do you know the muffin man the muffin man the muffin man yes I know the muffin man within the context of the film this seemingly innocuous line from a popular nursery rhyme is imbued with Marxist allegory the gingerbread man who is mass-produced from a cookie cutter symbolizes how the ruling class views the working class as mere Commodities his body parts being broken off during far quad's interrogation can be interpreted as the brutal extraction of Labor value by the ruling class which leaves the working class fragmented in the process at the end of the film after
Lord farquad has been overthrown the gingerbread man is given a crutch a symbol of solidarity and support from the working class yet he still has one broken leg as he beares the scar of exploitation Shrek is one of the most well-known franchises in Western popular culture yet his political implications are critically under analyzed pop culture's dismissal of the film as a mere children's comedy at its shallowest and a postmodernist fairy tale parody at its most profound immunizes the film from scholarly scrutiny and increases the susceptibility of the public to internalizing the Marxist ideologies simmering beneath
Shrek's benign surface in this video I seek to dissect the allegorical meaning of Shrek from a Marxist [Music] lens firstly I'll give a brief introduction to Marxism Marxism is a school of political thought pioneered by Carl Marx and Frederick Engles that theorizes about class struggle between the ruling class and the working class under capitalism the bourjois is the ruling class in capitalist Society who own the means of production and exploit the working class or the proletariat by using their labor power to accumulate Capital marxists argue that capitalism alienates workers from their own labor so they
think that the proletariat should Revolt to overthrow the bouro to establish a communist state when applied to Shrek this Marxist framework naturally invites an examination of how Marxist class distinctions aligned with character archetypes within the film for instance previous Marxist Scholars have asserted that Lord Fara and Princess Fiona represent the borzi because they're aristocratic rulers who own means of production whereas the villagers and fairy tale creatures represent the oppressed proletariat although these class distinctions are drawn correctly this is an oversimplification of the power structure of the fairy tale Kingdom because these Scholars failed to identify
the racialized nature of the alterity of the fairy tale creatures within the proletariat class unlike zootopia where all the characters are animals the shrei and Cinematic Universe portrays a world where non-human characters coexist with humans the former is therefore not only oppressed but dehumanized and their oppression is inevitably racialized as you can see from the arrows of Oppression here whereas the oppression of the villagers is merely class-based the fairy tale creatures are criminalized and evicted for their very existence before analyzing the political economy of the fairy tale Kingdom I'll first categorize the main characters of
the film according to Marxist typology starting with Shrek like the proletariat Shrek is marginalized he lives in isolation and is discriminated against by both Lord farquad and Princess Fiona for this reason he's often interpreted as being representative of the proletariat however this interpretation neglects Shrek's territoriality about his swamp whereas the villagers who get chased out of a swamp represent the true proletariat who sell their labor power to survive and do not own significant means of production themselves Shrek's ownership of the swamp which is a large private property and potential means of production complicates his proletarian
status he does not contribute labor to his Society nor does he need to do so to survive Shrek even seems at first to be empowered by his marginalization one of the first images we see of Shrek is him painting a sign that reads beware ogre on top of a menacing selfportrait which he puts outside of a swamp to discourage people from trespassing the shot immediately cuts to a governmen issued poster that reads wanted ogres which highlights that the government alienates ogres as a class whereas Shrek happily identifies himself as an instance of that class shk
suppression is racialized rather than class-based he's discriminated against by the humans because of his ogre race look I'm not the one with a problem okay it's the world that seems to have a problem with me people take one look at me and go ah help run a big stupid ugly ogre they judge me before they even know me that's why I'm better off alone since ostracization is all that Shrek has ever known he cannot help but be complicit in his marginalization despite his vulgar exterior Shrek's private Behavior displays an educated refinement that reflects an internal
