I JUST saw it on HBO tonight. What’s with the short jokes!?
I’m 5"5’, and I think this sucks! People may say it’s ok, because the dude was an ass anyway… but when you make fun of one mans physicality, jerk or not, you make fun of everyone like that. (Like some people I know at work think it’s ok to make racial/gender/sexuality references… so long as the hate the person they are talking about… if you say “dirty Italian”, it’s a mockery of all Italians because why refer to ethnicity in the first place if only attacking a single person?)
This is supposed to be a movie about not JUST looking past a persons appearance, but seeing the beauty in their appearance! I know it’s silly making a big whoop about that… but it sort of goes against what it’s supposed to be about?
Aside from all that, I really dug the movie’s adult themes. It wasn’t TOO wicked, but it WASN’T DYSNEY! DAMN I hate most of everything Dysney.
I never saw “Monsters, Inc.” is it worth a look like “Shrek” was? Anyone like “Monsters, Inc.” more?
Anyone agree with me on “Shrek” and the short jokes? I think I read some posts that didn’t like the jokes either, but I’m not sure and I’m told a search slows the boards down.
I loved Monsters Inc, and would reccomend it over Shrek in a heartbeat. I also felt that the short-jokes were ill-placed, not just because of the content, but because the entire theme of the movie was to not judge people on their appearence. Constant jokes about a person’s height didn’t exactly assist this thesis in any way, shape, or form.
I loved Monsters Inc, too, and enjoyed it much more then Shrek. I guess it’s all in your perspective- I thought it was odd that when the princess turns “ugly” she also turns fat. Yeah, I know, ogres are fat, but still. I’m not normally very sensitive to stuff like that, but I was like “WTF???” Very weird.
I liked it a lot, but I could see where those types of things aren’t funny for a lot of people or something I’d want kids laughing over.
I believe all the gags involving Lord Farquaad were designed with the sole intent of ticking off Michael Eisner. He must be sensitive about his height.
But I agree the short jokes were out of place. If they wanted to do those they should have gone all the way and gotten Randy Newman to do the soundtrack.
The whole concept of the Princess being worthless when she was ugly and that she could only find love in an equally ugly Shrek just pissed me off. I haven’t seen Monster’s Inc yet to compare but Shrek was a waste of celluloid.
Where do you get that idea? The first time we see her as ogress, she’s worried that nobody will love her that way, and specifically that Shrek won’t love her. At the end of the movie, she doesn’t become permantly ogrish until after she’s already sworn her love for Shrek, and what does it matter what others think after that?
Wow, did you ever miss the point of the movie! She wasn’t “worthless” when she was ugly, although she certainly thought that she was. In fact, when she was ugly, she was just as good as when she was pretty, the point being that “pretty” and “ugly” are really meaningless. In the end, she abondons society’s perceptions of beauty in order to be with the person she really loves. The message of the movie is that happiness doesn’t come from being pretty or rich, it comes from being with people who you love and who love you back. Not a bad message, I think.
As for the short jokes, I haven’t seen it for a while, but how much of the humor was aimed at the prince simply being short, and how much was aimed at the lengths he went to to compensate for his height? The former would be inappropriate and at odds with the theme of the movie, but the later would be making fun of him for his flaws in character, not his physical “flaws.”
Oh, and good as Shrek was, Monsters, Inc. was a far, far better film.
Actually, me and the SO thought she was still cute when she got fat.
And I think they were making fun of the “Little Man” syndrome, not the actual height. We used to laugh about a guy we knew who was just like that-always flashing wads of cash and talking about his guns and how tough he was. We called him “Walking Small”.
He was the only short person I ever made fun of, but just because he so overcompensated.
I’m short (5’3") and I don’t mind short jokes. My younger sister is 5’10" so I heard a lot of short jokes growing up. I thought like the others that the jokes were more for his overcompensating than just being short.
And Monsters, Inc. was too cute. Shrek was much better.
Well, like when he got off the horse and she he’s short and when on the wedding cake she pushed him down in the icing. Then there was all the “not measuring up” jokes.
I’m of “normal” height, and even I took note of the short jokes. Even if he was overcompensating, like the OS says, making fun of one is making fun of all. They DID attack his being short. The princess overcompensated too, and was a jackass at first. I think there are ways they could have done it that didn’t turn out offensive. The short jokes could have stayed in the movie like the ugly jokes, if later redeemed. I saw a “behind the scenes” after I saw the movie, and would have loved to see a short man as a big part of the production/talent, but none that I’ve seen.
Another thing… women who are short don’t get treated the same as short men. I just want to put that to light, because a lot of women I know say “well, I’m short and…”. I don’t know if throatshot is a male or not. I have a VERY short male friend who NEVER had any complex. However, just recently he told me of some of the things he’s gone through as a result of being short… and let me tell ya, the WORLD seems to have a complex!
I disliked Shrek for all the reasons given above. The short jokes in a movie about appearance being meaningless were particularly cruel.
But since nobody else mentioned it, I guess I’m the only person who thought that Eddie Murphy’s character just wasn’t funny. He talked loudly and very fast, but never said anything that remotely resembled a joke.
Monsters Inc. had far more pure wit than Shrek. The story was perhaps a little sappier but the jokes were better. And the “outtakes” at the end were hilarious.
I love Shrek and, being the mother of a three year old, I have seen it many, many, MANY times (the record: three in one day) so I’ve gotten to know the characters pretty well. I agree with those posters who felt that the jokes were aimed at a man who had “short man’s syndrome”. You know that if he had been a good guy who didn’t try to overcompensate, they wouldn’t have made fun of him.
BTW, the donkey is a riot.
Monsters, Inc. is good, too, but there is a lot of time spent on a chase scene and I am not a big fan of those.
Yep, there’s definitely a glaring hypocrisy in the movie’s fundamental theme: “Looks don’t matter (except if you’re short, that is).” FWIW, I enjoyed both Shrek and Monsters Inc. but thought they were both over-rated. Mild amusements and nothing more.
Well, to me the point was that nobody was perfect – even the lead, viewpoint, telegraph-that-you-should-identify-with characters had their blind spots, and were compensating for what they saw as shortcomings in themselves.
And that it’s possible to find happiness nonetheless.
The film doesn’t make fun of Farquaad’s shortness; the characters do. And the fact that they have problems of their own, and can’t see past them to see how hypocritical they’re being, is kind of an ironic subtheme. (Notice that Farquaad has a cameo in the karaoke scene that finishes the home video version.)
So Katzenburg could say “I wasn’t making fun of Farquaad/Eisner the characters were.”
The film is the sum of its parts. The general characterization of Farquaad came off (to me anyway) as “he’s a short little jerk, let’s make fun of his height.” That no retribution or repentance was forthcoming implies that making fun of the guy for his height is OK.
