It has layers: An analysis of Shrek's commentary on race, femininity and the power of white beauty
(I know I said I wouldn’t submit this essay. And look, you don’t need to read it. But it’s a serious essay and something I am very passionate about. I hope you’re not mad. It’s just important to me.)
Subversions of classic fairy tales are commonplace staples in the world of fiction. Whether that includes grimdark retellings, parody or adult-oriented interpretations of the morals, twisting these well-known and classic stories for a piece of fiction is an easy way to deliver a subversive experience because the visual framework and shorthand are already present in the audience’s lexicon.
These fairy tale parodies/retellings typically take a story oriented toward young girls, and either for the sake of comedy or in efforts to capitalize on an older male audience, inject levels of violence (ex: Revolting Rhymes by Ronald Dahl, Fables comics) or sexual themes and interpretations - often sexualizing female characters in the original stories (ex: Red Hot Riding Hood cartoon May 8, 1943) into the fairy tales.
Shrek is a very obvious subversion of fairy tale stories, honing in specifically on the tropes of the Walt Disney versions of classic fairytale stories for its parodic forumla; but rather than rooting the subversion in inducing a raunchier/more violent take on these stories, the subversion is actually one rooted in a feminist rejection of Western beauty standards and a commentary on race in America.
Fiona is a character who is presented to the audience with all of the necessary visual and storytelling cues necessary for us to inform our interpretation of her as a typical beautiful princess: she is a thin, traditionally beautiful damsel in distress.
This interpretation comes with it our built-in ideas of what a beautiful princess should be (dainty, kind, loving, etc.) but it is subverted with the duality of Fiona’s visual form, and the visible efforts we see Fiona take to fit into our preconceived ideas of fairy tale princesshood.
During the day, Fiona has a more socially-acceptable form (smaller-framed, white) and she takes efforts to wear an air of demurity and exaggerated femininity, as is expected of her by the society she lives in. She hides interests and skills not typically valued in women of her environment (kung fu, etc.), feigns helplessness and formality for her savior, and she demands the outcome that she was raised to believe she should want — a fairy tale ending with a prince — and code-switches into princesshood to get that.
But during the night, Fiona transforms into an ogre - and while the face-value interpretation of this as visual shorthand for not having the features deemed beautiful by Western beauty standards (i.e.: thinness, whiteness, femininity, etc.) is definitely present, it would be remiss of the viewer to not observe the parallels the ogre experience echoes of the experience of people of color in America.
Our peek into Shrek’s day-to-day life at the beginning of the film strengthens the metaphor - Shrek is, at his core, a man who is assumed violent by the public at large due to his physical appearance, with these assumptions impacting his treatment by nearly every character in the world he resides in. These assumptions and the microaggressions he faces inform his decision to live in seclusion in an under-funded area of the woods with little-to-no attention from those in power, where he is assumed dangerous and mocked or dismissed by the majority community — an experience that many men of color would say are echoed in their own day-to-day lives.
Shrek is also coded as undesirable because of his ogreness, and the in-story-public and audience is encouraged to find the idea of him finding love with a white human princess to be a ridiculous notion.
Similarly, Fiona’s nightly transformation into an ogre comes with its own list of assumptions on behalf of the audience — that it makes her less desirable and less likely to find love.
So, paired with what we know about Shrek’s ogreness and the way it impacts his experience, Fiona’s transformation into an ogre isn’t just an aesthetic message for the viewer - it can be interpreted as a racially-coded one.
Sometimes the beholder is just too damn white: Beauty and the moral of Shrek
It often happens that fairy tales and other stories oriented to younger children or younger girls cannot decide if beauty is important or not.
We have the Ugly Duckling, where the namesake protagonist goes its entire life feeling ugly and like it doesn’t belong until it turns out the duck was hot all along and just had not yet hit puberty. We also have stories like Beauty and the Beast where aesthetic beauty that complies with Western standards of beauty is simultaneously supposed to be treated as unimportant to Belle (in lieu of the Beast’s other traits) and treated as a reward for the Beast, for once he finds love. In both of these stories, characters the audience is supposed to sympathize with end up acquiring the beauty they seek.
Shrek is a film that does not give beauty out as a reward. In the movie, Fiona stays an ogress. It is treated as a plot twist, and in first viewings, the audience might wonder what still needs to be done for her to get the ending she wants. But then something happens: Even while the public at large mocks Fiona, and treats her as ugly, Shrek says she is beautiful anyways.
And while Shrek’s idealization of Fiona as a beautiful person does not match the masses’ interpretation of her appearance as ugly, the film does not frame it as incorrect. Instead, the film frames the masses as wrong.
A socially-acceptable standard of beauty is rejected by the film’s core message, rather than the prize for the female protagonist.
Not because she is eventually going to turn back into a thin, white princess.
Not because she has a heart of gold, and that’s more important than beauty.
She is beautiful because she simply is.
Fiona is big, and she is different, and damn it, she is green. But she is beautiful, and the movie Shrek says that if the public can’t see that, fuck the public.
The interpretation of Fiona’s ogreness as allegory for being a person of color strengthens this message. Ogreness is beautiful, just as black is beautiful, and brown is beautiful, and fat is beautiful.
We are encouraged as a society to reject these features, and Shrek encourages us to reject that rejection.
While many subversions of fairy tales find themselves taking a classic story aimed toward young girls and parodizing it for the sake of an older audience, Shrek delivers a comedic and subversive experience while still maintaining feminist themes and a surprisingly nuanced take on the way those different than the governing group can find themselves ostracized and assumed to be dangerous.
Shrek is not a story for edgy teenage boys.
Shrek is a story for anyone who has felt like they could not find acceptance because of who they are.
Shrek is a story for the All Stars.
I have to say I hadn’t thought of this idea before. The stereotypes and treatment of ogres in the film definitely parallel people of color within life and alternatively people that differ from what is seen as the norm in varying degrees. Seeing the connection now it’s hard not to see ogres as a metaphor for people of color. I’m not sure what that means entirely for Fiona as her transformation into an ogre could be at least a couple different things from what I first thought. It could be symbolic of people with mixed features, people of color that use certain beauty methods to replicate the standard white beauty, or something entirely different.
I hadn’t really considered to examine the movie before, mostly because of its effect on my daily life, but this is interesting.
Also, I am not mad whatsoever. Even if I have seen more of Shrek than one human should, it doesn’t make it or the ideas that can be taken from or about it less important and valuable. Additionally, I can tell you care about it and that in of itself gives it more value.
