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2001, PDI/Dreamwork
Director: Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson
Starring: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow
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Shrek is directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, and is based on the children’s book by William Steig. This is an astonishing, delightful computer animation, and it’s no surprise that the film took five years to make.
At the very start, we are introduced to Lord Farquaad. He is a small man with a big head - an authority figure who ranks low on the scales of integrity and bravery. This contemptible Lord lives in Duluc, a sterile and manufactured ‘reality’.
He has ordered all the ‘misfit fairy-tale’ creatures to leave his realm, and they have been forced to re-locate in a solitary swamp. The problem is, the swamp is home to a green ogre, who lives all alone in the middle of it.
He has made his home in the base of a large, broken tree. The tree is a symbol of Shrek himself: a giant with a broken heart. Shrek has isolated himself in his swamp. He has built layers around his heart, like those of an onion.
His frightening appearance has resulted in people judging and rejecting him without ever getting to know him. As a consequence, he doesn’t want to get to know anyone else - especially all the creatures who have invaded his space. So, in an attempt to get rid of them and regain his solitude, Shrek agrees to go on a quest for Lord Farquaad, in return for the removal of his new, unwanted neighbours.
His mission is to rescue the lovely Princess Fiona from a castle guarded by a fire-breathing dragon, so that she can marry Farquaad, who can then become king. A loyal, talkative donkey accompanies Shrek. And donkeys, as it happens, are symbolic of humility, patience and burden bearers.
A story in the Bible’s Old Testament also contains a donkey who finds he can speak, and who promptly rebukes the spiritual blindness of its master (Numbers 22.27-33). This is exactly what Shrek’s donkey does - he speaks words of wisdom and words of rebuke. ‘Friends forgive one another,’ he tells Shrek. He’s certainly no ass...
In fact, the donkey doesn’t judge by outward appearance, and he brings the best out of everyone, including the fire-breathing dragon. The love and friendship nurtured by the donkey are able, in the end, to set both Shrek and Princess Fiona free from the ‘Kingdom of Self.’
Shrek is released from his swamp of rejection and Princess Fiona is released from her stronghold of fear. They ride off to live happily ever after in an onion coach. Only the proud, selfish Lord Farquaad remains unaffected.
The underlying themes in Shrek all question our traditional ideas of beauty. We have been brought up in a world dominated by beautiful pop-stars, glamorous actresses and striking supermodels. In the eyes of our all-pervasive media, those who are beautiful seem to have it all. And as sad and superficial as this may sound, this view is actually fairly traditional.
Indeed, fairy tales present a similar theme: the beautiful princess, after initial obstacles, marries her Prince Charming in shining armour and they live happily ever after. Of course, these wonderful ideals appeal to us all; every man would like to be the hero, while most women have dreamed of becoming the beautiful princess.
Sometimes (even subconsciously) our perceptions of beauty are driven by how we imagine they could be in an ideal fairy-tale world. In order to help us question these deeply rooted ideas, Shrek wonderfully turns the idea of fairy-tale on its head. On the surface, the film has all the elements of the archetypal story: a beautiful princess, a fire-breathing dragon and a scary green ogre. It even opens with the classic storybook beginning.
However, things are not always as they seem. Lord Farquaad is not your typical villain - he’s short, for a start. Princess Fiona is not a fairy-tale princess: besides turning into an ogre every night at sunset, she proves more than capable of rescuing herself; and among other things, she burps, and she sings so piercingly that she causes a bluebird to explode. The dragon doesn’t get slain, and turns out to be a ‘good girl’. The ogre, in turn, becomes the ‘knight in shining armour’ and the object of the princess’s affection.
The many parodies serve to prove the moral of the tale - that the beautiful story does not have to be conventional. In line with the rest of the film, at the end, Shrek and Fiona are not transformed into a picture-perfect couple. Instead, they remain as they are. The point is, Shrek and Fiona are beautiful despite their appearance, and their story is a confirmation that happy endings do not rely on beautiful exteriors.
Film clip 1
The donkey and Shrek are sitting on a rocky outcrop in the middle of nowhere. There is a tumbledown house behind them. Shrek tells Donkey how everyone judges him before they even meet him and get to know him. That’s not quite true, points out Donkey. After all, I didn’t judge you on appearances alone, did I?
Donkey goes to make sure the Princess is all right. He creeps into the house where she is meant to be resting, and looks around for her in the dark, feeling more and more frightened and calling out for her. Then he gets the fright of his life, as he finds himself face-to-face with an ugly girl - an ogre, in fact. “You’ve eaten the Princess,” he shrieks. “Don’t worry Fiona!” he shouts at the ogre’s tummy. “Keep breathing! I’ll get you out there.”
