Shrek with Atsuko Okatsuka

Once upon a time, two women named Jamie and Caitlin were locked in a tower by the patriarchy, but they broke free with the help of special guest Atsuko Okatsuka via talking about the movie Shrek.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef
in best start changing it with the beck del Cast.
Welcome to the Backdel Cast. My name's Cheney, my name's Caitlin,

(00:22):
and this is becktel Cast, the podcast about how women
are represented in movies. But today it's an episode we've
been waiting for a very long time to do, and
I'm so excited and it's going to be the best
day ever. It's Shrek Scheck. It's Shrek, but you're excited
about Shrek the musical, not Shrek the movie. I don't

(00:42):
like Check the movie. I love. I love Shrek the Musical.
It's the best Broadway musical ever committed to Broadway. Broadway Luminaries.
Luminaries Sutton Foster as Princess Fiona, Brian Darcy James as
Shrek himself. Um, I don't know who any of the
those people are. Your God, I'm very excited for I

(01:04):
have a lot of things to say about Shrek. I'm
very excited for for today. So so this is our
podcast about the Betel Test. Though, Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
If you don't know what that is, hey, i'll tell you.
Is it test you apply it to a movie or whatever.
It requires that there are two female characters with names
they talk to each other about anything other than a

(01:25):
man most movies. Spoiler, this movie does not do everyone
does not do very well at all in terms. But
the musical does better? Oh does it? Yes? Interesting? Shrek
the Musical is essentially just a way more dramatic version
of Shrek the movie. It's actually better because there's more
emotional depth. There's songs that sound like they could be

(01:45):
sung by Bon Jovi perhaps, but are instead being sung
by Shrek, which is like wild, it's crazy. Well, I'm
fascinated to see where this discussion goes. I'm so Excitedly,
I'm so excited. Let's introduced our guests before we get
much further. She's a comedian. She is the co founder

(02:05):
of Disoriented Comedy at scoot SKA. Welcome, Hi, Hi, thank
you for having me, Thank you so much for being here,
for pitching Trek. For some reason, it spoke to me.
That's amazing. Yeah, So what's your what's your personal history
of with Shrek? When did you first see the movie. Gosh,
I guess when when it first came out? Right, So one, two, one, yeah,

(02:29):
I guess. So it's crazy that Shrek has been in
our lives for this long sixteen years and honestly feels
like longer. I don't remember life before Shrek. There's part
two and it is, there are three, there's a three
and maybe all and a five in production. Gang and
Little did anyone in this room now a Broadway musical

(02:50):
that ran for four years. I knew about the musical.
I've seen like pictures of it, and just the aesthetic
of like Shrek and his makeup. I was like, oh,
I never want to see that. It's very scary. There's
a full taping of the Broadway production on Netflix. It's
been there for years. I'm pretty sure I'm the only
person who's ever watched it. But you can see Sutton

(03:10):
Foster really really humiliate herself and and she's in She's
in a show with Hilary Duff right now, so it's like,
you know, she's not afraid to do things that are
maybe a little embarrassing, but her playing Princess Fiona is
like man. And she got nominated for a Tony so
ups to Sutton Foster. Yeah, this was a This was
a very popular, successful musical in spite of the fact

(03:32):
that it was Shrek the musical and very scary to
look at. Well, Shrek the movie was enormously popular. Yes,
but the people dress, but people dressed a Shrek should
not have worked out. No, it's and if you look
at it, you're like, there's no, this is very scary.
It's the makeup scary. It's it's just like, we'll put
this in just like the green I mean, he's got

(03:55):
like big baldest head and like it's little ears on it.
It's a lot, which is what you said is great
because that is the theme of Shrek. Right, Oh wow, okay, yeah,
so they do Shrek in the movie. Yeah, they do. Okay,
there's no there's no compromise. Arguably, maybe they're kind have
been a little compromise, but I mean, I guess if
you're trying to get kids to go to it. But yeah,

(04:16):
and the whole point is, like, you know, it's not
what's on the outside, right, right, that's the of the story.
But with the cameras that close, and it's a it's
a Broadway musical, so you're not meant to be as
close as you can see them in the Netflix special,
because you can see just Brian Darcy James sweating through
his Shrek was given in a hundred time percent and
that's why he gets nominated for Tony's Yeah, because I'm

(04:37):
pretty sure Ogre's don't have pores, you know, and so
you can't for the realism of it. Yeah, the animated
Shrek seems very slick, right, Yeah, he's got hair, follicles,
he's got pores. Yeah. Well the Shrek, the Shrek of
the books is riddled with facial acne not And I'm
not shaming Shrek. I'm just saying I have a visual

(04:59):
of Shrek looking into wiping sweat off. Well, there's he's
got blackheads. He's got hair too. Yeah, yes, yes, I can.
I can relate. There's an opening scene, like the opening
credits in the movie. There's a like a whole montage
and Shrek is like getting a mud shower basically in
one of the shots, and you like turns around, you

(05:20):
see his nipples, you see his chest hair, he's got like,
oh he does have chest. I didn't remember that. I
just remember the mud blas. Yeah, I was looking for
the finer details. Human is he? Yeah, you know, he's
just like us. So you've just seen the first one? Yes,
I have only seen the first one. Yeah, I totally
the second one he has kids or something. The third

(05:41):
one he has kids. The second one is about him
meeting Fiona's parents. I own Shrek two on DVD. Brag
you see. Aristotle and I were trying to figure out
the difference between three and four. I don't think I
went as far. I've seen the third one. I haven't
seen the fourth one. See, we've seen the four one,
but neither of us. Have you even't seen the fourth one?

