How do the makers of "Shrek" use presentational devices to reverse the tradition of fairytales to reveal the ogre as good and the prince as evil?
How do the makers of "Shrek" use presentational devices to reverse the tradition of fairytales to reveal the ogre as good and the prince as evil?
Shrek is a spoof of traditional fairytales. It uses stereotypical features, structures and characters. These features are challenged throughout the film by special effects, reversal of stereotypes, intertexuality, twist of plots and through comedy. In order to explore this in depth all aspects will be considered, like setting, structure, characters, stereotyping and humour.
Shrek is about an ogre who in order to keep his swamp he has to rescue a princess from a castle, for Lord Forquaad, the ruler of the land. Shrek accompanied by his new friend Donkey rescue princess Fiona, and are on track to take her to Lord Forquaad, but princess Fiona and Shrek fall in love. Fiona still however agrees to marry Lord Forquaad. Fiona at night however, turns into an ogre because a witch put a spell on her, and until she has true loves first kiss she will become an ogre at night for the rest of her life, but when the spell is released she will be beautiful. No one knows about this, apart from Donkey who found out accidentally. Shrek then saves the day, by interrupting Lord Forquaad and Fiona's wedding ceremony and telling Fiona his true feelings. These two kiss which releases the spell on Fiona and she turns into a beauty... which happened to be an ogre! Then Fiona admits that she is an ogre and explain the story to Shrek. Shrek and her then live happily ever after.
In the first rescue scene it is fairly conventional. For example it is set in a castle, there is a dragon living there and princess Fiona is awaiting her rescuer. Many of these features are contained in Snow White and other fairytales. The dragon is the protector and Fiona is just like Snow White awaiting her prince. However, it is not a stereotypical setting because for example, fairytales do not have rolling lava surrounding their castles. Also the dragon is female, which is not very stereotypical at all. In addition to this the princess even confesses that that wasn't the way it was suppose to happen. Also Shrek finds the princess accidentally and she is not ready to be rescued, so she quickly scuffles back to the bed and looked as if she were asleep. Neither of these are stereotypical features.
Another setting in the play is Lord Faquaad's castle and village. It is very stereotypical, with four turrets in the castles four corners, a courtyard and Lord Faquaad looking over the crowd on centre stage. Also the soldiers and army protecting the castle are stereotypical, even to the clothes they are wearing. Medieval armour and swords! Shrek also tries to use the 'gladiator' film and then giving it an un-stereotypical feel, by instead of Shrek fighting the knights on sand, he fights them in a wrestling ring. This is an example of intertexuality. Shrek challenges conventional fairytales well ...
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Another setting in the play is Lord Faquaad's castle and village. It is very stereotypical, with four turrets in the castles four corners, a courtyard and Lord Faquaad looking over the crowd on centre stage. Also the soldiers and army protecting the castle are stereotypical, even to the clothes they are wearing. Medieval armour and swords! Shrek also tries to use the 'gladiator' film and then giving it an un-stereotypical feel, by instead of Shrek fighting the knights on sand, he fights them in a wrestling ring. This is an example of intertexuality. Shrek challenges conventional fairytales well in this setting because it is all very surreal, but at the same time it is fantasy, as fairytales are.
The structure of Shrek uses the conventional fairytale structure. There is a hero- Shrek, a helper- donkey and a villain- Lord Faquaad. Lord Faquaad has his army that are the 'bad helpers'. Shrek's structure also follows Todorov's theory of fairy tales, where everyone is living in peace and harmony, then something goes wrong, and then it is tried to be fixed, then when they think its fixed they were wrong. Finally everything gets sorted out, all happy ever after and most likely it was better than it was to start with. Shrek follows this pattern extremely well, where everyone was living in peace, Lord Faquaad tales Shrek's swamp, Shrek tries to get it back by force, then Faquaad makes him a deal. Once this is done Shrek returns, get his swamp back and now has the added bonus of a new wife and friend.
