Morals

In Shrek the prince isn't charming; the princess isn't the classical sleeping beauty(Damsel in distress?); the sidekick isn't helping any of the situations; and the ogre is the hero. Fairy tales will never be the same again.

Although Shrek is a very witty and enjoyable movie; with good comic timing, perfect satire, and perfectly-captured charaters; it does feature many moral messages for its audience. The biggest moral of the story is the wrongfulness of judging people by their appearances alone, although this is undercut somewhat by the abundance of short jokes directed at Lord Farquaad. A secondary message is the importance of companionship - everybody needs friends and family to offer some form of comfort and support. The above-mentioned can be proved by the example of Shrek who wants at the beginning of the movie to be left alone, but he learns by the end that no man (or ogre) is an island.

While there’s nothing really new or cutting-edge in the movie’s moral platitudes, they’re still refreshing in today's self-centered and image-conscious society. And for children who haven't heard them a hundred times before, they could very well make a lasting impression. A good moral education addresses both the cognitive and affective dimensions of human nature.

Fairy tale and modern fantasy stories project fantastic other worlds; but they also pay close attention to real moral "laws" of character and virtue. The great fairy tales and children's fantasy stories attractively depict character and virtue. In these stories the virtues glimmer as if in a looking glass, and wickedness and deception are unmasked of their pretensions to goodness and truth. These stories make us face the unvarnished truth about ourselves while compelling us to consider what kind of people we want to be. Thus, while fairy tales are not a substitute for life experience, they have the great capacity to shape our moral constitution without the shortcomings of either rigidly dogmatic schooling or values-clarification education.

Therefore in conclusion, i would say that Shrek does contain many deeper moral messages for its audience (which is a broad spectrum of people from varying age groups, races, cultures, etc.). as in any/most fairytales, the moral messages are typical and do most often occur. thus, in this regard shrek is a typical, stereotypical example of a fairytale that contains moral messages. however, in contrast to the above-mentioned, i believe that shrek contains far more moral messages than most other similar fairytales, and these are made appropirate to all age groups. which basically means that shrek has a higher educational value for its audiences, and it is modern in many senses, which means that it wont date easily and become stale over time.

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