alignment with boura habitus we see him eat a candalite dinner with a fork and a knife though he eats food that humans would consider fowl his table manners are elegant Shrek is also educated about the fairy tales that comprise the hegemonic culture in his Society the princess will be up the stairs in the highest room in the tallest tower what makes you think she'll be there I read it in a book once and although it's easy to view Shrek as the leader of the Revolution that overthrew farquad Shrek's confrontation with farquad was motivated by a
desire to protect his private property to get my swamp back and later to marry Fiona rather than a desire to redistribute wealth what we going to do when we get our swamp anyway our swamp you know when we threw rescuing the princess and all that stuff we donkey there's no we there's no our there's just me and my swamp and the first thing I'm going to do is build a 10-ft wall around my land Shrek's rejection of donkey's use of inclusive language we underscores the tension between Shrek's individualistic values and donkey's communal ones although Shrek
isn't strictly a proletariat as the story progresses Shrek's growing relationship with donkey might symbolize the proletarian potential for class solidarity as Shrek's foil donkey lacks individuality yet he possesses the collaborative instincts that makes him a natural proletarian comrade lacking economic and cultural capital donkey survives by building Social Capital he's quick to flatter the ones who are stronger than him such as Shrek that would be my home oh and it is lovely just beautiful you know you are quite a decorated it's amazing what you've done with such a and dragon you're just wreaking of feminine beauty
donkey's alienation makes him recognize the importance of class solidarity yeah you don't know what it's like to be considered a freak well maybe you do but that's why we got to stick together while Shrek centers his individual interests such as keeping a swamp and marrying Fiona donkey is motivated by Collective interest such as helping his friend when Shrek sat with donkey and named all the stars for him donkey asked that that that one name that's the moon oh okay in donkey's inability to distinguish the moon from the Stars it's apparent that donkey struggles to intuitively
recognize a sovereign individuality a star that is bigger and distinguished from all of the other stars on one hand this quality means that donkey is immune to social hierarchy it explains why he sees Shrek as an individual rather than just a big stupid ugly ogre on the other hand this quality indicates that unlike Shrek who's aware of the class order donkey lacks the class Consciousness that a Communist Revolution would require of the proletariat however donkey develops his revolutionary potential as the film progresses which results in him finally being able to stand up to Shrek in
the third act that's your half and this is my half oh your half hm yes my half I help rescue the the princess I did half the work I get half the booty in demanding his entitlement to a fair share of their rewards donkey asserts the Marxist idea that the distribution of goods should be based on the distribution of Labor this is my swamp our swamp donkey correcting Shrek's use of my displaces proletarian Consciousness because in doing so he challenges Shrek perceived a right to own private property all the main characters in the film are
Dynamic and experience character growth except for Lord farquad and that's because he's just a simp for a larger political ideology it's easy to dismiss him as an old money Aristocrat who happens to be genocidal but although his political power comes from feudalism he tries to tear away from medieval Traditions to establish a post-industrial capitalist Society he represents the human will to revolt against deterministic theology the will that is simultaneously the source of innovation and inequality so to talk about Lord farquad we must first examine the political economy of Shrek I categorize the setting of Shrek
as a mix of European feudalism and postcolonial capitalism the dichotomous settings of dulock and the fairy tale Forest correspond with capitalism and feudalism respectively this political contrast mirrors the temporal contrast between modern and Medieval Times although the sterile and homogeneous dck exists in direct aesthetic contrast with the natural and diverse fairy tale Forest there could be an argument that this contrast itself comprises the capis system as visualized by adorno and horkheimer dulock being a grimy spiritless City it's tower being typical of decorative industrial management buildings the forest being reminiscent of the older houses just outside
of the concrete City centers that look like slums dulock and the fairy tale land are dichotomous sources of power both feature an imposing phallic architecture the dck Tower and the dragon's keep respectively as the geographical center of their power the dragon's keep enforces the deterministic power of fairy tale tradition through aesthetic elements such as the moat filled with lava and the trapped princess guarded by a fire breathing dragon and the rickety Bridge with one unreliable plank though a spatially and temporally solitary fragment of the world it governs fairy tale tradition and controls the Destinies of
