Although it was produced by DreamWorks, Shrek is full of typical tropes found in Disney movies, including the ugly beast that falls for the beautiful princess and the “greedy government official that wants to be king,” a new Honest Trailers video says.
Honest Trailers, a series that takes a critical look at movies, released its new video today focusing on Shrek, as voted upon by audiences. In the video, the team points out that much like Disney movies, Shrek is a movie about a monster that falls in love with a princess and overcomes adversity to have a happy ending. This is, essentially, the narrative arc for films like Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Another cliched angle can be found in the movie’s villain, Lord Farquaad. Like Jafar in Aladdin or Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Lord Farquaad is a government official who is obsessed with becoming the head honcho. He wants to be King and will stop at nothing to attain his goal, using the newfound power for his own selfish purposes.
One last trope the video tackles is the kooky and perceived-to-be-dumber sidekick. Donkey is one of the movie’s most popular characters, but he shares similar traits with Timon and Pumbaa from The Lion King, Flounder and Sebastian from The Little Mermaid and even Abu the Monkey from Aladdin.
The Honest Trailers team deconstructs each of these tropes and explains why they feel so outdated today, using Shrek as a prime example to point out the flaws found in each.
