25 Years of Shrek

​Twenty-five years ago, a special animated movie based on a children’s book by William Steig premiered in theaters—one that wasn’t like any other pre-existing movie. Shrek introduced the world to a smelly, ugly, fat ogre of the same name who enjoys his filthy life alone in the swamp; he even learned not to care that everybody hates him and wants him dead. He’s continually the stand-in for anyone who received online death threats and was told by bullies, “No one likes you.” One of those who identifies with Shrek includes me. My previous negative social experiences, particularly during high school, made me want to imitate Shrek and put up a wall around my home so nobody could ever come in—friendship and family were just not worth the trouble. Even today as an autistic adult, I’ve become a victim of the modern loneliness epidemic and often genuinely believe I’m better off alone. Thus, Shrek, in this monumental anniversary year ought to be recognized as more relevant than ever.

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2001 was the perfect time for this movie to be born, as movie theaters in the 1990s were ruled by the Disney Renaissance that featured princesses falling in love with dashing men they just met. Shrek didn’t embrace the clichés of fairy tales long associated with the Walt Disney company: Instead of a handsome prince rescuing the princess, it’s an ugly ogre. Instead of him mounting her on a noble steed, he’s accompanied by an annoying talking donkey. Instead of a beast turning human in the end, a human permanently turns into a beast. Instead of showing a beautiful young woman with textbook perfect outer beauty finding love, it’s a chunky green ogress finding love. Instead of expressing some of the most whimsical and colorful art styles that hand-drawn animation could offer, Shrek isn’t afraid to look ugly with CGI technology that was still in its toddler years.
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Beyond providing context behind Shrek’s subversion of fairy tale tropes, the cultural context of Hollywood in 2001 justifies why the movie’s success was such a big deal. Throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, other studios struggled to keep up with the new industry shift toward computer animation established by Pixar, and that included DreamWorks right from its founding in 1996. Shrek was the movie DreamWorks’ animators were sent to work on after they failed in the studio’s past projects, like The Prince of Egypt, and the original choice to voice the famous ogre, Chris Farley, died after recording nearly all his lines. Then once Mike Myers came on board to do the voice, he proposed to rerecord every single one of his lines because he wanted Shrek to have a Scottish accent rather than a Canadian one—while most of the animation was already done. Writers also came and left the project before finally settling on the first-time writers: Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson. At this point, the movie already looked like a guaranteed bomb.

Yet it did not bomb, Shrek surpassed all expectations to shift around Hollywood, pop culture, and misfit people suffering in an unaccepting world. Shrek’s representation of that suffering makes for a family film with an unusual take on bullying. Shrek became a bully because he was bullied by everyone who judged him before getting to know him. He even bullied Donkey, who only ever wanted to be Shrek’s friend. While on their journey to escort Fiona to Duloc, Shrek explained his deep insecurity to Donkey, including his intent to build a 10-foot wall around his land. Nobody with pitchforks and torches would chase him ever again.

The visual of a wall brings some tangible words for victims of bullying to help explain their predicament to others, and the movie uses the soundtrack to acutely nail the root behind that bullying: harmful messages from the media. The musical score is half Disney princess ballad and half greatest hits album, which couldn’t be a starker contrast to express DreamWorks’ opinions at the time about Disney. Right from the opening scene, that gentle sing-song score plays over the reading of a storybook, like the opening scene of a Disney princess movie, then Shrek rips a page out of it, and All Star suddenly plays to the opening credits. The song pulls the audience out of 1937 and into 2001 for a new kind of protagonist, one who breaks the mold and sees himself as a star. The rest of the songs, including My Beloved Monster, Hallelujah, and I’m a Believer, complement the sincere unspoken emotions of each character. The soundtrack was surely a big reason Shrek was so loved by audiences who needed a movie that could bring a voice to their insecurities.

A greater contributing factor for the film’s appeal to this day is its tremendous technical achievements in animation, especially for such a new studio. The 1990s ushered in the first fully computer animated feature film, Toy Story, which brought Shrek the tools to deliver something that could resonate with an entire generation. It took three years to animate this film, with a year of that process spent on perfecting Princess Fiona’s look. The character models were also developed with muscles and bones underneath their skin to aid in creating those realistic bodily movements, and it helped achieve realistic human movements three years before The Incredibles. Humans obviously weren’t the only challenge, the animators also had to create believable movements for a donkey, a dragon, a puppet, mice, dwarves, and more. If managing these details on just one character is hard enough, imagine doing the same for shots of massive crowds—like the big dance scene at the very end! That’s an insane amount of work despite the clear technical limitations of the time! This doesn’t even consider the other tricky elements to animate in the environment, like mud, water, and fire. The animators’ labor of love on every character resulted in high levels of expression that made them relatable, empathetic, and lovable.

The first ever Best Animated Feature Oscar was awarded to this monumental movie thanks to the production crew’s labor of love, amazingly over Pixar’s hit from that year: Monsters, Inc. The “DreamWorks brand” that this movie launched in turn influenced other animated films that defined the 2000s, not just the other popular DreamWorks films like Madagascar or Kung Fu Panda, but all other films by animation studios in that decade—even Disney. Once studios made it past the awkward transitional stage from 2D to 3D animation, favorites like Frozen and Moana were made—both of which had mostly human casts and more progressive stories that subverted fairy tale tropes.

Nearly every computer animated movie that exists nowadays utilizes the benefits of this technology to delve into more mature messages about self-love, which is perhaps the greatest legacy that Shrek has left for the world. Since 2026 is a year where millions of people have put up walls of isolation to shut out those with differing opinions, humanity, now more than ever. can learn from this beautifully filthy movie that brought hope over the past twenty-five years.

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Trevor Pacelli is a young adult on the autism spectrum as well as the author of What Movies Can Teach Us About Disabilities, What Movies Can Teach Us About Bullying, Summer of the Fruit Virus and the illustrator of The Kindergarten Adventures of Amazing Grace: What in the World is Autism?, Gardenland: The Peas' and Carrots' Party Shake-Up, Tipper Takes the Mound, and the author/illustrator of Amazing Grace Goes to the Zoo.