the characters by using fairy tale tropes to establish the status quo there's a princess that must be saved a dragon that must be slayed interestingly unlike in Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings magic is not a power wielded by individuals in the story it's purely a deterministic force which in a meta sense manifests in plot devices such as On's curse mirror mirror on the wall is this not the most perfect Kingdom of them all well technically you're not a king uh fonus you were saying what I mean is uh you're not a king yet
but but you can become one all you have to do is marry a princess frustrated by the requirement to slay a dragon and marry a princess to legitimize his claim to the throne that champion shall have the honor no no the privilege to go forth and rescue the lovely Princess Fiona from the fiery keep of the Dragon farat sees fairy tale Traditions as bureaucratic obstacles to his quest for power disgusted by the mythological you and the rest of that fairy tale crash poisoning my perfect world he banishes fairy tale creatures from dulock in an attempt
to create a secular World dulock a parody of Disneyland is a post-industrial consumerist dystopia Rec recognizing fairy tale as a metaphysical force that writes the fates of the characters in the story allows us to expand upon the implications of the fairy tale land duog dichotomy while the former is governed by magical determinism that characterizes traditional fairy tales the latter is ruled by a secular human will by reducing individuals to Mere economic agents farat establishes his self-determinism against the Fate designated by fairy tales his capless model empowers him at the cost of his citizens mirroring the
rational magical bureaucracy of fairy tales is the image of capitalist bureaucracy portrayed by a series of ropes for crowd control in the eily empty dulock Town though seemingly useless this capitalist bureaucracy is rational in that it serves the Organization principles of capital streamlined deficiency and Order farquad rejects the Theology of fairy tale by making himself the subject of a new religion a cult of personality similar to to those of Stalin and Ma by designating himself the dakan mascot and selling figurines of himself as souvenirs farad commodifies His Image to establish a monopoly over the cultural
industry in dck capitalism and authoritarianism not only coexist but perpetuate each other farad's self-c commodification helps him manipulate Mass Consciousness and legitimize his rule his head is so big in comparison to his body that the caricatured bobbleheads of him sold as souvenirs look identical in proportion to him which is an ironic Touch under his dehumanizing role dakan are reduced to tools of propaganda not too different from the puppets singing The Welcome to dck song in the information booth individuality is inherently threatening to cultural hegemony which includes both the fairy tale one and the faraan one
whereas Fiona initially values adhering to a magical Destiny it's Destiny oh you must know how it goes a princess locked in a tower and beset by a dragon is rescued by a brave knight and then they share true love's first kiss Shrek asserts that the Stars don't tell the future donkey they tell stories contesting the epistemological authority of divine tradition when naming stars for Donkey Shrek sarcastically rewrites canonical folklore look there's bloodnut the flatulant you can guess what he's famous for all right now I know you making this up no look there he is and
there's the group of hunters running away from his stench Shrek like for Quad resists the cultural hemony of Mythology Shrek isolates himself in a swamp to protect his freedom however as Marx asserted only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions only in the community therefore is personal freedom possible donkey represents the community in which Shrek's individuality becomes realized take a look at me what am I [Music] uh really all no I'm an ogre you know grab your torch and pitchforks doesn't that bother you nope Shrek has
always been reduced to a member of his species but donkey recognizes not only his individuality but his personality well you know what I like about you Shrek you got that kind of I don't care what nobody thinks of me thing I like that I respect that Shrek you all right individuality emerges through Collective action it's only by engaging with and confronting the social order that Shrek could realize his self identity only when Fiona identified Shrek's unknightly Behavior by asking what kind of Knight are you did Shrek take pride in his exceptionality One of a Kind
many parallels can be drawn between Shrek and farad while both embody bodily abnormality Shrek is ostracized partially for having an excess of what farquad acutely lacks physical dominance their respect of sources of social discrimination informs their character motivations seen through the psychoanalytical cleans while Shrek and farquad both assert control over their territories Shrek Retreats into a natural concave hole which is vaginal imagery for shelter whereas farquad Builds an artificial Tower which is phallic imagery to assert power the huge and towering Shrek is concerned with self- protection through self-isolation or through minimizing his presence whereas farquad