(06:02):
I'm sorry. I just made her will seem like more
of a freak than he actually is. I've seen one
to four in the musical a million times. I have
not seen three. So what's your personal experience? I saw
Shrek one in the theater the theater, the theater, not
the musical staj theater, just the movie theater. And but yeah,

(06:26):
I've seen Shrek probably a dozen times, quite a few times.
I've seen this movie a lot. What about you? Well,
this is one of my first of all, I'm sorry
in advance, but this is one of the few chances
I have on the podcast to shine in terms of
having knowledge of a movie, because usually I'll say I
watched it an hour ago, but this time I get

(06:48):
to say I have a grand history of the Shrek.
I did not see it in the theaters, but I
did see it. I've seen it many times. I got
very interested in the musical after being very afraid of
it when I watched it in college on Netflix. I
have since seen Shrek the Musical over ten times. I've
written quite a bit about it. I've sold my own

(07:10):
Shrek nudes on the Internet and raised three thousand dollars
for Planned Parenthood, and described for the listeners at home
who may not be familiar with your Shrek nudes, what
exactly do you mean by that? When I say my
Shrek nudes, I mean I'm painted myself green and took
a bunch of nudes and then seldom on the world
Wide Web, even though that wasn't their original purpose. Um,

(07:31):
therefore the next one. But I recycled them and uh
and and sold them for one of them many times
the government was trying to defund Plan Parenthood. This is
about two years ago. It seems to happen every month
so yeah, it was are one of those times. Unfortunately
we didn't say them with Shrek nudes, as I was
hoping we would. But I've seen Shrek the Musical over

(07:51):
ten times in three states, and I write about it
about once a year, and it is become an important
part of my life. And how similar is the musical
to the first movie? I would say that, I mean,
it's the same story, but the way it's told is
very different. You learned aiming, even on a bass level.

(08:13):
You learn way more about Shrek as a character, and
you get more about his background and the first scene
of the musical than you get in the entire movie.
So yeah, we don't get much Shrek backstory you're doing later.
But yeah, in the in the musical, the first scene
is Little Shrek, which is always fun to see in
the musical because you see a young usually a young

(08:35):
husky boy, dressed as Shrek and his parents are singing
to him about how ogres have to be very tough
and they're hated by society and you have to be
really tough. And then I kick him out of the
house when he's seven years old to go and brave
the world himself. So automatically, you're like, man, Shrek's had
a hard life, whereas the movie is just sort of

(08:57):
like some funny ones and now and you don't find
out anything smash Mouth got about that sounds true. It
does not age. Well, here's something fun in strict the musical,
it still ends with smash mouths and they take their bows.
It's great, like they just got the right smash Mouth

(09:20):
was like, yeah, you can have that. Yeah, I mean
smash Mother. I'm guessing they need to check sometimes here
at like Ross Yeah, yeah, and that songs a cover anyways,
Like that song is not smash Moth song. It's like
some sixty All Stars. There's a star is a smash Mouth,
the smash mouth a ridge. My favorite memorial tweet for

(09:43):
nine eleven every year is the smash Mouth one where
smash Mouth posts the same weird tweet every year of
like smash Mouth remembers nine eleven and it just has
a visual of those words and then like the silhouette
of the twin. I was like, why you like what bizarre?
The most bizarro tribute to nine eleven you'll find every

(10:05):
single year for like as long as Twitter has existed. Okay, well,
they're smash smash mouth, smash mouth. Let's do the recap.
Let's do it. Shrek is about an ogre named Shrek.
He's stinky, he loves mud. He just wants to be

(10:28):
left alone, and he lives in It's like I don't know,
Middle Ages whatever, like European my swamp kingdom thing, and
all these fairytale creatures get dumped on his swamp lawn
and he's like, wait a minute. But before that, he
meets Donkey, and Donkey is a talking donkey because Lord

(10:49):
far Quad is trying to round up all the fairytale creatures,
so he's like paying people to get rid of them
because he wants his perfect white kingdom without any growth
fairytale creatures. So all these people, all these fairytale creatures
end up on Shrek's thing, and he's like, I'm gonna
go talk to this Lord far Quad. Meanwhile, Lord far
Quad is trying to be a king. In order to

(11:11):
do that, he has to marry a princess. But the
funny thing is he's short. He's short, he's hilarious, he's short,
and so therefore he's a little Napoleon, right. I wonder
if that is like a poke at Disney for having
like all like the short Daddies, well this whole movie
at Disney to the point where it's like why does

(11:31):
it exist? But we'll get there. But so Shrek's like, hey,
far Quad, get your ship off my land, and he's like,
go rescue a princess for me so I can be
king and marry her. So Shrek goes and rescues Princess Fiona.
She's locked on the highest tower of the tallest room
of the whatever. Another person who's too good to be

(11:52):
in this movie Cameron Diaz. I don't care much for
Cameron Dia. I don't either, but she's still too good
for this movie. She's got so hot critique. So he
goes to rest he and Donkey, who are friends at
this point, even though he's like, I don't like friends.

(12:12):
I don't have any friends. They go to rescue Princess
Fiona and she's like, wait a minute, you're an ogre gross.
I hate ogre's. I need to be rescued by my
true love so I can have true love's first kiss.
And they're like, why is that so important to you?
And then we find out it's because a spell had
been cast on her and she turns into an ogre

(12:34):
every night. But she and Shrek are like kind of
started to dig their vibing, vibing. They're lamping and they're vibing.
They're lamping together and they're starting to kind of vibe
a little bit. So the Donkeys like hey, and Donkey
discovers her secret. She keeps like best songs in the
musical song by Donkey, Yes, song by Donkey, when Shrek

(12:57):
and Fiona are vibing, so Brian, Darcy, James and and
Foster like we're sharing squirrel meat or whatever they're eating.
And then Donkey sings this whole song called Mega Move
and it's a funky like but he's like, make a move.
And then he brings in the three blind mice and

(13:18):
they do a solo and they're like these hot but
they're hot blind ladies. In this version, it's super fun.
It's a blast top to bottom. You gotta love it
all right. That's part of where the musical passes the
Bectel test. The three blind mice talk to each other
because they're all women, yeah I know, not all blind mice.