“I am Fiona,” she replies. And, as Donkey slowly realises that this is, indeed, Fiona, he tries to calm down, while she explains that every night, as the sun goes down, she changes into her ugly self. It always happens, without fail. And she won’t ever take on “love’s true form” until she experiences true love’s first kiss.
Throughout the film, both Shrek and Princess Fiona embark on a journey of self-acceptance, or - put another way in the film - ‘becoming comfortable in the skin you’re in.’ We see very clearly that Shrek struggles with his appearance: “People take one look at me and say, ‘Ahhh, look, big, stupid, ugly Ogre,’” he complains.
As a result of his feelings of rejection, Shrek has shut himself away, and decided to live a lonely, solitary existence. Similarly, her ‘night time’ form repulses Fiona. Despairingly, she cries to the donkey, “I’m ugly, OK?’” She describes herself as ‘this horrible, ugly beast’, but knows this isn’t how it’s meant to be: “I’m a princess, and this is not how a princess is supposed to look,” she explains. “Princess and ugly don’t go together.” She doesn’t believe that anybody could ever love her: “Who could love a beast so hideous and ugly?”
What about us? We work hard to make things appear different to how they really are. Think about how much money we spend on the ‘outside’: we wash it, brush it, comb it, spray it, curl it, colour it, tan it... We try to smooth its wrinkles, lift it, make it smaller, make it bigger - and still we don’t like it.
Short people want to be taller, tall people want to be shorter and large people want to be smaller. Light skinned people try to get darker and dark skinned people feel they’d be better liked if they were lighter. Perfectionists, let’s face it, are never perfectly happy.
However much we try to guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us. It is not so much the example of theirs we imitate, as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words. We mould our faces to fit our masks. And all the time we’re fussing over the external parts, while the internal parts are neglected.
As Shrek so wisely comments, “Sometimes things are more than they appear.” He describes ogres like onions - “they have layers,” he says, and insists that “there’s more to ogres than people think.” The message, that we shouldn’t judge people before we get to know them, is both timeless and true. If we judge a book by its cover, we are often proved to be wrong. There’s much more to a person than mere surface appearance.
Even an ogre like Shrek, who freely withdraws from having any contact with other creatures, has a suppressed desire for companionship. Appearances are very deceitful.
It’s a theme that is picked up by the Bible. ‘Don’t judge by appearance or height,’ says the book of Samuel. ‘The Lord doesn’t make decisions the way you do. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at a person’s heart and their thoughts and intentions’ (1 Samuel 16.7).
In fact, the Bible says that all humans are made in the image of God. In an image-obsessed world, that’s something to think about. The Bible wasn’t talking about what God looks like, but how he is - a Creator God who loves others for who they are, and seeks their love in return.
God looks beyond our nose, which we think is too long, and our feet, which we think are too big. He looks beyond whether we think we are too tall or too short or too heavy or too thin. He looks inside the heart and sees what is there.
So, what does God look for in us? He searches for a heart that will accept His love. God is no respecter of persons. It doesn’t make any difference what you look like. He wants a heart that is ready to receive his love, and reflect that love to others.
I remember walking down the corridor of a hospital, when I saw someone in a wheelchair. I couldn’t tell if they were male or female, because their body was so twisted and bent. It turned out he was a boy, and he was in one of those motorised wheelchairs that can be controlled by the movement of just a finger or two.
This boy was motoring up and down the corridor, going faster than all the people walking along. He went to the end of the corridor, turned around and came back. As he raced along, I looked into his face and saw a great big smile and a look of exhilaration. It was clear that he’d just got the wheelchair, and all of this was the expression of joy in his new-found mobility. When I saw his face, I forgot about his body. I only saw the big smile, the sparkling eyes and a look of wonder.
I think God is like that. He doesn’t see the imperfections, the scars and scrapes. He looks straight into the heart. Is there love inside of you that reflects the love of God so that others can see?
Jesus once said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5.8). When we think of the heart, we tend to think of our emotions. We say things like, “I love you with all of my heart” or “I have a broken heart.” Yet in the Bible, the word ‘heart’ refers to more: it refers to our emotions, our intellect and our will.
That is why Solomon urges us in the Book of Proverbs (4.23) to ‘above all else, guard your heart, for it is the well-spring of life.’ The heart is the control centre of our lives. According to Jesus, ‘purity of heart’ isn’t about believing the right things. It isn’t about going through the right motions. It’s doing the right things with right motives.
