The Bechdel Cast - Shrek 2: The Five Year Anniversary Episode

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

It's the FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE BECHDEL CAST!!! Caitlin and Jamie celebrate with an episode on feminist masterpiece Shrek 2!!!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, y'all. Niminie here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do,

like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. friends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast somebody once told me the world is wrong one i know it's the wrong shrek but i this this one also starts with a i feel like a very dated banger, though. The, like, accidentally in love. It's pretty good. Who is that?

Is that Counting Crows? Oh, that is who that sounds like. I just pulled that name out of my butt for the first time in 15 years. It's certainly not Smash Mouth. Why didn't they get to come back for Shrek 2? I think that's the most popular criticism of counting crows is there no smash mouth i yeah i i wonder if like maybe this is just like headcanon but what if shrek 2 couldn't afford smash mouth because shrek 1 made smash mouth so famous oh and they spent so much money of the

shrek 2 budget on did you see the pay bumps that like the three leads mike myers no cameron diaz and eddie murphy so what for the first movie and i don't know if they all got paid the same but i think it was like ballpark of like 350 000 for their voice acting work on Shrek 1. For Shrek 2... Okay, that's so much money, but I guess probably not a lot of money to them. Right. For Shrek 2, their salaries got bumped to $10 million each. Why? Oh my god, that is wild. Especially because they only need to work for like 15 days in like a recording studio it's not even like they're not even on set it's like not like no wonder Cameron Diaz retired damn also yeah the budget for this one is like two and a half times what the first one was made

but it looks exactly the same and it's basically the same story so wild wow i didn't know that i my favorite fun fact i learned about shrek 2 is that it was nominated for the palm d'or at i know i was like hold the phone i thought french people had taste and i was wrong well I didn't win I wait who okay let's find out who beat Shrek 2 for the film I mean it had to have been a tight race honey okay I mean what came out what else came out in 2004 Spider-Man 2 2004 okay Fahrenheit 9-11 beat Shrek 2 for the Palme d'Or. What a bizarro year in Cannes. Wow. God. Okay.

I wasn't surprised it was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature because I feel like most of the Shreks were. Yeah, yeah, that tracks. But the Palme d'Or threw me for a loop. Same. I was like, wow wow this is actually art i was similarly baffled okay so listeners this is not only our shrek 2 episode a long awaited much requested people have been just knocking our door down clam Yeah, we got we got doxxed. The people have been demanding for decades. When are you going to cover Shrek 2? So it's that episode. It's also our five year anniversary episode. We've been doing the podcast for five years. That is so wild. We're

different and yet we're the same. you know yeah i feel like we've really like any good relationship we've grown together the show has grown with us we got i mean it's it is like wow i was thinking about like our first episode came out and this was not intentional because we had the show in the works anyways but the show did end up being released right after the 2016 election like right after yes yeah and what a journey it's been what a journey it's been i feel like we've never not been in just like cultural societal turmoil since the podcast has started yeah between like that presidency and oh that now a world yeah remember that one and um and then also this pandemic it's just been i mean what a time it really has been a wild ride like in in a in a i, not societally, maybe not in a good way, but I feel like it ended up being a very specifically relevant time to be having the conversations that we've been trying to have on the show.

And I don't know. I'm proud of us. And we also, there's so much left to do. There's so much left to do. There's so much left to do. I also, I think a great way to track our growth was I listened to the Shrek 1 episode yesterday. Oh no. And? So that one. No notes?

Perfect. No notes. That came out nearly four years ago. Almost like four years to the date ago. So we were like a year into doing the show. It was an interesting listen. It's been a really long time since I've listened back to an episode from that long ago. Yeah, I avoid it. It was excruciating. Okay, so here's some things about the episode certainly we have demonstrably grown as movie analysts as feminists as just havers of discourse like oh wow our discussion

was not very nuanced on the shrek one episode we were using a lot of ableist language wait we weren't nuanced in 2017 i was curious about that i was like because i know that there's been so we've been educated and still have more to learn but like we've we've been educated so much by our listeners uh about language choices that we were making four years ago that we're not anymore. Yeah, which is like listening to the old ones is tough. Yeah. It turns out we don't age well sometimes. Also, I'm doing a very nasally voice the entire time. And then also bursting into just like goofy voices for 90% of the episode.