The characters in the film follow the narrative roles as Propp said. There is the hero - shrek, his helper - donkey, the villain - Lord Faquaad and the prize - Princess Fiona. These characters were also helped along the way with the dragon being a good help, the knights being bad helpers and the donor being the mirror. In the film there are some characters that you would normally find in a fairytale. One of them is Lord Faquaad, who in fairy tales would be charming, do all of his own jobs and be strikingly tall and good looking. He in this Film however is not very charming, quite arrogant in some places, he got shrek and donkey to rescue Princess Fiona for him, is extremely small, and is not that incredibly good looking. Another character that you would normally find in a fairy tale would be a Princess. In shrek, the fairytale Princess is Princess Fiona. In any ordinary fairy tale, the princess would be beautiful, can sing, gets rescued conventionally, and would be extremely elegant. However in this film, yes Princess Fiona is beautiful, yes she can sing, but is some how not elegant. During the film, Fiona makes revolting noises, blows up insects to make balloons, cooks for Shrek and Donkey like a maid would, eats rats with Shrek, and even wins a fight with 7 men on her own! Fiona can sing beautifully like a stereotypical princess, but then she could not hit the high note, causing a poor innocent butterfly to explode, which is not very stereotypical at all. Although, Fiona think conventionally when she is to be rescued. She was not waiting on her bed asleep however, but when Shrek enters she plays to be asleep, and wants her moment of being rescued to be great. The rescue however did not go according how she wanted to, and she moaned at Shrek and Donkey about how it should have happened.
Shrek who plays the hero in the story is not really the most conventional hero there is, or the most stereotypical. Shrek is an ugly ogre, who is lonely, likes his privacy and thinks he is scary. The way he acts in the rescue scene also shows that he is not stereotypical at all, by just grabbing princess Fiona and then running out. He shows throughout the film that he is unconventional by being in moods, being unhappy and eating the most unthinkable things. A hero in a normal fairytale would be charming or powerful, would think positive all the time, and would eat like a true man. Although this looks like Shrek is not conventional at all, he is in some ways. He can fight like a true hero could. Shrek and his partner donkey, defeat a whole army of top knights. Shrek also falls in love with the one who he rescues, which is very stereotypical in fairytales. Also in the film, Shrek sometimes shows that he does want to help, like a true hero should, by rescuing Princess Fiona at the end.
Donkey is the helper in the story. As any helper would in any other fairytale he helps the hero along the way to get the prize. Donkey is not scared of Shrek and mocks him quite a lot. This would not be seen in most fairytales, but this is used for some humour in the film. Donkey helps Shrek not only to get the prize, but also to make him look not very stereotypical. He is not afraid of the big scary ogre, but in fact can see through his skin to what he is really like, quite a lonely person. Another helper in the film is the Dragon guarding the castle. The dragons in most fairytales would be menacing, fire breathing and scary. In this film, the dragon is too, but also happens to be female and falls in love with Donkey! The dragon loses its fierceness after falling in love with donkey and ends out helping at the end of the film. The bad helpers, the knights are the only conventional characters there are in this story; they do as they are told, and help Lord Faquaad try to get his prize.
In the film there are many stereotypes as I have mentioned, and nearly all are challenged in one way or another, either to bring humour into the film or to give the film some more excitement. Humour is used many times during the film. Most of the humour comes from challenging stereotypes and clever puns and jokes with words. The way that most of the characters are not stereotypical is humorous to the eye and to the brain, they are funny to look and the jokes made about the lack of stereotypes are funny also. A good example of this is where Robin Hood in the forest meets Princess Fiona. We all think that Fiona will be captured but no, Robin Hood and his merry men break out into dance, and perform a dance routine, which indeed is not very stereotypical. Then as we all think Princess Fiona will be captured, she starts to fight the men. This part of the scene uses intertexuality to be funny, where she parodies a scene out of The Matrix and also is humorous to us because it is not stereotypical. She then beats all of the men in her fight and walks off! The use of voices and words that especially Donkey uses throughout the film are humorous, in the way that we would not expect that from a fairytale.
Shrek uses all the conventions that I have mentioned in this essay to challenge traditional fairytales. Through reversal of stereotypes, intertexuality and twist of plots. The main reason why I think Shrek challenged conventional fairy tales well is that it was humorous, as no fairytales are funny, which made shrek different, in a league of its own