(13:40):
So Shrek and Fiona their vibe in but he overhears
this conversation between Donkey and Fiona where she's revealing that, oh,
I'm an ugly ogre and I can't be this way
and I have to marry Lord Farquad so I can
be a beautiful, hot human lady the rest of my
life to lift the curse as one does. And Shrek
misinterprets this and things that she's talking about Shrek and

(14:04):
being like, who would love an ugly beast like an ogre?
So he gets all piste off and he like sells
her to Lord far Quad. Basically, this is where the
act one break in the musical is, and it's that's
the act one because that's that's like the end of
the movie almost, I know, I know, well, I mean
act one break is is more than halfway. But accidents

(14:25):
in theaters, I was thinking three act structure like screenplays.
I do have a master screen scream, so it makes
sense that he would think that. Um no, but in
terms of act one intermission act um so act one
is usually longer. But um yeah, there's this beautiful three
part of harmony. I've performed it at many a karaoke

(14:46):
with Shrek, Donkey and Fionna singing it's the song about
who I'd be. Shrek is singing about how he wants
to be a Viking. Donkey is thinking about how he
fears he's going to be alone for the rest of
his live Donkey if Toe saying about how her feminine
illusions are falling apart. It's a It's a beautiful go
see the musical. It's aid almost every junior high at

(15:09):
this point. It's off Broadway every junior high. I saw
it at Malibu Junior High last year, and it was bad.
It sounds like an expensive production to pull off, especially
for high school. Well that's yes, and there it's it's
this huge puppet that has two songs. Yeah, so that's
another place where it passes um. But anyways, so you

(15:32):
can you you sort of have to drive out to
wealthy I had to drive to Malibu because they can
afford to put on Shrek Junior right, but worth the trip.
Don't regret it. Glad to hear it. Yeah, So Fiona
goes off and there she's about to marry Lord far Quad,
and Donkeys like, Shrek, you fucking idiot. She likes you,
and he's like what okay, and then he goes and

(15:55):
storms the wedding and he's like, wait a minute, stop,
I love you. And then they Shrek and Fianna kiss
and she thinks it's lifting the spell. But because her
true love is Shrek and she takes true love's form,
she stays as an ogre and isn't a human anymore.
And she's like, I thought I wouldn't be mutiful and
he's like, you are mutiful, and then they get married

(16:17):
in the end hashtag relationship goals, and it's suddenly the
whole town is not scared of ogres anymore, right because
of feminist icon trac. Yeah, they were like it's time. Yeah. Yeah,
Well here's something that is bizarre. I mean, there's so
there's this movie like Baseline totally pointless, shouldn't exist, but

(16:41):
Lord Farquad's character is basically trying to like purify, you know,
like Hitler style, trying to purify the kingdom by marginalizing
anyone who is not human basically right and and created
by humans. Yeah, you know, it's I mean, it's kind
of it is kind of like gentrification or yeah, yeah,

(17:04):
forcing that like humans who have power made these rules,
human beings, made up fairy tales and then to suddenly
be like, no, no longer, you get ready get out
of here, which which yeah, these like imagination the Steak,
we don't see that, which again I don't think totally. Yeah,

(17:24):
So you go to the swamp where we fear another
creature that we made up oker, you know, right, and
that's where you will be forced to stay, which you know,
there were no borders, so I don't know how that
was going to work. They basically all say like, go
to Shrek's house. Yeah, forced people out. They're like, oh,
Shrek has a house, go there, and then everyone's which

(17:45):
is another fun. All the Fairytale creatures have two numbers
in the musical, one and I one one to let
your freak Flag fly. Very inspiring. Okay, I guess I
gotta watch THEA was nominated for a Tony Kate what
I know. He could hit the high notes. He he
was on the ones that do. He's great. Pinocchio. We've

(18:09):
got next yeah, next, next spring season, We're gonna go.
It'll be a trip. It's I'm busy that day. Listen.
It's fun. It's a blast. So we're here to talk
about mostly the movie, although feel free to I will
continue to interject but thank you for. One of the

(18:29):
things about the movie is that there's pretty much only
one female character. You could argue that the dragon is female,
but that dragon doesn't have any lines and it's a dragon.
So there's essentially only one female character. Okay, in the movie,
there's one, and she's Fiona. There's a few other one

(18:50):
there's like you see some like fairy godmothers in like
a witch and stuff like that, but they usually don't
have lines, so there's really only primary right, So there's
one primary female character, Fiona. Uh. Immediately, she's framed as
like a damsel in distress, so she has to be saved,
she has to be rescued, so the trope stands strong dance.

(19:10):
They I mean, they subverted to an extent to the
point where it might be uncomfortable for people, not to
the point where she's the dominant one in the relationship.
But this, I mean, this whole movie is based on like, oh,
it's post modern fairy tales, which is grow up whatever,
like dumb, but yeah, I don't know, right, I mean,

(19:33):
this movie does a lot to sort of subvert the
tropes of fairy tales, mostly in a very obnoxious, egregious
way totally. But at the end of the day, the
movie is still about like a woman needing to be
saved by a man via being kissed by her one
true love to break this enchantment. It's like one very
heteronormative no surprise there, and too why Okay, So later

(19:57):
in the movie we see a scene where Robin Hood
comes and like tries to take her away and rescue
her again, and then she beats the show out of
him and all the merry men. If she's capable of that,
why didn't she just save herself from being in the
tower kick the Dragon's ask herself go to the witch's
house who put the spell on her in the first place,

(20:20):
and be like, fucking undo this, you ask whole Well,
in theory, she was like beholden by the belief right
that she had that this is what had to happen.
But that's not well, it was never established. Well, maybe
she thinks that she has to be rescued, but when
she's describing the nature of the spell to Donkey, all
she says is I need to kiss my one true love.

