Shrek: A Commentary of Abuses in Society

“Shrek” the animated movie, the first of a new generation of major modern animated epics. The movie “Shrek”, provides a number of insights into the abuse of minorities and miss-use of stereotypes. Although a funny movie aimed directly at families, this movie covers a number of serious social issues not only aimed at children but also adults also. For children, there are the traditional fairytale characters and for adults, there are elements of an adult nature, like sale and torture of fairytale characters couched in humor to reduce the shock factor.

All this is combined with a fast-paced story that reverses the stereotypes found in many typical fairytale stories.

Like all good classical fairytales, it does end with a happy ending where “Shrek” gets the princess’s love but not at all the traditional one you would expect. The stereotype of female beauty is reinforced by Fairytales. The movie, “Shrek”, does an excellent job of showing how the typical image of a beautiful fairytale princess does not have to be a stereotype, to be still loved.

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This is represented at the end of the movie when “one’s true love in a kiss” changes Princess Dora into her female ogre form rather than the stereotype princess form, as it is her love for Shrek which is more important (“Shrek” 1:17:00-1:19:00). Young girls come in many forms of race and size, but the stereotype of fairytales princess’s come in one form only, except for hair color.

Young girls are bombarded from an early age with commercial images of idealized beauty when these idealized images cannot be met, it will often lead to socialization problems.

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In addition to the beauty industry, pressure for conformity often come from the doll industry replicating these stereotype image in toy form. This emphasis on stereotype can often lead to social problems of inferiority and depression if the young girl is not this fairytale princess stereotype. All too often as young girls grow into adolescents this over emphasis on idealized beauty, can lead to dangerous activities in order to be accepted by a peer group, if they cannot be accepted for themselves. The emphasis of stereotypical beauty in the fairytale princess often leads to people with differences from this to feel isolated.

Many times, tall individuals lack self-confidence because many people judge them for being good for one thing only: being tall. In the movie “Shrek”, the Ogre makes this point very clearly. He looks down at donkey and says, “Little donkey take a look at me. What am I?” Donkey looks up and says, “Really tall”. And Shrek says “Really? That’s all?”(“Shrek” 00:09:20-00:10:00). Having self-doubt can be a painful experience for many tall people. Sadness and depression can cause tall people to isolate themselves, so the characteristic of being tall is not the focus of other people. If they feel rejected for being tall, they are not likely to have an active social life, which only emphasizes a sense of isolation. It is often assumed all tall people must be great basketball players but being tall is not the only qualification required to be great basketball athlete. Furthermore, super-stars and role models may not be able to help others who have this same physical trait if they did not also develop these additional qualities.

Although physical differences and traits are often judged unfairly, some people judge certain physical traits more detrimental than others. Being a dwarf often leads to ostracism and persecution in society. ”Shrek”, the movie clearly demonstrates the image of dwarfs as a different group of humans from the regular town and village people in the movie, is clearly separated from them and categorized in the group of non-human characters. In the scene when all the fairytale characters hide in Shrek’s home swamp from there human persecutors, one group is clearly a set of dwarfs in a stereotypical costume (“Shrek” 13:25-13:27). Dwarfs are ordinary human beings with normal emotions but they often have to deal with abuse and taunts from other humans. Dwarfs throughout history have been considered freaks of nature and even today are often abused or isolated because of their physical difference.

Not only do dwarfs have to deal with the reality of living in a world designed for people often twice as tall, which makes even turning on a water faucet a challenge, there I the additional challenges of earning an income where they are often considered a cruel joke by nature. This can often lead to a sense of isolation from the world, depression, and addictions to drugs or alcohol. Fortunately, many dwarfs now have created support groups, with families of dwarf and non-dwarf partnerships, which have the ordinary issues found in any family. Just as physical traits separate individuals from society, imprisonment by governments leads to a physical separation from society and not always for good reasons. Abuse of prisoners is not an acceptable method of obtaining information by governments.

The movie, “Shrek” shows the torture of one of the fairytale characters in an amusing way to gather sympathy for fairytale creatures compared to their human torturers. In the movie, Lord Farquar interrogates the Gingerbread man by breaking one of his legs and dunking him in milk in order to find out where all the fairytale creatures are hiding, but gingerbread man provides him useless information just to stop the torture (“Shrek” 00:17:00-00:17:10). The use of physical abuse to obtain information, is just as likely to lead to false information as it is to correct information therefore inflicting pain is counterproductive. The use of torture on prisoners to obtain information has become a fairly standard practice in parts of the world. Although all prisoners are supposed to be protected by the “UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights” this is often flouted for political prisoners. Political unlike criminal prisoners often have a greater need for protection from abuse as governments will often use abuse as a method to control political opponents and instill fear of the government in their population.

Dictatorial regimes such and Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, and Egypt are well-known abusers of human rights of political prisoners. It is unfortunate that even some democratic countries have resorted to these methods for terrorists, although not political prisoners it could be argued they should be considered criminal prisoners. As has been demonstrated in previous paragraphs “Shrek” the movie, provides a number of insights into the abuse of minorities and miss-use of stereotypes. The examples given here are just a small sample of some of the insights of hidden depths of this movie. As a basic form of entertainment, it is extremely enjoyable and is suitable for any family. As a college student one should always be aware of possible hidden meanings in movies, not only to write English essays but to be able to share these with your peers and adults. This form of analysis will prove useful when analyzing less entertaining subjects and provide a basis for clear communication to other adults in the future. 

Updated: Mar 26, 2022
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Shrek: A Commentary of Abuses in Society. (2022, Mar 26). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/shrek-a-commentary-of-abuses-in-society-essay

Shrek: A Commentary of Abuses in Society essay
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