I don't know what I thought I was doing. I must have blacked out that because I was just like, I don't remember you becoming a goofy voice connoisseur. I was goofy voicing all over the place. I don't know why I was making any of those choices. Also, the episode was very short by our standards because it was only it was like less than an hour long it was like 57 minutes long or something like that i feel like that's because we used to um we used to like rent studio time too so we had like more like restrictions on how long we could record where now we're just existing in cyber baby right i'm just sitting in my closet talking for two hours at a time we got time baby

that that is it is so bizarre to think about how much has changed in the world how much has changed with the show and so much of that is owed to our listeners our community and our amazing guests who also i mean who also have educated us so much and hopefully you if you're a listener of the show if you're not if this is oh what if this is your first time listening to the show i you know what what if what if there's a shrek 2 fan that's like yes you know what start now and don't look back don't listen to any earlier episodes and certainly not the shrek 1 episode well i you can you can start listening like two years ago yeah i really feel like that's when we started to hit our stride.

Yeah, 2019, we really came out of a fugue state and began having actual conversations. Look, and also it's like, I feel like podcasting is so different from when we started too, which is bizarre because it's only been five years, but it just feels like it's grown and changed so much. Yeah, I don't know. too which is bizarre because it's only been five years but it just feels like it's grown and changed so much yeah I don't know it's so bizarre because we we truly started this as a pastime and now it's our full-time job yeah ah wow look at that if you had told 2014 Caitlin that in five or six years her full-time job and life and all that stuff would be a podcast 2014 caitlin would be like what are you talking about i don't even listen to podcasts i don't like them blah

blah blah i would have been like what like cereal i don't know like there because that used to be famously the only podcast that anyone had ever heard of it might have been the only one it's impossible to know I feel like it was like all tv recaps and cereal and maybe like all there was this American life or is that a radio show what's the difference I don't even radio and then they were I'm still explaining to my mom what the difference is and I don't really know um but it was i mean look i i feel like especially shows that have been on for as long as ours have it's like it's it would be very kind of fucked up if it was the exact same show as we'd started it we're like yeah we haven't grown and we haven't changed yeah so well the bechdel cast came of age and is still coming of age. Wow.

I was about to say, just like Shrek 2, it's not really a coming of age story at all. No. It's just Shrek 1 with different plot elements moved around. Right. And then the same theme and message, but not as effectively done as the first movie? The ending is just the opposite of the first movie i i guess i didn't remember that much about shrek 2 because i'm like this is just shrek 1 except shrek 1 wasn't nominated for a palm day or i don't think let me check let me check i would

guess no here was my brilliant observation as i was watching shrek 2 is that to me it's the family friendly version of the movie get out wow okay okay i see that i see that which then when i when i was reading the scholarly journal wikipedia the article about shrek 2 i learned that screenwriter and co-director Andrew Adamson based the plot of Shrek 2 off of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. I did know that. Right. Which is a similar premise as well. So Shrek 2. Just a more poorly executed, family friendly version. Yeah. You know, the message is very,

I think, intended well. Quite hit or miss. Indeed. Yes. However, when this movie came out in 2004, so it came out May 19th, 2004. That's two days after my 18th birthday. Did you go to see it?

I did go to see it in theaters whoa probably multiple times if i remember correctly it was also like within a few days of my high school graduation so i was like it was a celebratory may for me incredible and the most important event being the release of shrek 2 obviously obviously. So I really liked this. I thought it was funny when I was like 18 years old. I did then buy it on DVD right when it came out on DVD. I still own it on DVD. I know.

But I have not seen this movie for probably well over a decade. I probably stopped watching it in like 2006, I would guess. Okay. What's your relationship with Shrek 2? I didn't see Shrek 2 when it came out, which is kind of bizarre because I would have been like the exact right age to really eat it up. But I think as we talked about this on the show before, my mom didn't like gross things and she did not like farts. And so she was like, my little girl is not going to see a movie where there's farting, farting, farting all day. So I think I would have seen this movie probably at someone's house at some point. I don't remember. Like, I wasn't a big I was a late Shrek bloomer. I would have seen this movie probably at someone's house at some point.