(20:42):
So like, it's not clear why love she could have
been active and not insanely fucking passive, got it right, Well,
there's that problem with you. There is the problem that
Shrek and Donkey and this entire movie don't respect women.

(21:04):
Here are some examples, different comments that Shrek makes snow
white ends up on his table and he's like dead
broad off the table rack. It's the moment where they're
entering the castle where the dragon lives. Donkeys like, so,
where is this fire breathing pain in the neck anyway?
And Shrek said inside waiting for us to rescue her

(21:27):
feminist icon miss disappointing that quick one. Yeah, that's why
I watched these movies eight thousand times and pick up
all the stuff. Musical Shrek way less misogynical, were insecure,
Oh that would be appropriate and a little bit jittering,
and it's just like, yeah, to talk to girls. But
in the movie, Shrek is constantly terrible, pushing her away,

(21:49):
tossing her, throwing her, like a lot of physical violence.
There's at least one point where he slams her down
on the ground as like shut up. Yeah, it happens
a lot in the movie. Oh Um, there's a moment
when Donkey is telling Shrek to like wait till the
right moment to crash the wedding basically, and he's like,
chicks love that romantic crap. So just putting us all

(22:12):
on a box, which is weird because he's been living
alone for so long to know these even how he
knows dating and chicks. And if he had been kicked
out at seven as well, and I've been living in
that and just been hanging out with mud and slugs
and stuff, I don't know how he would know that, right, Yeah,
that's true. Well I don't know. Maybe well, first of all,

(22:35):
maybe seven in like older years is like maybe he's
actually twenty five when he got kicked out. Sure, yeah,
so his dad treated his mom right, But but that's
not but that's not cannon to the movie. It's okay,
yes I have. But in there I think I feel

(22:55):
like in later Shrek movies, which I don't remember, is
clearly that they address his background at some point. And
maybe that's where the musical drew it from. Because the
musical was released in oh eight. Maybe it was also
all adapted from a book, or at least the first
a wonderful book by William Steeg, who's a great New
Yorker cartoonist. And I recommend the original, where Shrek is

(23:17):
kind of just a villain who's forced to look at
himself in a very existential way. Thus my favorite illustration
from the book, which is Shrek the Illustrated Trek in
a hall of mirrors looking back at a thousand tracks,
and it's like, it's us, it's society. Interesting anyways, well
back to the back to the bashing, to the beautiful

(23:41):
source material with the dragon too, even though we we
don't count her as a full speaking female role, when
when she realized, like what stops her from being violent
is like, I guess lust because she wants to donkey.
Yeah she yeah, exactly, she sees something that she likes

(24:02):
and and suddenly suddenly she has these long eyelashes that
she's fluttering. And I'm going to stop my one dimensional
character ways, which is I just breathe fire and stop
people unless I fall in love with a with a
donkey dude. And she does. Yeah, that's interesting. And you
could sort of make the same argument for Cameron Diaz

(24:23):
for Princess Fiona of like, you know, it's not until
they meet a male love interest that they're like suddenly
these dimensions are released or like empowered and somehow, like
in theory, I feel like we're led to believe if
Shrek and Doggy didn't show up, Fiona and the Dragon
would not have changed on their own. Oh totally not.

(24:44):
Like Fiona is like the only thing about her character,
especially at the beginning, is that I need to find
my true love or my true love needs to rescue me.
It's like incredibly one dimensional. In the musical, Okay, Fiona
is locked up in a tower by her parents on
Christmas Eve, and her parents are holding her hostage because

(25:09):
they're telling her that until her husband shows up that
they were not going to release her. I think, actually
you learned something to that effect in Shrek two. Well
then there you go. So beautiful, beautiful song called um
I Know It's Today, sung by three different Fiona's young Fiona,
teenage Fiona, and of course Sutton Foster, who makes quite

(25:32):
the entrance in that song. Um anyways, nominated for a
Tony snubbed for someone who probably did a better job
doing something else. Back to the Dragon, though, Uh, the
point I wanted to make about that is that it
drives me nuts in a movie or TV show or whatever,
that there is a character who you don't really know

(25:53):
what the gender is at first, and then the reveal
is it's a girl, Like oh, that cop that takes
off its helmet and gets off a motorcycle that was
actually a woman, because it's like, how fucking stupid is it? That?
Like being a woman is somehow like a bonkers reveal? Right, right,
it's supposed to be like more impressive or or the

(26:16):
flaws make more sense that yeah, or just like the
thing that where I I mean, I get why they
do it, I get what they're doing when that happens.
It's like this thing that you're socialized to believe is
usually a man actually a girl. Surprised, but it's just
like annoying that that has to be a reveal like that.

(26:36):
There are isn't just like representation of women in roles
like that where we would just be like, oh, sure
that's a girl because we see that as a woman
all the time. Well, and and another bit character that
is deeply problematic that appears more in later movies and
appears in the musical, to the point where future incarnations

(26:58):
of the musical scrubbed this lyric kept in one production
I saw in Massachusetts, which was like get rid of it.
But anyways, I spoke with the director of the Whole Thing,
but the Big bad Wolf in the movie, there's a
lot of transphobic jokes at me that character's expense. And
even in the musical there's a song like something something

(27:18):
something dressed they called me a hot and tranny mess
and what was the right and which was in the
original musical anno it, but then they took it out
because they were just like, Oh, that's fucking nightmare. That's terrible.
You can't say that. Um and and that's like kind
of what this movie boils down to from a feminist
perspective of It's like it's sort of like, oh, the

