I love children's movies, and I thoroughly enjoyed Shrek 1 and 2, but I have a serious problem with the misogynistic message being passed on to children in this third movie.
Fiona’s father, the Frog King, dies after telling Shrek that he is next in line for the throne – or Shrek can find a boy called Arthur Pendragon, a cousin who could also fulfil the role. That scene nearly caused me to turn the movie off in disgust.
Firstly, there is a perfectly fit, intelligent, and capable queen standing at the king’s bedside – in every way the ideal person to take over as monarch of Far, Far Away. And if you want to argue that the spouse of the heir to a throne cannot be the monarch, that is exactly my next argument.
Fiona is the princess and the heir to the throne, but it is her commoner husband who is made king. Or the other option is the next male heir down the line – anyone other than the legitimate child of the current king, as long as that person is male. We don’t even do that in the real world where every excuse for misogyny is used to the full extent possible. No one in England licks stamps with the profile of “King Philip” on them, nor is there a “King Henrik of Denmark”.
And then we turn to the other women of this movie. Sure, the princesses get to fight a bit (and Snow White has one of the coolest scenes in the movie), but for a great length of the movie they contribute to the image of the stupid princess who needs to be rescued. When they do escape, they just get themselves captured again.
What happened to great reversals that Shrek 1 introduced? Not only was the beautiful Princess Fiona able to rescue herself, thank you very much, she also happened to be an ogre with a great deal of intelligence and spunk. Now she's shoved into the submissive-wife-and-mother role.
Is this Andrew Adamson's doing? The first Shrek was the work of William Steig (book) and the Ted Elliot/Terry Rossio combo (screenplay). Elliot and Rossio (best known for co-writing the Pirates of the Caribbean movies) were dropped on Shrek 2 and 3.
Were the writers/directors/producers just not thinking, or is there something more sinister going on here?
Comments (3)
Selma - You have summed up so well what I also had trouble with in the third Shrek movie. I found it an odd direction for the movie to go in. And it didn't fool anyone. I took a group of 11 year olds to see it and they all complained about Fiona not being able to inherit the throne. Did the writer intend to be misognystic (did I spell that right?) or was he just being unimaginative? Get with the program, mate, Princess Fiona could run the world if she wanted to!
Posted 21 January 2008
Elle - That's why I love writing for children - they call you on any shortcuts you try and take. You have to put far more thought and work into your story, but it's so worth it. Good on those kids for picking up on the Shrek cop out!
Posted 22 January 2008
Violette - I thought it was more a showing that Shrek was being accepted since he had been an outcast originally for marrying Fiona.
Great Blog...popped over from Bella
Posted 21 April 2008
