The Domesticated Ogre
Sep. 23rd, 2011 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilShrek makes for a fun fractured fairy tale. It contains a surprisingly sweet romance without becoming too saccharine or losing its sense of humor. It's a little heavy on the potty humor for my tastes, but otherwise I find it quite rewatchable. When they were making a sequel, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I wondered if a movie so clever at skewering the typical Disney archetypes was itself about to suffer from the sequelitis that has undermined so much of Disney's legacy. On the other hand, I knew if they did it right, it could be just as entertaining as the first. I heard the new villain was a vengeful fairy godmother, and my hopes increased. It seemed quite promising...but somehow, in spite of the generally delighted response audiences had to Shrek 2 (it even made box-office history) the movie just didn't work for me. It took a lot of puzzling for me to figure out why.
First off, I actually didn't find it as funny as the first film. There were a few gags that definitely made me giggle, but too many of them seemed forced, including the much-celebrated Puss in Boots. Of him, I can only repeat Donkey's complaint that there's already a talking animal sidekick, and Puss just seems superfluous, violent adorableness notwithstanding. Secondly, the "meet the parents" storyline just didn't seem weighty enough to drive Shrek's emotional journey. He already learned to love himself and his place in the world in the first movie; why retread that?
But the primary reason I couldn't get into Shrek 2, I finally realized, was what they did with Fiona - or rather, what they didn't do. She has a rather nice arc in the first film. Sure, it's primarily based on romance, but since the film is at its heart a love story, that's perfectly fitting - Shrek's journey is mostly romantic as well. Fiona grows and changes, as she discovers the difference between what she thinks will make her happy, and what really makes her happy. And she does things - she escapes from the dragon-guarded castle (with help from Shrek, fine, but he's carrying Donkey too, so it's not a purely damsel-in-distress situation), she single-handedly takes on Robin Hood and his obnoxious chorus, and she has a physical journey that parallels her emotional one. I'm not saying her story is my feminist ideal, but it's decent. And the second film is kind of a step backwards for her.
After the entertaining but brief honeymoon sequence, Fiona's role is pretty much restricted to hanging around her parents' castle, waiting for things to happen. Just waiting. While Shrek goes out on a quest for self-embetterment, Fiona sits and wonders where her husband has got to. There's an amusing subversive moment when she sees her human face in the mirror and lets out a blood-curdling scream, but otherwise...she's kind of boring. As for character development, there's the hint of something when she and Shrek argue, but when he returns, she is merely accepting, supporting, assuring him that she loves him as he is. No conflicted feelings for her; that's reserved for the male protagonist.
Am I taking this too seriously? Well, yes, obviously. These are silly movies whose primary goal is to make their audience laugh. But I wanted to like Shrek 2, I really did, and as far as I can tell it's this missed opportunity with Fiona that explains most of my disappointment. I didn't even bother to see the subsequent sequels, though I hear the third movie contained a spoof of feministy empowerment that apparently fell flat. It's a shame, and a missed opportunity, because believe it or not, a feminist can have a sense of humor too.
First off, I actually didn't find it as funny as the first film. There were a few gags that definitely made me giggle, but too many of them seemed forced, including the much-celebrated Puss in Boots. Of him, I can only repeat Donkey's complaint that there's already a talking animal sidekick, and Puss just seems superfluous, violent adorableness notwithstanding. Secondly, the "meet the parents" storyline just didn't seem weighty enough to drive Shrek's emotional journey. He already learned to love himself and his place in the world in the first movie; why retread that?
But the primary reason I couldn't get into Shrek 2, I finally realized, was what they did with Fiona - or rather, what they didn't do. She has a rather nice arc in the first film. Sure, it's primarily based on romance, but since the film is at its heart a love story, that's perfectly fitting - Shrek's journey is mostly romantic as well. Fiona grows and changes, as she discovers the difference between what she thinks will make her happy, and what really makes her happy. And she does things - she escapes from the dragon-guarded castle (with help from Shrek, fine, but he's carrying Donkey too, so it's not a purely damsel-in-distress situation), she single-handedly takes on Robin Hood and his obnoxious chorus, and she has a physical journey that parallels her emotional one. I'm not saying her story is my feminist ideal, but it's decent. And the second film is kind of a step backwards for her.
After the entertaining but brief honeymoon sequence, Fiona's role is pretty much restricted to hanging around her parents' castle, waiting for things to happen. Just waiting. While Shrek goes out on a quest for self-embetterment, Fiona sits and wonders where her husband has got to. There's an amusing subversive moment when she sees her human face in the mirror and lets out a blood-curdling scream, but otherwise...she's kind of boring. As for character development, there's the hint of something when she and Shrek argue, but when he returns, she is merely accepting, supporting, assuring him that she loves him as he is. No conflicted feelings for her; that's reserved for the male protagonist.
Am I taking this too seriously? Well, yes, obviously. These are silly movies whose primary goal is to make their audience laugh. But I wanted to like Shrek 2, I really did, and as far as I can tell it's this missed opportunity with Fiona that explains most of my disappointment. I didn't even bother to see the subsequent sequels, though I hear the third movie contained a spoof of feministy empowerment that apparently fell flat. It's a shame, and a missed opportunity, because believe it or not, a feminist can have a sense of humor too.
