The Scholarly Pursuit of Shrek

https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/shrek-irony-jamie-loftus/

129 26 5 years ago

blowski• 5 years ago

Well that was a fun read, even if I have no idea what it was saying. It's as if Hunter S Thompson was writing on a Shrek subreddit.

kbenson• 5 years ago

Agree on all points. :)

“It lacks a certain respect that is usually associated with fan writing,” he says, pausing to make eye contact with the rest of the 40-person Zoom audience to make sure we’re all in agreement. No one’s camera is on to reassure him, save the moderators and the Disney adult who has looked physically ill since he read a description of Shrek’s turgid ogre penis out loud.

q_andrew• 5 years ago

I think that was the message, that deriving meaning from pop culture is pointless and also never-ending.

Barrin92• 5 years ago

every time I read some in-depth article on shrek I have to laugh because I'm reminded of the quora post on the kid that memorized the entire movie

https://i.redd.it/ozcijbe1itt41.jpg

civilized• 5 years ago

eric__cartman• 5 years ago

she was looking kind of numb with her finger and her thumb...

honkycat• 5 years ago

My little sister can do this. She used to turn it on while doing homework/etc to zone out to in the background.

She refuses to do it as a party trick though!!

dmitriid• 5 years ago

patient zero for a generation of kid’s films whose humor is more directed at their parents than them.

This. There are just so many "kids" movies which Nixon impersonations, or 80s trivia, or 70s nostalgia in place of actual content or humour.

Why do I know what “extra-textual intertextual Easter eggs” are and not how to shampoo a carpet?

Don't we all :)

NavinF• 5 years ago

and not how to shampoo a carpet?

Because carpet is out of style. Engineered hardwood is where it’s at.

And besides, nobody shampoos carpet. People just let it soak up our dead skin cells, oil, and the occasional spill. Spraying an equal amount from each of the unidentified bottles found under the sink aught to clean the apartment right up. She’ll never know

amelius• 5 years ago

Because carpet is out of style. Engineered hardwood is where it’s at.

Perhaps carpet in the "rug" sense then.

dylan6043• 5 years ago

> patient zero for a generation of kid’s films whose humor is more directed at their parents than them.
This. There are just so many "kids" movies which Nixon impersonations, or 80s trivia, or 70s nostalgia in place of actual content or humour.

Isn't the reasoning obvious? Rugrats cannot go to the movies on their own. In order to entice the parental units to take the rugrats to the movies, then the producers attempt to make their movie tolerable for the parental units.

gumby2• 5 years ago

I have only seen it once (or maybe it was a sequel). It had been dubbed into German, which was fine as the kids (we went in a group) were too young to read anyway.

As soon as it was over I wanted to flee the cinema but the rest of the parents waited for the credits and excitedly commented, “oh, that was John Cleese”. “That was Cameron Diaz”. Etc.

But the film was animated and the voices were not of those people!

Decades later I still don’t understand.

cyborgx7• 5 years ago

I mean, actors do get assigned localization voices that are used across movies in the German localization industry. So if the voices you associate with those actors are their German localized voices, those are their voices to you.

netrus• 5 years ago

In addition to that, usually for animation movies they do the voices first and make the animation to match. For comedy headliners, one might be able to recognize the actor from animated facial expressions, timing etc.

I am in no position to judge if that is true for Shrek.

(BTW, the German word for fear is Schreck [not a perfect translation, but the same spirit], yet I never made the connection mentioned in the article. Cool!)

AlwaysRock• 5 years ago

Wow. That is really interesting. I didnt realize that. Has there been any notable recasting's due to death or contract negotiations or something like that? I could imagine Luke Skywalker sounds drastically different in the third film being a pretty jarring experience.

NikolaNovak• 5 years ago

I found that dubbing is very popular in some countries, whereas subtitling is preferred in others. I've been brought up with subtitles and have never been able to stomach dubbed movies - whether live or animated, it feels a lot of original character/emotion/nuance is lost; and, a lot of overdubbing overdoes vocal emoting. So I watch original language with subtitles - even though I don't understand the voice, I pick up the original emotion and intent, while the brain processes subtitles to match.

My wife has been brought up with dubbing, so initially had aversion to subtitles; she felt her attention was split between text, and following actions/acting. But - after a few movies, she's now a subtitle convert as well - she's seen how much gets lost in dubbing.

Of course for kids, this may be a moot point as they cannot read subtitles either way.

lou1306• 5 years ago

I have only seen it once (or maybe it was a sequel)

Just to be nitpicky, it was 100% a sequel (as John Cleese only appears in those).

gumby2• 5 years ago

Of course he doesn’t actually appear in any of them at all.

dhruvmittal• 5 years ago

Thanks everyone, reading this was exactly how I needed to start out my last Monday of 2021.

dylan6043• 5 years ago

What? What happened to next week? Do you know something happening that will prevent next week from occurring?

revolvingocelot• 5 years ago

I think grandparent refers to the lack of any remaining "logical Mondays", despite the upcoming "physical Monday" on the 27th.

If one is off work and wearing pajama pants and drunk on rum-and-eggnog by noon, what day is it?

handrous• 5 years ago

It came out the summer before 9/11. It is petty and weird and, maybe I’m pilled, but it’s pretty good.

I remember thinking it was OK when I watched it when it came out. I watched it again just a few months ago, for the first time since then, and found it to be about as bad as a movie can be. Not even accidentally entertaining, like some bad movies are.

_benj• 5 years ago

…the risk that your boss might be a mentally ill person who does not like you. When the little sicko in charge is you, there are no legal repercussions for this sort of retaliation.

Uff, that strikes close!

I think that the the pursue of “the freedom” of entrepreneurship or even of remote work, self care and the real power that we have to undermine ourselves is often ignored.

diskzero• 5 years ago

Good old Shrek. There was a large cardboard cutout of Shrek right outside of the entrance of the lighting department at the PDI [1] building in Redwood Shores. PDI animated the first version of Shrek after an attempted motion captured version by DreamWorks didn't meet expectations.

The cardboard Shrek was holding a bucket of cash and I would always laugh at the crassness of the image. Whenever times got tough at DreamWorks, it was time to for PDI to make another Shrek! Our punishment for making movies like Over the Hedge, Bee Movie or Monsters vs. Aliens was another Shrek movie to fill the coffers again. When the fourth installment of the Shrek franchise was announced, I remember Jeffrey Katzenberg stating "We decided that the Shrek story still has more to tell." What he really meant was that the bank account was empty, the stock price was low and Shrek could be counted on to bring in another decent box office result. Good times! How I miss PDI.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Data_Images

The Scholarly Pursuit of Shrek

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