who is of diminutive stature is concerned with self assertion and self-ag rization when Shrek sees the abruptly imposing dulock Tower that must be Lord farad's castle uhhuh that's the place do you think maybe he's compensating for something Shrek connected the objectified cultural capital of the Kingdom to the embodied cultural capital of masculinity what farquad lacks in height which is a form of embodied cultural capital he compensates for by pursuing institutionalized cultural capital kingship he plots to ascend the throne by marrying a princess who he picks from a magic mirror iPad in online shopping fashion in
a parody of dating shows the arbitrariness with which farquad chooses his future spouse illustrates the Bazi function of marriage as solely a tool for social mobility and economic security I will make this Princess Fiona my queen and yck will finally have the perfect King The Profit incentive of marriage flattens the individuality of the princess Fiona's fantasized view of her marriage is more romantic than farad's profit Centric perspective at first glance but upon further analysis it turns out to be just as mechanical as his she repeatedly reminds shk of the correct way to rescue a princess
you know you should sweep me off my feet out yonder your window and down a rope onto your Valiant Steed you're meant to charge in Sword drawn ban fight that's what all the other Knights did yeah right before they burst in the flame and expresses disappointment upon the discovery that her rescuer is an ogre this is all wrong you're not supposed to be an ogre in requesting Shrek to conform to her eurocentric and aristocratic standards of chivalry Fiona embodies a colonial Force as she enforces her culture upon him neither farquad nor Fiona are concerned with
the individual they exist only as members of their class that is until Shrek intrudes upon the upper class social order and brings about Fiona's disillusionment with a hierarchy that benefits her Fiona's Arc following her rescue is a post-modernist subversion of patriarchal feminine ideals just as the mancipation of women is both integral to and parallel with the emancipation of the working class Fiona's gradual acceptance of her ogre form parallels her growing disillusionment and eventual rejection of the aristocratic hierarchy whereas Fiona subverts the patriarchal standards of femininity by physically defeating the marry men Dragon who donkey first
mistakes for a male dragon because of her size power and aggression is also a subversive girl boss you're a girl Dragon oh sure I mean of course you're a girl Dragon cuz you're just wreaking of feminine beauty whereas Fiona possesses the feminine powers of diplomacy and persuasion I need to find somewhere to camp now the dragon is voiceless and her power is purely physical together the two powerful female characters challenge the dimensions of femininity however a Marxist reading complicates this post-modernist examination of the film Shrek was not the original revolutionary nor did he change the
class order the original status quo of the kingdom is not far quad's capitalist dictatorship but the super structure of the fairy tale that overrules all of its inhabitants farad's Rebellion against the magical status quo is the original Act of resistance had he simply slayed to the dragon instead of forcefully creating secular modernity by evicting fairy tale creatures Shrek would have stayed in his swamp and farquad would have been able to marry Fiona to ascend the throne with the overthrowing of Lord farad the original status quo was restored though the two marriages in the wake of
the revolution of Shrek and Fiona as well as donkey and dragon seem to celebrate the Transcendence of boundaries between species and class these marriages still perpetuate a head normative reproductive future as the two protagonists become vehicles of social reproduction the revolution merely reintegrated the previously solitary protagonists with Society realigned them with headward normative temporality and flattened them into means of production by transforming them into means of reproduction the overthrowing of farquad did not eliminate class contradictions or resolve the fundamental injustices of capitalist Society rather it stabilized the economic system in this way it Bears a
closer resemblance to Marx's view of the boura revolution rather than the proletarian Revolution do you know the muffin man perhaps the muffin man is the burgeoning Revolutionary potential of the proletariat class perhaps he is the revolution itself in its full illusory Glory perhaps he's the post-revolution despair at having replaced one exploitative system with another or perhaps he simply is the friends we made along the way