(27:41):
female it's a badass, but just never in a way
that is actually threatening or challenging to patriarchal standards. Like
she's allowed to kicking her favorite mixed me needs article.
She kicks and she gets to fight a little bit,
but never in a way that super affects the plot,
never in a way that that challenges the heteronormative fairy

(28:04):
tale standards of she has to end up with a guy,
whether it's the tiny misogynist or the larger misogynist, and
that seems like I said, feel it feels so unearned
when she's like kicking Robin Hood's ass, because it's like, well,
if you could do that, and if you had the
agency to do that, why didn't you have the agency

(28:26):
to choose your own destiny and like go after what
you actually wanted. If marrying a dude is what you want, fine,
but like then go out and get it. Like it
just it was insane to me that she was so
passive and just like literally waiting around to be rescued,
because I think I think maybe the writers were focused
more on undoing fairy tales in general, but not necessarily

(28:49):
doing it in a refreshing way. They're like, fairy tales
are still about the damsel and distress, but for them
to be like, oh, you know what we're gonna do
is just constantly remind do that you're watching a fairy
tale getting undone. But we're not quite there yet with
being ready to have the female character be the lead

(29:10):
or the one that can choose her own adventure, and
we're not quite ready for those. Yeah, I think it
wasn't ready to like maybe Tangled or Fave or you know,
yeah it had to be Moana or yeah, I haven't
seen those three films that I just named. Moah, No,

(29:30):
I gotta see Moana. I did watch Tangled. I feel like,
was she more independent? I don't even I think, But
still the guy was a little bit too involved. Okay,
okay had to show up. Yeah I remember her being
like snippier than regular princesses. But yeah, I think they
were still focused on, like people are used to still
the idea of like the fairy tale. Let's just make
fun of the idea of fairy tale, but it's still patriarchal,

(29:54):
you know what I mean? Absolutely. I mean I think
that this whole movie is built on and so much
of like so much of Shrek, And this goes into
this whole thing that I think about a lot because
I don't have a life. Um is like, how basically
dream Works was this company that was formed to spite Disney,

(30:14):
who do these fairy tale stories constantly, and so Shrek
was just essentially meant to be a big middle finger
from Jeffrey Katzenberg, who produced some really famous Disney like
Renaissance movies. UM as a big middle finger to be like,
oh look, I did all this great work and then
you fucking fire me or whatever. The falling out was
there and now I have DreamWorks and now we're just

(30:36):
because I fulk you to Disney all the time, and
doesn't really take the time to do that in a
very thoughtful or interesting way, because even when like Princess
Fiona is doing the kick thing and in theory like
total just on paper that sounds very cool, but really
all that does is earn her respect in the eyes

(30:56):
of the men she's traveling with. Other than that, there's
not a bit effect on the plot because up until
the point, Shrek was like just mostly found her as
a nuisance, and then when you see from the ground,
he just does that. Even after that happens, but he
finds her a total nuisance. And then as soon as
he witnesses that whole like fight scene, he's like, well,
I'm not going to beat her up anymore. So he

(31:21):
does not throw her on the ground. In the musical
thank You Very Much Good, I think that that's probably
just a sudden, faster thing. She's like, I will not
be thrown I'm I'm the Queen of Broadway. I will
not be thrown on the ground. I mean, I think
this movie, although it does not handle this that well,
and I'll explain why in a moment. But the moral
of the story, is we already mentioned, is that like,

(31:42):
you should judge people based on their character, and you
should get to know people before you judge them, and
it doesn't matter what you look like, and your important
thing is the content of your character. However, one of
the reasons they don't really reinforce that in the story
is that it's like pretty heavily can firmed that. Like
Fiona when she is an ogre, they're like, yeah, you're

(32:04):
definitely ugly. She's like, I'm ugly, and Donkey's like, yep,
you're You're for sure ugly. And the thing is though,
that like she basically looks exactly like she does as
a human, except she's green and she's heavier, So they're
basically equating being fat to being ugly, which is incredibly problematic.
And then on top of that, they do they do
that with Trek's character as well. Yeah they do. Yeah,

(32:28):
any otherness is not accepted by farads right, and the
movie is trying to say, like, no, you can still
be ugly and you're you're still you can still be likable,
But they're not. I mean, in the end, there's that
line where she's like, I thought I was going to
be beautiful and trucks like you are beautiful, But it's

(32:48):
still sort of like, I think implied that only Shrek
could find her beautiful because he's also an ogre, and
like she's still not because she doesn't adhere to like
western beauty standards were as the whole you are so beautiful,
but only to me, because that, to me is what
makes it like whoa, why can't you just end it

(33:10):
at you are so beautiful? You know? Right? Well? And
then what do we think of the ending of sort
of it's it's implied, especially in the back half of
the movie whence Donkey finds out that Fiona's night form
is as an ogre, where he's like, well, Shreks and Ogre,
you should hang out with him, where it's like, I

(33:30):
don't know, like and this has been on and I
don't think originally, you know, it was like eight or
nine in this movie, I didn't have the language to articulated.
I was like, well, are we to believe? You know?
By the end, when Fiona turns out that loves true
form for her as she's an ogre if she had
been a human with that have not been okay, Like

(33:50):
can only like and like belong together in this universe
and what does that mean? And like is that that
never has sat well with me? Like that just seems
like a weird backwards thing to I feel like, um,
gay and lesbian people experienced this a lot, where like, like,
you're gay, I have a gay friend. You should meet
my gay friend. And it's like, well, well if I

(34:11):
don't like that, there, yeah they're there. Yeah, there's like
a pretty good chance you wouldn't want to date him.
But people are just like, oh, because you're both gay,
you should hang out, and it's like no, so yeah,
runding me of that that happens to people of color
to where it's like, oh, you would love my black
guy friend. You know he's single to another black girl.

