1. Literary Analysis, week 22 Dr Jamie Bernthal
ShREK (week 2)
Literary Analysis, week 22
Dr Jamie Bernthal

2. The story of ‘shrek’ 1990 - Picture book by William Steig (1907-2003)
1991 – Steven Spielberg buys the rights
1994 – Dreamworks obtains the rights and begins work
2001 – Film is released with pioneering lifelike animation, and wins an Oscar
Ongoing – huge international franchise, with influence from Broadway to Disney

3. Subversion? (1)
Zipes (2012) identifies a ‘formula’ that Disney introduced with Snow White (1937).
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‘Disney […] set a worldwide standard in the twentieth century against which all fairy tale filmes […] were measured’ (209)
This is a conservative, white American standard.
Zipes identifies an ‘emphasis on purification, preparing to be chosen’ (207); ‘tidying the world’ (206)
Shrek ‘question[s] the denegration of utopia’ (209)
‘Unusually imaginative and subversive’ (210)
DO YOU AGREE…?

4. SUBVERSION? (2) Zipes (2012: 201) says Disney ‘transformed[Snow White]
into something peculiarly American’:
1. Snow is an orphan, doing chores
2. Prince appears at start and end
3. Queen is jealous of relationships
4. Animals are ‘degendered’ and effectively act as ‘stuffed animals’ [cuddly toys]
5. Dwarves are given names and narrative roles
6. The queen dies in a ‘clean’, ‘almost accidental’ way
7. Only the kiss brings Snow to life

5. Subversion? (3)
Snow White ‘led to the following changes in the instituion of the genre’ (Zipes, 2012: 205):
Technique over story
‘Viewers are not to think for themselves’
’Sense of harmony […] orchestrated by a savior/technician on and off the screen’
Stereotyped characters performing strict narrative functions
role models to confirm the status quo
Theme of cleanliness and control
Shared distraction (cinema) rather than personal exploration (reading)
1-dimensional, simple, ’non-reflective’ (205-6)

6. Subversion? (4)

7. ‘monomyth’ Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949)
Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey (2013)

8. SNOW WHITE (1937) satirized in SHREK (2001)
new-old fairy tales
SNOW WHITE (1937) satirized in SHREK (2001)
Zipes (2016): Frozen ‘manages to create an aura of originality and modernity while actually repeating the same story and embracing the ideology Walt Disney floated in the 1930s’ (9)

9. discuss: power, progress, animation