This Saturday, a TikTok creator took to the platform to publicly state her opinion, in classic TikTok fashion. Here’s the thing with sharing your opinion on TikTok, though: having your camera on and sharing your thoughts does not automatically make you correct.
The creator begins by saying that Shrek is not a fairy tale and rather a cautionary tale of how a woman cannot turn an ogre into a man, but he can make an ogre out of you. You can already tell where this is going.
She continues to say that Fiona started off as a princess with generational wealth and could have had a pet dragon and essentially develops Stockholm Syndrome because Shrek is the first person she encounters. Well… no, that’s just loud and wrong.
Princess Fiona was born with an enchantment casted upon her, that could only be broken by true love’s kiss. Out of shame, her parents sent her away to be locked in an isolated castle guarded by a dragon. When Shrek had arrived to save her, she was disappointed because an ogre was not who she had believed or had been told was coming to save her (refer to the scene in ‘Shrek 2’ where Shrek was reading Fiona’s journal and all she ever talked about was Prince Charming coming to save her). She was not very fond of Shrek at all, if anything, and someone with “Stockholm Syndrome” would have been happy to just be saved by anybody.
Fiona only begins to empathise with Shrek when she overhears a conversation between him and Donkey at night, where Shrek expressed his frustration with having been isolated his whole life and being judged without people getting to know him. Guess who else lived her whole life being isolated from society because of the judgment she would face had she lived in her true form as an ogre?
Fiona.
What's your hot take on this story?
Shrek and Fiona eventually fall in love along their journey of being together because they know how it feels to be cast out of society for naturally wanting to be who you are. They both lived their lives being shunned away from civilisation. Shrek being excluded from humanity because people fear him, and Fiona staying in the abandoned castle because she knew people would not accept her if she lived authentically in her ogre form (refer to the scene in ‘Shrek 2’ when her parents welcome her and Shrek to Far, Far Away and find out that she is an ogre). The only way she could be accepted is if she waited for her handsome prince and the curse would be ‘broken’.
Fiona continuously proved that she could have left that castle on her own, but her curse made her believe that she could only leave if someone came to save her. And so, she stayed and waited. Because she was taught to her hate herself. Her staying in that castle was a testament to her self-hatred and her desperation to want to be free from the curse. Her meeting Shrek was her being aligned with a part of herself that embraces authenticity. She fell in love with Shrek because she got to be herself with him.
In many cases, our truest encounter with self-love begins when we meet people who are just like us. When you live your life being isolated or “othered” for so long, you don’t believe you’re worthy. Both Fiona and her husband relate to that feeling and saw themselves in one another. They saw each other how the world did not see them. Both of them finally feeling seen without being feared.
Shrek chose to turn himself into a human in the sequel because that is what he thought would make Fiona happy, but she rejected that and ultimately decided she wants to be with the ogre she fell in love with. She didn’t lose her royalty because of Shrek. She let go of the royal life because it didn’t embrace her and only forced her and her husband to be people they are not. Even in the fourth installment of the franchise, she is an ogre in an alternate reality where she never met Shrek. Indicating that even if she did not meet him, she still would have chosen to be an ogre and create safety for those who are just like her and were not accepted by society.
Shrek is not a cautionary tale. It translates a message that we should all go where we are loved and can be safe being our truest selves. Never adjust yourself to spaces where you are made to reduce yourself in order to be accepted or live a decent life. Build a life of your own with those that accept you.
