An Ode to Shrek: The LGBTQ affirming icon you forgot from your childhood
by Natalie Peek
Time away from usual social interactions has led me down a rabbit hole of nostalgia, trying to grasp at the small bits of dopamine that I can. Yearning for the oxytocin blast that childhood favorite movies give me, I rewatched a true classic of 3D animation: Shrek 2. So if you were looking for an article on “Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life,” this is not it. Sorry not sorry. This is an ode to a surprisingly affirming animation from Dreamworks. Shrek, and specifically Shrek 2, may be the most LGBTQ affirming movie from your childhood, and it’s worth a rewatch.
For just a moment, let’s set the scene: it’s 2004. If you’re in a college-age group now in 2020, you were between the ages of 3-6. Fears of not being cool in my comfy mid-rise knit capri pants were far from my brain (ah...memories). Computers were still a novelty in the elementary school computer lab, and they may have been colorful Apple desktops. Maybe you weren’t old enough to see the first Shrek movie, but Shrek 2 was freaking hilarious. Giggling at fart jokes, your parents laughing at the odd double-entendre that flew blissfully over your head, and a surprisingly satisfying medieval take on Hollywood.
The set-up is wonderful: Shrek parallels a children’s book by William Steig (yes the New Yorker cartoonist). It is a clear satire of Disney movies, creating a more desirable foil: the dragon is overcome not through brute strength and violence but through freedom. The princess knows karate, so she could save herself, but on a technicality and social learning, she believes that only a prince can get her out. And our main characters fall in love not despite their gross, green, ogre-ness but because of it. AND THE SOUNDTRACK! Remember when Smash Mouth was not the worst? If you want an analysis of the sound track, I promise you’re gonna love this video about its effective use of pop music.
Shrek 2 does not cheapen the progressive lens of the first Shrek. And what really drove me to write this ode is its affirmation of queer characters. Disney and others often queer-code their villains. Think Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Scar in the Lion King, and many other villains that are detailed in this analysis on queer coded villiains. Feminine men or masculine women are coded as evil. And I’m not here to analyze the negative effect and harm that is and could be caused by this, because (1) it deserves more than a paragraph (2) this article is about a hero, and that hero is Shrek.
From the get-go in Shrek 2, Prince Charming, in search of Princess Fiona, stumbles across the Big Bad Wolf in grandma’s clothes. Throughout the course of the movie, the only person who talks negatively about “Wolfie” is our group of villains who calls them “that gender-confused wolf.”
I would even go so far as to say that by having The Fairy Godmother as the villain makes a stance that what she represents is bad: the need for societal ideals of a body type, and a “happily ever after” that only includes a societal idea of patriarchal, masculine man and a delicate, feminine woman.
Another marker that this is a queer-affirming movie? A group who called themselves the “Traditional Values Coalition” was mad at the equal and welcoming approach of the “Ugly Stepsister” (for real, 2005 was wild). Yes, in naming a trans character “ugly” has been called out as anti-trans. And I do not mean to negate that at all, portrayal of any trans person in such a stereotypical manner is extremely harmful. But her inclusion within the group of princesses in a PG-rated movie was certainly nothing I had seen at age 6, and there are threads on twitter talking about the positive impact Doris had on the perception of self for many young queer and trans folks.
Again, not only are the villains the ones making the anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ remarks, the active acceptance of characters who are often queer-coded villains from Captain Hook to Doris makes Shrek 2 a surprisingly LGBTQ-affirming movie. All this to say, Shrek 2 is worth a rewatch with older eyes. It still stands as an affirming movie for me, and the soundtrack is still absolutely iconic. And is the Fairy Godmother’s cover of “Holding Out for A Hero” better than the original? 100%.