Shrek's uncouthness is refreshing

There are things about "Shrek" that make me wonder who this movie was really drawn for. I wonder if there was a staff meeting where all the men in charge (and, apparently, one woman) sat around and tried to reduce the influence of their frat-boy world on this film they sold as one kids would love.

There is, of course, the burping scene that has translated into a Burger King commercial to top all Burger King commercials. I can just hear the earth-shattering “Nooooo” from parents worldwide when the mom in the commercial tells the son to “project” when burping. This all stems from a scene in the movie where Shrek the Ogre and Princess Fiona exchange oral flatulence.

And there is the scene near the end of the movie when the bad guy is eaten alive in one mighty chomp by a formerly evil creature. Honey … he’s not really dead …. Oh, forget it! Then, of course, there are the “compensating” jokes when Shrek comments on the immense tower and castle built by the short Lord of the fairy tale land.

Despite all this, or maybe because of it – I do have two sons – we thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

The movie, based on the children's book by William Steig, starts off when Shrek, Mike Myers, the ogre of the swamp near the land of fairy tale creatures, saves a talking Donkey, voiced by Eddie Murphy, from being deported on the orders of Lord Farquaat, John Lithgow. Soon he is inundated by fairy tale creatures who swoop down on his little slice of swamp land in hopes of finding their own savior. Shrek is promised his land back if he returns from a distant land with an enchanted princess for Lord Farquaat to marry so he can become King. Princess Fiona, voiced by Cameron Diaz, has been enchanted, locked in a castle, and guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. Shrek had almost no problem saving her, and they begin their journey back, where they inevitably fall in love with each other.

It’s a cute movie, and it’s full of cliches, except at the very end – the “happily ever after” is not the happy ending we’ve grown to expect from childhoods rich in fairy tale endings. That’s okay. That’s even politically correct. And that’s an ending I was hoping for, in the politically-correct-yet-Pollyanna world of my mind.

Don’t get me wrong, though, the appeal of this movie isn’t the fairy tale ending, but the side-splitting laughs and the I-got-that-reference chuckles it generated.

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