(34:31):
You know, oh really quick to like going back to
like it's it's it's not what's on the exterior, it's
what's on the interior. If that was the case, to like,
Shrek in actuality is not very likable, Like he's an asshole.
Neither is Fiona. Yeah not either, And so I'm you know,
I'm confused about that being the message initially because it's

(34:54):
like if I've you know, Shrek, I've known people like Shrek,
that's like, no me alone, I'm a grumpy person because
like people don't understand me, and so in turn there
an asshole. They let tragedy turn them into an asshole,
and uh, they are hard to get along with. So
I don't know, tell me what I have to hang
on to if I'm supposed to fall in love And

(35:15):
that's I mean, I think maybe that in terms of
the way that masculinity has portrayed a lot in pop culture,
that that is sort of a common thing to do.
I like, well, he's an asshole because he just doesn't
know how to express himself. So you have to accept
the fact that he's an asshole to you, usually a
female character, because he just doesn't know. He just doesn't know,
and you just have to deal with it. And then

(35:36):
you got to soften him up, you gotta fix it.
Inshol to people who never let sour things turn them
sour and are nice. Right, that's an insult to people
who are actually nice, even if maybe on the exterior,
I don't know, you know what I mean, Like right, like,
I think it's it's cutting you know, and no matter
you know. Obviously that's not to discount any character or

(35:58):
person's experience, but you can't always cut someone that much
slack of like, you can't just be an asshole to
everybody because you're like so insecure in your masculinity you
can't express yourself, you know, or like you had a
difficult childhood and that's all valid, and that's all character stuff.
But don't be surprised if people don't like you because

(36:18):
of it. Right, there should be a consequences for being
an ass always, even like Donkey, there's a scene where
after they've like gone on the whole journey and Fiona
is hanging out with far Quad Donkeys all like, oh,
you treat me badly and you undermine me and Doto
and all this stuff, and shreks like why are you
still hanging around then, which is a legitimate question because

(36:40):
like Donkey, why are you letting this person emotionally abuse you?
And Donkey's like, because that's what friends are for. They
forgive each other, which like feels like a wrong message
to send to people. It's like, if someone's like being
abusive torn you maybe don't forgive them. If that's if
it's their character to be a complete fucking asshole. I
would argue the more powerful, the most powerful relationship in

(37:03):
this movie is Shrek and Donkey and in the musical.
But it's like Shrek and Donkey have more songs together
the Shrek and Fiona do with the musical. Dude, but whatever,
I mean. But but there is more emphasis placed on
I guess Shrek and Fiona's relationship is more integral to
the plot, but in terms of characterization, it's way more

(37:24):
Shrek and Donkey, if like they have you know these
Originally Shrek rejects him and he's like, no, I'm fun,
It's okay, you can come, and then they have a
falling out, and then they have a reunion, and then
it's like there's just more in general. So I don't know.
I hadn't thought of that until I watched it this

(37:45):
last time, watching specifically for how female characters are treated.
And granted, you know, Shrek and Fiona have a falling out,
but it's based on a misunderstanding and then he sells her,
only to return and marry her without her ever saying wait,
you sold me because you got mad and you didn't
even ask me what I did, Like that should be

(38:06):
a problem, right of like you overheard something and then
you sold me to a hitler, Like what are you doing?
You know? But she's like, no, you're right. The son's
about to set let's marry right, right, Like, let's make
out he didn't remember the Donkey Donkey actually apologizing to
He goes like, because friends forgive each other, and then yeah,

(38:29):
and then Shrek says he forgives Donkey, but like, I
don't really know what Donkey did wrong besides just getting
close with Fiona. I don't know. I think it was
because Donkey didn't tell Shrek because he promised Fiona he
wouldn't tell. Oh, it's part of the misunderstanding. He Shrek
was all like, oh, they're buddy, buddy, and they're ganging
up on me, and but like that's not what was happening.

(38:50):
So if Donkey did apologize, he didn't need to to
this point of like, which goes back to the point
of like, that's a weird that is the weird message
to give. Let's if kids are watching this and going like, oh,
that's how it should be a friend. If they wronged me,
I apologize and I should forgive anyway, even if I
didn't do anything wrong, I don't know. I don't know

(39:11):
what the demographic is of this film. I mean it's
more it's pretty wide. Well it's kids and adults. Like
there was enough like adult humor that adults can appreciate
it if you're the lowest common denominator, yeah, small penis
jokes and stuff, right, yeah, I mean like that's and
this is another like DreamWorks movie thing where there's what
happens in DreamWorks movies, but this is like the first

(39:33):
very successful one where this movie is like pushing post
modern drugs to the point where, for the most part,
this movie, in theory is for kids. You can bring
your kids to see it because most of the drugs
will fly over their head. But to the point where
it's like do these kids even know what is being
riffed on? Like do they know the source material of

(39:53):
these four billion fairy tales? And do they know? And
you know, so it is made more for stupid adults
who don't have a sorry, people who love his movie
but like you know, don't have a developed enough brain
to laugh at anything other than like I heard that,
I've heard of that. I've heard it because that's oh
my god a song. It's funny because the ogre thing

(40:17):
of the song, like there's just so little thought put
into any joke. It's infuriating. It's and then another note
on the comedy is that like Shrek is always cracking drunks,
they're not that funny, but at least he's like making jokes.
Man Donkey is by and large like the comic relief
of the movie. Even far Quad gets some like funny moments.

(40:39):
Fiona like, she doesn't get any funny a lot. I
feel like none of the comedy in the movie is
given to her, Like she's never given an opportunity to
make people laugh except for maybe the one the nod
to like the matrix thing where she's like which is
another but like, yeah, there's just she doesn't get any well.

