. She has a magical mirror with which she could look upon whatever she wished. The Queen can also transform herself into anything with her magic spell book, she is the typical mystical being which would normally be included in a fairy tale because she has special powers. On the other hand, Lord Farquaad is somewhat disturbed but is not as powerful as The Evil Queen. Lord Farquaad is a lame villain who cannot keep control of things, the stereotypical factor about him is the fact that he is selfish, he does not want to marry Princess Fiona because she is pretty or she has nice personality, he wants to marry her because he wants to be king. These two villains are similar because of there selfishness towards their desires. However, they are also very different, The Evil Queen is more organized and more powerful than Lord Farquaad as she is magical and more tyrannous. Also, she is actually the Queen of the land, Lord Farquaad is a small man who is not organized and he seems to think that he can do whatever he wants to do. He lives a life of desire which controls him and, in the end, rules over him as he cannot compete with a mighty ogre.
Snow White is a stereotypical fairy tale princess. She is sweet, kind, fair, pure and perfect in every way. She is able to stay cheery no matter what, even when she is forced to clean for The Evil Queen even though she is a princess, this is a main reason why she is stereotypical; her character was created so that nobody would dislike her, Walt Disney chose a young Italian girl called Adriana Casselotti, Walt Disney chose her for the part of Snow White because her voice was seen as pure and fresh at the time. Nowadays, people would think of her voice as being annoying and ear piercing. However, Princess Fiona tries to be a stereotypical princess but deep down she’s boisterous strong. She won’t let anyone boss her about and this is not the image of a normal princess. Her fiery attitude makes her alien to fairy tales. The similarities between these two princesses are that they both want a secure life and to be with the hero of the story. But, they have their differences, and the main one is the fact that Snow White is more stereotypical than Princess Fiona.
Shrek is the most unusual friend that you could ever imagine; he is a grotesque being that quite rude to his future wife and does not treat her with the respect she deserves. His manners are appalling and this is not normal as he wants he marry the princess but in a normal story this wouldn’t be allowed because he is an ogre, stereotypically he would be the villain as he would be portrayed as evil and monstrous. In Snow White, the prince does not have a big part, but his expressions and feelings are still shown. He treats her with respect and shows his love for her, he also saves her life at the very end. In Shrek, Shrek also saves Fiona’s life by protecting her from Lord Farquaad’s guards when she turns into an ogre. This is when his love is shown.
Both films use some humour throughout them. In Snow White the humour is included when the animals are clumsy and Dopey the dwarf is the main source of comedy throughout the film. His expressions and actions are still funny today when you look at it. Shrek, however, is more adult orientated as the humour is pointed to that audience but the themes and clumsiness of some characters makes the film suitable for all ages to understand. In Snow White, an example of the humour is when Snow White gives all the dwarves a kiss; Dopey keeps running around the cottage to get more kisses. The example of humour in Shrek is when Shrek uses sarcasm towards Donkey; this is a type of humour that is only used for certain ages. I think children under the age of 10 years of age would not understand the concept of sarcasm.
Anthropomorphism is used to give animal characters the feelings and expressions of humans. In Shrek, Donkey is given the ability to talk; this is anthropomorphism because talking is the only human feature that animals don’t have. To give an animal the ability to talk, would mean that it will then be able to express its feelings. Also, there are many other animals in Shrek that can talk, the 3 pigs can also talk but there is one more feature that is in their characters, this is comedy. The pigs use a lot of comedy which is also a human feature. Nevertheless, Snow White uses a lot of anthropomorphism but the animals can’t talk in this film. The anthropomorphism in Snow White is used for the actions of the animals; the animals clean the dishes and tidy up when asked to. This is a sign of humanity because only humans would clean up after somebody else, also these are wild animals and they do things for Snow White even though they don’t know her. Anthropomorphism definitely adds character and atmosphere to the films as they wouldn’t be able to have some of the main characters in them.
Sound is paramount in films as it can add suspension and tension or happiness and joy at any given moment. It can uplift an audience or put them on the edge of their seat; it is carefully used in most scenarios to fit in with the scene. Sound can add expression which also helps them with cues. In Snow White sound is used when she sings ‘Whistle While You Work’ this helps the animals in the film to work better as they are joyful because the song is joyful. In Shrek, many songs are played to explain the journey that Shrek makes. The music in Snow White is always sung by the characters in the film, but in Shrek, the songs are sung in the background by artists that are actually in the charts.
The films have tried to realistic because they have used real life scenarios. Except the mythical and magical parts of the films, the camera angles which are used in both films are very different to each other. There was only one camera angle in Snow White, which was the long shot angle because the pictures were drawn by hand and the artists could only draw the characters in that angle. However, a computer can use any angle possible. The most effective angle in Shrek is when Shrek meets Donkey and Shrek. Shrek says to Donkey “Look at me, what am I?” and Donkey replies “Errrrm, really tall?” as he says this, a low angle is used to make Shrek look tall.
Back in 1937, people were more polite and the films that were made were less aggressive than the films today because their target audience was people who could afford to get into the cinemas. However, nowadays there are less manners in films, this is shown Princess Fiona burps out loud and Shrek joins in with her. This would not be seen as funny if it was used in Snow White as the audience would have been very correct and proper because they were posh.
