THERE’S A MOVIE OUT THESE DAYS called Shrek. Maybe you’ve heard of it.
It’s a computer-animated feature loosely based on (and expanded greatly from) a William Steig illustrated short story. The title character is a storyland ogre, hideous on the outside but with a heart of gold buried far beneath his gruff attitude.
One night, his peaceful valley’s invaded by all the characters from every famous fairy tale (rendered as funny, funky, colorful critters and humanoids). They tell Shrek they’ve been exiled there by the evil Lord Farquard, who’s determined to turn his realm of Duloc into “the perfect place” by ridding it of all but his own clean-cut sycophants.
Our perturbed ogre sets out for Duloc to confront Farquard. He finds a perfectly square walled city, with a perfectly cubical castle at its center. Inside the outer wall, he sees an unpopulated village of perfect tudor houses, and a troupe of mechanical dolls who sing a long list of rules of conduct.
Shrek finally finds the town’s remaining population all gathered at a jousting match just outside the castle. These humans are all tall and fair-skinned, and they respond as one to “Applause” signs held up by Farquard’s men. Apparently all honest emotion and imagination was lost from the citizenry when the fairy-tale characters were exiled.
Some critics have compared the repressive atmosphere of Duloc to the Disney theme parks; noting that Shrek was financed and released by the rival DreamWorks company. I, natch, have a different interpretation, whether or not the film’s makers intended it.
Duloc is a metaphor for today’s Seattle–and maybe also Manhattan and Frisco and other gentrifying towns. But especially Seattle, where everything has always supposed to have been perfect, but where now everything and everybody’s supposed to be even more perfect. And it’s a similar concept of perfection–cleanliness, order, and a uniformly pale, “beautiful,” compliant and conformist populace. A place bereft of conflicts, problems, or passions.
The fairy tale creatures of Shrek correspond to all the artsy types, working stiffs, freaks, and families who’ve been forced from their onetime urban homes by eviction, rent hikes, and other forms of demographic cleansing.
And Lord Farquard himself, the villain who loves to be hated, the mastermind and enforcer of all the dulling “perfection?”
I can think of a certain city attorney and mayoral candidate who’d fit the character description quite well indeed.
Anyhow, in the end Shrek defeats the evil lord, thanks to a combination of his own brash fighting spirit and his newly-found ability to gather allies around him. (In the final scene, the triumphant ogre is waved off into the sunset by the fairy-tale characters he originally despised.)
Perhaps we could learn a lesson from him. Learn to stop being such futilely individualistic loners, and start to form friendships and alliances against a common foe–which isn’t really one villain but a conflagration of forces combining to try and oust us from the “kingdom.”
NEXT:One last plug for our photo-show opening.
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