In this essay I will be explaining how the film Shrek comically reverses the expectations of a traditional fairy tale

In this paragraph I will be explaining how an audience can be stereotypical and also the false sense of security we feel. When we as an audience first see Shrek we stereotype him as being the evil, short-tempered villain because of his appearance, big green and ugly also the way he acts like ripping and wiping his behind with a magic book. We then refer to a traditional fairy tale and stereotype him as the villain. Before this happens soft traditional music with a calm voice reading an old book with magic turning pages, at this point we feel force sense of security as if we might be in a “spell”. But this does not last for long as next a big green hand tears out the page and says in a loud voice: “yeah like that’s ever going to happen”. This self-referential quote shows the rudeness and arrogance of the beast leading you to believe that this character is the villain.

In this paragraph I will be showing what’s different. First we think of a noble steed to be strong, fearless and to be a beautiful white-coated horse, but Shrek’s “ noble steed” is a donkey who runs for Shrek at the face of danger, is annoying and clumsy like when he doesn’t want to cross the bridge to go and save the princess.

Next I will explain how lord Farquart differs to traditional fairy tale. Handsome prince are usually tall, have blond hair. They boldly go and rescue the beautiful princess from the clutches of a terrible fire- breathing dragon. The film Shrek comically reverses this by having lord Farquoad extremely short. When we first see him he seems normal height but when the camera angle changes and zooms out, we humorously see how small he is. Lord Farquart has long black hair; he’s ugly and spiteful. Also he sends Shrek on his mission to rescue the princess.

The last person I’m going to talk about is Princess Fiona, though traditionally beautiful she has some hidden talents. She can fight, she beat up Robin Hood and his merry men who are also reversed as Robin Hood is usually the hero. In the fight intertextuality is used when Fiona uses a matrix stile double kick this is because it has been copped from other text. The talent is one princess do not usually possesses. This shows the film is not a clone of being traditional but coincidently it does have a   traditional cruel enchantment on which can only be broken by “true love and true loves first kiss”.

The last thing I’m going to write about is the end. The ending is semi traditional because true love finds its self but coincidently it’s not with a prince and princess but with an ogre and a princess. Another traditional conclusion is when the curse is broken by trueloves first kiss where love will take its true form, (therefore the princess becomes an ogre). This will come to a surprise to an as audience because we believed that the curse would be broken thus the princess will turn back to normal. But there is a traditional “happy ever after” ending (apart from lord Farquad).