Meme.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to talk about how sad I am that Shrek has been reduced to nothing more than the internet’s running joke/punching bag. It feels reductive and cynical and while I enjoy watching Shrek Is Love as much as the other guy, it is not a replacement for the movie itself. If anything, the memes actively hurt Shrek. Instead of being remembered as the first movie to ever win Best Animated Feature or the anti-Disney phenomenon that it was when it was first released, Shrek has been forever associated with overbearing pop culture soundtracks, repetitious catchphrases, and cringey anti-jokes. Smash Mouth’s an easy target, I get it, but was it really worth hurting a fun family film’s reputation just to throw rotten tomatoes at them?

Shrek’s a REALLY, REALLY good movie. It’s witty, it’s satirical, it’s admittedly a bit flawed in places (looking at you, Donkey) but it’s fun and charming in the crudest and middlefingerest way possible. Shrek is a love letter to fairy tales, a hate letter to Disney and a Hugs and Kisses letter from a relative all rolled up into one almost neat little package.

If you can’t tell, I sorta kinda adore this movie? Objectively, I know that it’s pretty lacking in the world-building department, especially compared to Monsters Inc. Objectively, I know that its sense of humor often clashes wildly with the fairy tale creature medieval setting. It’s just that I don’t particularly care about either of those things while watching Shrek. I didn’t even really think about it while watching the movie (except during one WWE Chair Joke) because it’s just that enjoyable. Shrek is pretty amazing, all things considered.

Before I stop gushing and actually start thinking a little more critically, I’m just going to leave this here. That queue gag is just the best.

It should be pretty clear by this point that I think Shrek fully deserved the award for Best Animated Feature which, as mentioned above, it rightfully won. Therefore, I’m going to attempt to do a breakdown of what I think the movie did well, what I think the movie did poorly and finally, I’ll end with a comparison of Shrek to the other two nominees.

But first, before I forget, did you know that Shrek is based on a book?

Shrek! the book made Shrek the movie eligible for Best Adapted Screenplay. Alas, it didn’t end up winning that award. That’s probably because the movie’s nothing like its source material; both have a donkey that talks, a princess in a tower and a dragon and that’s where the similarities end. Shrek! is an illustrated children’s book that can be read aloud in 10 minutes so the fact that its adaptation is technically worse than Fellowship of the Ring’s baffles me (except for the part where they had to add a moral to the movie because the book didn’t have one). Obviously, they would have had to change or add a lot anyway so why not keep the one on one fight with the dragon, the prophecy witch, and the Apple Strudel? It just baffles me.

Ok, moving on. Best Animated Feature.

We’ve already established that Jimmy Neutron’s certainly a movie so I’m not really going to talk about why Shrek won over it. My main goal is to justify why a Disneyphile like myself feels like a movie who is seemingly preoccupied with insulting Disney tropes at every opportunity was a better movie than Monsters Inc.

The answer’s simple, really. Shrek’s freakin’ hilarious and so, so quotable. A movie is only as good as the sum of its parts and while Monsters Inc. is technically the better movie, there are far less memorable individual moments in it than there are in Shrek.

Monsters Inc. has the door chase and the “KITTY!” shot that ends the movie.

Shrek has the frog balloons and the onion scene and the magic mirror dating game and the “I’M A FLYING TALKING DONKEY” moment and the rescue from the tower and the entrance into Duloc and the big reveal at the wedding and the list just goes on and on and on and on and AH AH AH-AH AH AH DAMMIT NOW THE SONG IS STUCK IN MY HEAD AGAIN THANKS SHREK!

You see what I mean? Shrek has ingrained itself not only into popular culture but into everyday conversation. Whenever someone tells me their plans at night, I invariably respond with “And in the mornin’, I’m makin’ waffles!” Shrek changed me as a person back when I first saw it at 11 years old and I didn’t even realize it until I sat down to rewatch it for this quest.

Basically, what I’m saying is that Shrek, despite being crude, crass and not super polished, is the essence of childhood. Not Disneyfied childhood but true childhood. The kinds of things where you’re trying out swearing for the first time while playing pretend or you’re imagining what fairy tale creatures are up to on their days off. It’s fun. Everyone, especially those who only know it through meme culture, should watch it at least once in their lives just so they can be changed for the better.

Shrek is love, Shrek is life.