St Augustine once wrote, ‘Before God can deliver us from ourselves, we must undeceive ourselves.’ We need unmixed motives, and transparent integrity.
Abraham Lincoln, when told that someone had called him ‘two-faced,’ said: “If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”
Purity of heart isn’t just the absence of certain negative things in your life; it’s positively the very presence of God in you. It begins with the shedding of pretence, which leads to an absolute inner awareness of who you really are. ‘Pure’ is translated from the Greek word katharos, from which we get ‘catharsis’. It literally means ‘to make pure by cleansing from dirt, filth or contamination’.
In classical Greek, the word was most often used to describe metals that had been refined in the fire, until they were ‘pure’ - free from impurities. Jesus wants us to have a ‘pure’, ‘clean,’ ‘unmasked’ heart. A pure heart is a forgiven heart. It’s a heart that has been cleansed by the purifying blood of Jesus Christ.
A pure heart is one that is in a relationship with God; that repents of sins and seeks inward purity. Purity of heart cleanses the eyes of the soul so that God becomes visible. When Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart,” he was pronouncing blessing on those who are pure at the very centre of their being, at the very source of their every activity, not those who appear pure on the surface. In fact, he berated the Pharisees for metaphorically washing the outside of their lives, while leaving the inside dirty.
Film Clip 2
Shrek and Donkey are standing outside a beautiful cathedral. Inside, Lord Farquaad and Princess Fiona are at the top of the aisle, as a packed congregation looks on. They are about to get married, and are preparing to say their vows.
Donkey urges Shrek to get inside and, at the right moment, object. He should tell her how he really feels, and stop the marriage.
So, just as Fiona is about to kiss the nasty Lord, Shrek bursts in. “I object!” he shouts. He walks down the aisle, as the on-lookers gasp. To Farquaad’s consternation, he tells Fiona how he really feels. Outside, the sun is about to set. This is the moment of truth for Fiona. She walks to the window, and says that she’s been waiting to tell Shrek the truth - to show him who she really is. The sun sinks below the horizon, and she transforms again into her ‘ugly’ self. “That explains a lot,” says Shrek. While Lord Farquaad screams, calls his guards and commands that she be locked back in the tower.
At that moment, the dragon crashes through a huge stained-glass window, the guards wither in fright, and the dragon promptly swallows the evil Lord whole. Shrek and Fiona look into each others eyes. “I love you,” he says. “I love you,” she replies. They kiss - for Fiona, it is true love’s first kiss, the kiss that she has waited for all her life, to transform her into “love’s true form”.
In a huge explosion of light and stars, which is so fierce that all the windows smash with the force, she is lifted up and caught in a magical, beautiful cloud. Then she falls softly to the floor. “Are you all right?” asks Shrek. “Yes,” she replies. “But I’m still ugly. I thought I would be beautiful.” Shrek looks at her lovingly. “But you are beautiful,” he says. Cue the celebrations...
As Shrek progresses, we discover that the characters find acceptance. Shrek is accepted and befriended by Donkey, and Fiona grows fond of him. Slowly, he finds that he can accept himself and be content with who he is. It is in the penultimate, wedding scene that Fiona reveals her true identity to Shrek. In the knowledge that Shrek still loves her as she is, she can then accept herself.
Fiona says, “I don’t understand, I’m supposed to be beautiful.” Shrek replies, “But you are beautiful.” This acceptance is confirmed in the final words of the film. “And they lived ugly ever after.” Not only are they content, but happy.
A six-year-old boy with an ugly birthmark on the side of his face was once brought to one of Mother Teresa’s orphanages. He appeared fearful, unloved and uncared for. He immediately went and sat in the corner and wouldn’t talk to anybody.
Mother Teresa walked over and knelt down beside him in the corner and said, “Well, what do we have here?” Then she embraced him in her arms and kissed him right on the birthmark on his face.
The other children started clapping because they knew that if Mother Teresa kissed the birthmark, it was all right. It made it beautiful, just because Mother Teresa said it was.
That is what God has done. He has embraced us and kissed us, through the death of his son Jesus on a Cross. It’s another one of those topsy-turvy fairy-tales - God became human, and not even a very handsome one at that (so the Bible says). The all-powerful king of the universe made himself weak, gave himself into human hands and died for us, so that we could be made beautiful in God’s sight.
If you are experiencing loneliness and rejection, then know that God looks beyond all those things that people might consider ugly and unattractive. He looks at your heart. He looks for love. He looks for purity.
If you have those things, you’re beautiful in God’s sight. If you don’t have them, God wants to take you in his arms, the same way Mother Teresa took the little boy in hers, and embrace you with love and acceptance.