I don't remember. Like, I wasn't a big, I was a late Shrek bloomer. I really like, and when I came into my Shrek-ness, I really came in hard. Oh, yeah. But I didn't come into my Shrek-ness until college. And then I started getting naked and painting myself like Shrek I got into there it's like I mean and I feel like a lot of our listeners already are familiar with the online Shrek culture that exists yeah you sold Shrek nudes right to raise money for Planned Parenthood I did there's a bunch of my nudes just still out there you know who knows who's got them hard copies why did I do hard

copies yes all hard copies and I snail mailed them wow to people incredible that's when I worked at playboy and I used their nice magazine printers to print my shrek nudes which did feel exciting yeah yeah why did I choose to do hard copies is something that I think about a lot. I think it was I think I was like, oh, this will be harder for people to disseminate it if I don't like email my nudes to them. I think which is true. Yeah. I mean, they've never resurfaced. But I also am haunted by the idea of like these little haunted paintings, you know, like these little cursed naked Jamieies hiding in people's closets because i'm like i don't think that they're on display but what if they are that's

even more bizarre what if people like framed them and hung them up oh they were sent in frames god that was you know 2015 that was pre-vectal cast i don't know there's i i can't vouch i cannot vouch for for her um and what oh and then i i wanted to plug the other big shrek thing i participated in called shrek retold oh yes yeah it's a completely Shrek head fan animated version of the first movie that came out, I think at the end of 2018. Oh, I just, oh, it has over 8 million views on YouTube. Holy cow. But basically like 90 artists were given one minute of Shrek to reproduce.

However, they saw fit and I got, I got to do a minute of it and guess what what they're doing Shrek 2 and I did it again you oh my goodness that's so exciting so long-winded way of saying I love Shrek but I hadn't seen Shrek 2 in also a long time I feel like i really stuck to to one is the classic one is on the afi list of 100 best movies of all time that is wild i'm not shitting you i was like i was like that sounds like a joke but it is i can think of at least 500 movies that are better than shrek one uh you know i you say that and yet shrek one is genuinely a really good movie it was nominated for okay it was what should it have been nominated for best adapted screenplay i don't you know who's to say yeah but i feel like it would i would probably stand for it more if not for all the very dated references in it oh absolutely i mean it's the

the early 2000s energy coming off of both of these shrek movies is um frustrating i just meant like story-wise and message-wise yeah i feel like it has a lot going for it. That's fair. And I like that it was a product of spite, which is always a fun story. Yeah. Mr. Former Disney was like, I'm Mr. Dreamworks now and I hate Disney. So I'm going to make Shrek. And I'm going to get them. He genuinely, I mean, like, make no mistake, we're a thoroughly anti-Jeffrey Katzenberg podcast.

He's currently trying to, like, influence homelessness policy in Los Angeles. He's a fucking loser. So not vouching for him. I just appreciate spite. It can be a beautiful thing. It can. Well, should we dive into Shrek 2, the recap, and go from there? Yeah, we never said what the podcast was.

Oh my gosh, you're right. No, I guess we should. Yeah, this could be someone's first episode. This is a loose one. This is a loose one, baby. It's very loose. Okay, don't expect us to be at our discourse best. We're basically on vacation right now.

Consider us Shrek's butthole. It's loose. It's flapping around it's farting i didn't see it coming i love it honestly me either because i usually don't do like fart humor but there it is you just called shrek's butt loose well is it not i don't think it's tight i don't know i guess i guess i hadn't but i don't know i don't know the? I don't think it's tight. I don't know. I guess I hadn't. But I don't know. I don't know the guy.

I don't know the guy. Have you ever been on Shrek 4D where they release the farts in your face? At Universal Studios? I sure have. Yeah. They changed it to Kung Fu Panda. Oh, and also they're taking Shrek out of Universal Studios. I think that they're like, Shrek is irrelevant.

Isn't that sad? Oh, that is sad. Isn't there a fifth Shrek movie coming out though? Or did that get shelved or something? It better still be coming out. I don't know. I think that they're they're absolute goofs to get rid of. No, Shrek five is still. Oh, yeah, let me I'm googling right now I don't know I don't know it's kind of up in the air it says TBA Eddie Murphy said it was coming out in 2020 he was wrong didn't happen that came and went Eddie Murphy oh god okay there's a screen rant article entitled Shrek 5 everything we know about the movie so far that was published or at least updated July 2021 which was only a few months ago but oh it's too many words to read and you know what we'll never know oh my god I guess I guess time will tell if Shrek 5 ever comes out. I mean, that makes me so sad.

