UselessRamblings

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[uslessramblings]

Spoilers ahead- Mamma Mia- Here We Go Again

...I don’t know where to start.  

It is my opinion that the movie Mamma Mia was a work of art.  However- the sequel was...  Disappointing.  I had the hankering to watch the first one on the day I turned seventeen.  After I watched the first one, I decided to watch the second one for the first time.  I probably should have been tipped off by the fact that something that came out so recently was under 20 dollars to buy to stream on amazon.  However, seeing as it would be more expensive to rent twice than it would be to buy, I bought it.  

That was a mistake.  

I noticed at the beginning that the creators did not even follow the original stories of the men, as portrayed in Donna’s diary.  I figured that if they made up for it in the rest of the movie, I could forgive it.  However- I fail to see with what plotline they attempted to do so.  

..There was no plotline.  I am saying that the movie had no plot.  

I figured that a point of tension would be brought up by Donna’s mother returning, but there was no tension.  Maybe for three minutes when she first arrived uninvited, but not after that.  This entirely goes against the first movie, where it is heavily implied (If not stated) that Donna could not return home after bearing her daughter.  

Even if they didn’t address that drama, there could have been a point of contention on the point that her granddaughter had three fathers, and it wasn’t a problem for her.  This was never even explored as a plot point.  

They could have gone several directions with this movie, but it ends up coming off as fanfiction.  It was a next-generation portrayal, with no plot.  I would have probably read something like that online, but to have it as an official sequel to Mamma Mia?  No.  

[uslessramblings]

Shrek- More Than A Meme

As a person who grew up watching Shrek, there are several things I would like to talk about it.  At this point, Shrek has been so memed out that many people can’t even read the name without thinking that something funny must follow.  However- I think that Shrek was a really important movie in its own right.  

Let’s take the actual character of Fiona.  We start out thinking that she’s a cliched princess stuck in a tower.  However, almost from the moment we meet her, we discover that she is a woman with a lot to say.  She is initially judgemental of Shrek as he is not what she expected.  She was raised on the same fairy tales as you and I were, and was brainwashed into believing that she was supposed to play the damsel in distress.  However, when the person who rescues her is revealed to not be playing the part she expects him to play, her whole facade gets yeeted right out the window.  

She is also brainwashed (*Cough* Much like many girls in our generation are *Cough*) to believe that as anything other than a skinny girl in a long dress with a tiara, she is ugly.  To believe that looking different at night is indeed a curse that only some man can save her from.  She has also been isolated for most of her life, so these ideas were really the only input she got since she was a child.  

Shrek as a character is equally complex.  He was also raised on the belief that he was extremely ugly.  He was also expected to be violent, and not care about anyone but himself (This might be a bit of a stretch, but I think that this can be likened to toxic masculinity).  He isolated himself because he had been so bullied that he thought there was no way that anyone could ever treat him with basic human decency.  

When they meet, they have a rocky beginning- because their ideas of what needs to happen next directly conflict (He did kidnap her, and that was wrong, but I want to focus on the greater message of Shrek right now instead of the abduction as romance trope).  However, when they discover the slightest bit about each other, they find that neither of them are the stereotypes they were raised to believe they were.  They fall in love- regardless of looks.  The only thing that comes between them is a miscommunication and another man with a load of power.  

At the end of the movie, when true love’s kiss breaks the curse and she “takes love’s true form”, we see that love is not based on what you look like.  Especially when Shrek confirms in a way that anyone can understand- “But you are beautiful”.  You are worthy of love no matter what you look like, and that is a message that people nowadays desperately need to hear.