Shrek 2

Watched the movie "Shrek 2" with Laura yesterday. Well, I must say that it is the most funny movie I have seen for some time. There are a few noteworthy things that should be said about this animation. First, is that, it is the ultimate spoof movie. A seasoned movie-goer would have spotted not less than maybe elements of a dozen or more movies in Shrek 2. For example, The Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, The Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Chicago, Mission Impossible, Beauty and the Beast, Austin Powers, etc. Even the choice of Antonio Banduras as the voice for Puss-in-boots was a kind of a spoof since Banduras acted as the aspiring Zorro in "The Mask of Zorro". There are also inside jokes like the reference to Cameron Diaz's real life boyfriend.

Second, as an animation, it is most ironic that "Shrek 2" is also the ultimate anti-fairy-tale. This is even more so than "Shrek 1" which basically turned the conventional storyline of having a knight in shining armour rescuing a princess in distress on its head and created one hell of a twist at the end where the beautiful princess turned ugly rather than the beast turning into prince charming. "Shrek 2" took its anti-fairy tale stance further by putting up the fairy godmother, the great benefactor in fairy tale as the great villian. There was also this cynical attack on the very concept of "happily ever after" which has implicitly come to stand for "being married to a very handsome/pretty guy/gal". On retrospect, this is indeed a welcome antitode to the kind of beautiful lies children have been fed in fairy tales. It is not that fairy tales are all immoral. In many cases, they do impart some moral lessons, by praising bravery, honesty, compassion, forgiveness and condemn wickedness. But because fairy tales are ultimately written for children who have not experienced the harsh realities of the world, the writers might see the need to make everything beautiful by packaging the ending such that the main protagonists always end up with a beautiful other half. Although this seems rather innocuous, the insidious and long term effect is that it might just reinforce people's natural tendency to look only at the surface and to encourage people to equate beauty with good. Does Cinderella and the prince really love each other, or are they just so smitten with each other's good looks? This is something that is not made so clear in the particular fairy tale because of the implicit equation between beauty and goodness. And this is what makes Shrek different from other animations. It is cynical and it has an interesting point to make.