(41:03):
Her character sucks. She's like a brat, she's entitled, she's passive.
This movie does a little bit more than other movies
in terms of like showing why the two characters might
like each other, but it's all very superficial stuff where
it's like, oh, they both burp and they both like
to and again that's her earning his respect by being

(41:24):
more like him. Right, being more like a man is.
She's like, let me take this snake and turn it
into a trick called dick balloon Fionta. So yeah, I
don't like her character in any way, and the attempts

(41:45):
at the movie does make it like because so often
you see in a movie where it's like a man
is a lead and he has a love interest, and
you're never really sure why they'd be interested in each
other because the female characters usually so poorly developed that
it makes no sense why they would end up together.
But like, she's hot, so he likes her, and that's
good enough. I think the movie does a little bit
tiny more than most movies to develop that romantic relationship,

(42:08):
but it's still not enough, so I think, and I
think it is interesting just a quick acknowledgement of how
Shrek has aged into now where largely except with children
and adults who saw it when they were stupid and
have not gotten smarter or more critically thinking since two

(42:30):
thousand and one, which God help those people. But there's
been this huge subculture that's developed if people making fun
of Shrek for how derivative and lame, and you know,
just a movie that really takes pleasure on feeling very
cutting edge while accomplishing nothing, you know, And there's this
whole subculture for it online and some of them at

(42:52):
this point it's pretty much extinct, and that's good. But
you know, like I'm sure some of our listeners would
recognize the Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life video those
and like all these I'll show them to you. They're
gonna I don't know about these, Dang, they're going to
bloil your mind. There was this there's this PC game
that came out around the time Shrek the movie did,
and people found it maybe ten to twelve years after

(43:15):
the movie came out, and started making these very bizarre
sketches using the Shrek characters, um that were very like
hyper sexual and demonized Trek and condemned the character. And
and sometimes they're very funny. Sometimes they were too dark
and like don't want those ones. Um. There's also a
subculture for Jimmy Neutron as well. But anyways, all that

(43:36):
to say, Shrek, I would argue, is not a movie
that has aged well and anyway and kind of in
a in a in a pop culture way, hasn't been
as accepted down in the line. I mean Shrek five
is going to make a million dollars, but it's not
going to have as many only a million dollars. That's
terrible for me. Sorry, billion, a billion, trillion. It's gonna
make ten times with boss baby mate or that you

(43:59):
much in are the EMI movie probably feminist icon the
EMGI um but um. But you know, all I have
to say, like Shrek five will and this is not
saying a lot, but probably be more conscientious of its
audience than I would Shrek that came out two months

(44:20):
before nine eleven, you know, like it really was just like, yeah,
what was subversive in two thousand and one is deeply problematic. Now, yeah, right,
I'll show you Shrek his live Shrek is Life. I'm
excited to see that. Yeah. Does anyone have any other
final thoughts about the movie? I don't think so. I'm
gonna watch two, three, four, and five. I guess the

(44:42):
musical musical because besides them having kids and him meeting
her parents and maybe finding about his his parents, I
don't know. Maybe it'll be cool to see like the
fifth one be like his daughter, Shrek Woke, Shrek Girl,
Shrek Girl, Shrek All Female reboot of Shrek yeah, something

(45:04):
you're Shrek falls in love with Fiona non or like
maybe it doesn't fallinary just trying to get a job
and it's hard. Yeah. Yeah, a female Shrek tries to
negotiate a salary is the salary. But also also I

(45:25):
did one more thing to throw in for Shrek three,
the only Shrek movie I have not seen. It turns
out that came out in No. Seven and already the
Shrek culture was so such a joke that Tim and
Eric were the first people to jump on promoting Shrek
three as a great It's been a joke for well
over ten years now. Um, and I would recommend watching

(45:46):
the Tim and Eric Shrek three promovid this one because
they were issued a cease and desist. That's amazing. Let
us discuss whether or not the movie passes the Buchtel test. Sure, no,
not sorry, there were there even on any opportunities when
were two women in the same scene. I mean in

(46:08):
the beginning, when all the fairytale creatures are in Shreks swamp,
there are like a few fairy godmothers. Uh, there's no
white but she is unconscious. Oh that's the other thing
I wanted to say. End at the wedding. Oh yeah,
at the end. So you see her in the beginning
in like the like glass casket thing, sleeping unconscious, so

(46:31):
she can't talk um. In the end though, she and
Cinderella flap each other whenever Fiona is trying to throw okay, yeah,
perpetuating that like do they talk or do they just
they do not speak each other because they want the
book so bad, because because that means they want to
they'll getting married next god damn it. And then first

(46:56):
of all, I want to know that, well someone, she's
probably kissing her consensually. You cannot have consent when you're
in a coma. That's what we need. A gro shop.
We've all seen kill Bill. Yeah, no, you will get
what she she attacks with her mouse Aristotle. Snow White

(47:16):
comes back in later Shrek movies. Right, she comes back
in Shrek three. I don't know, she's in the trailer
for three, so she keeps coming. I mean that she's
not represented better and and granted, with snow White, you're
presented with an uphill battle for a moment one sure,
especially whenever Lord Farquad finds like the magic mirror on

(47:38):
the wall and he's like, how do I become a king,
and he's like, you got to marry one of these princesses.
So he does this whole like Bachelor at number one,
something like Cinderella is a mentally abused shut in whose
hobbies are cooking and cleaning for her two evil sisters.
First of all, probably not have hobbies. Yeah, at least
say sudn't believe it. I don't know. But then like
it's kind of like it's like shaming her for it,

(47:58):
like she's on her fault that she used abused. But
they're like, oh, she's not a viable cannon because she's
been abused by men. And then they talk about snow white.
The joke is, even though she loves with seven other men,
she's not easy. And then just kiss her dad frozen
lips and find out what a live wire she is.
Or don't kiss a sleeping, unconscious woman. Don't ever do that. Yeah,

(48:21):
and then it's sort of presented or this is was
my read of the scene that far Quad is pressured
by the people, you know, his like thugs or whatever
around him to choose Fiona because she's the least damaged
sounding of the three. But then the mirror is like,
but also, wait, I should tell you that thing that
at that point coming up in forty five minutes, you know.

(48:43):
And and so he chooses her because she sounds like
the least bogged down by her circumstances that are not
her fault. But that's not even true, you know, I
hate it. Oh. The other thing I wanted to point
out is that Shrek rescues Fiona a night passes. The
next day, like they got off to a rocky start,

(49:03):
he keeps throwing her on the ground. It The next
day she kills a bird with her voice and then
steals the bird. She steals the eggs and like cooks them.
And her way of like making a nice gesture to
be like, hey, let's make amends is to cook them
food he cooks for her later. True, like the weed

(49:29):
rat weed rats. Right, So I let that go on
the basis that he reciprocated it. Okay, that's fair. But
I was just like, oh, she's doing good domestic chore, right,
and maybe in you know, she probably conditioned to think
that's what you should do, right, right. I wondered where
she would cook in that that space she was in
for so long. Yeah, did she have access to a kitchen. Well,

(49:50):
in the musical, she says she had a hot plate. Okay, good,
I mean I worry about these things in a chamber poto.
Oh no, no she yeah, she says I had no toilet.
That was a lot. Well, it sounds like the musical
I answered a lot of questions I have about you
gotta watch it. Uh so. Yeah, the movie does not

(50:10):
pass the back to test. Doesn't even come close. There
are never in the same scene at any point. Let's
write the movie on her nipple scale zero five nipples
based on its portrayal of women. I'm going to give
it like a one like. It does not do well
for me. Between her only ambition is to fall in

(50:31):
love with a man and be rescued by him. Doesn't
matter even who it is. She's just like, I just
need a man to save me and kiss me. That's
really her only ambition pretty much throughout, and eventually you know,
she finds someone who she might like, even though like
are they compatible? I don't know. That remains her whole
goal throughout the movie. And Shrek is a misogynst piece

(50:54):
of ship. Donkey isn't much better the treatment and women
is just bad. Yeah, it's no there's no getting around it.
So one nipple it belongs to donkey weird because I
like to give animal. Okay, I'm gonna red like Jalen
like another one on his chest. I wonder how many

(51:17):
nipples donkeys have? Do they have stay tuned for donkeys?
I don't even know how that works. Is it for Trude?
More if you're a certain donkey right to teeths on
Google and she didn't say two nipples, one donkey teeth

(51:39):
kitalin here panda nipple on the donkey, I'm gonna have
to say I give it a one too, because even
though it's the old tale of you know, the princess
needs to get married and that's her one thought, it's
also motivated by her looks. Because if I do it

(52:00):
that I don't, I don't have to be an ogre
anymore at night. So it's just like an extra one
to punch into into my nipples. And that one nipple
I will put on. I guess far quad is that
you see his nipple in the movie he's like sitting
in bed topless, remember that. Yeah, it's when he's like reh,
he's probably jerking off because it's when he's looking at

(52:22):
the magic mirror on the wall and he's like, show
me again, and it like rewinds, just like a picture
of her, and he's like in his bed, not wearing
a shirt, jerking too. Yeah, um, remember that character you see?
And I think, no, the mirror, the mirror. I think
the mirror is in snow white. And I saw that

(52:43):
too because I was like, shouldn't it be a female character?
But but I tried to go that's why he was.
He was saying those things about the princesses. Something I
could have subverted but chose not to, chose not to
or It's not like they're like, hey, should we subvert
this or not. They probably didn't even think of it.
They're probably just like, well, well, my friends a guy,
I would like to give him a job. I'm gonna

(53:04):
put the nipple on them there actually right, So, speaking
as a as as a woman who has been sexually
rejected by a far quad and a local production at
the musical, I'd like to give this movie one nipple
in terms of its female portrayal and in terms of
how it's uh far quads respond to twenty two year

(53:28):
old women sexually interested in them. Uh No, But I mean,
it's just there's no there's no getting around it. There's
no really redeeming female character. So it's even worse than
most movies we encounter where you know, a popular summer
movie usually includes one female character who might be great
and have has agency, but there's no one for her
to talk to. Not only is there no one for

(53:48):
Fiona to talk to, but her character is completely half
baked as well. Uh that said, watch Shrek the Musical. Uh,
there's a really there's literally a lot of amazing work done.
I encourage you to foster Shrek feminism of your own,
reclaim what Shrek has denied you. Yes, indeed, yes, um,
and I will give I will give my nipple to

(54:12):
Sutton Foster as Princess Fiona and Shrek the Musical. Sure. Yeah,
thank you so much for being here. Thank you, thank
you so much for having me. Certainly, where can people
follow you online? You can find me at Otsco Comedy,
on Instagram, Twitter, I'm on all the all the platforms.
On the platforms, just it'll pop up. If you start

(54:34):
typing my very Japanese, um, just a T s U
k O, it'll pop up. She's very searchical. You can
follow us on all the platforms well, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and go to our website back toolcast dot com. For
sure you can find upcoming live shows, including our one

(54:54):
year anniversary live show at the Nerds show Room at
Meltdown Comics. How did you get that? Oh? I don't know.
Maybe program director of that venue and Dante. Maybe she
put that show up where I don't know. Uh So
check that out. It's on December two at seven pm.

(55:15):
Details forthcoming specially guest special movie will for Billina be there.
I haven't talked about Alfred Millina all day. God, okay, well,
Alfred Millina, I don't care what he was doing at
this time. He was like, I'm too, I don't I
don't funk with DreamWorks. I think that's what Alfred Mallina
would say, for sure, just putting words in his dignified
talented mountain. Also watch Rat Teens on the Cafe streaming

(55:39):
platform is my new cartoon about teenage rats. It's wonderful,
Thank you and um Happily ever After.