I know. They better. Anyway, the Bechdel cast is our show in which we... That we've been doing for five years that we just forgot how to start. On this show, we examine movies from an intersectional feminist lens. Most movies don't fare very well. We use the Bechdel test simply as an inspiration. We were inspired by the Bechdel test.

And that is where the name comes from. That's where the general premise of the show comes. But if you've been listening for the past five or however many years you know that the show is so much more thanks for staying with us thank you truly especially after that shrek one episode yikes i would have how are you and yeah i would you caitlin's caitlin's silly voices i want to go back now and listen because i'm like what does that even mean wait can you do it can you do the voice can you tell me what the bechdel test is and in the voice absolutely not i will never um but the bechdel test is a media metric created by queer cartoonist allison bechdel sometimes called the bechdel wallace. Our version requires that two people of

a marginalized gender have names and speak to each other about something other than a man for at least two lines of dialogue. And ideally, it's a meaningful, narratively relevant conversation. I did not remember to pay attention if shrek 2 passes the bechdel test or not i believe it's a light pass usually listeners i mean we've been doing this for five years we usually wait till the end of the episode to have this discussion but again it's loose today we're yeah we're shrek's ass today we're loose loose loose no it does pass okay okay so it yeah well we'll talk about it later i guess yeah at the end wait hold on hold on i just went to verify because i think that there is a like single exchange between fiona

and the fairy godmother that passes that isn't about Shrek. And then I think another one between her and her mother. Okay. But it's like, these are two line exchanges. But anyways, I just went to BechdelTest.com to check my work. Beautiful. And the comments are so funny. Okay, so it says that Shrek 2 passed the Bechdel test. Someone named Renee disagreed. And here's her comment. Mentioning Shrek goes against the third criteria of the Bechdel test. I'm like, damn, that's true. It's true.

Damn, that's true. Huh, well, there you have it. Podcast over. So five years, and the answer is we don't really know because we forgot. Sometimes we don't do our job but also the pectal test as we've always said it's a flawed metric and it's not the most important thing when analyzing film well i feel like in this case the fact that it probably like may not pass the pectal test actually it is says a lot about the movie because it's not like this movie is like the pantheon of feminism what uh look we're just partying today we're just chilling okay okay let's take a quick break oh and then we'll come back for the recap because we've just

been yapping our loose buttholes. Flapping our butts. All right, so we'll be right back. What's up, y'all? This is Questlove, and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on with the Story Pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records. It's a family-friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. A podcast for all ages.

One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nimany, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all. Nimany here. I'm the host of a brand-new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records.

Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history. Like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it. I wouldn't give up my seat Nine months before Rosa It was called a moment Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Because in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts

the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Best guess, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself.

Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost. No, I know. I'm so behind.

Katherine Honkin's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I gotta hawk this slalom, Ludi.

Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back we're back wow wow we're actually a mess today this is really funny i wonder if this is where someone's like i'm out i'm out you know what i'm out bear with us okay

we're partying today everybody i come back for discourse next week we're here this is a i was gonna say isn't we supposed to be having a fiesta isn't we supposed to be having a fiesta indeed we we is we is so isn't uh here's Here's the recap for Shrek 2. We open on a fairy tale book telling, similar to the way the first movie opens, telling of the story of a princess who was cursed with an enchantment. So her mother and father, the king and queen, sought the help of a fairy godmother who had the princess locked away in a tower guarded by a dragon to await the kiss of a handsome prince charming then we meet prince charming who's like a kid that john lithgow but just a different character yes why this time voiced by rupert everett and he's taller right but like the same

i don't get it i don't get it also i always forget who rupert everett is and then i look him up and i'm like this didn't help i know that he's been in a lot of stuff, but I don't know who he is and I can't remember. That's okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyway, Prince Charming shows up at the Dragon Guarded Castle, but Princess Fiona isn't there because she is on her honeymoon with Shrek. Now, if you're not familiar with Shrek listeners out there, or you haven't seen the first movie, first of all, get it together. We can't help you.

Secondly, both Shrek and Fiona are ogres, famously. So, okay, so there's this honeymoon montage. There's a Lord of the Rings joke. It's all very 2004. There's some 2004 humor in this that I'm like, I don't even know. I don't remember what the reference is, even. There are, yeah. But then the movie occasionally references things from like the 80s. There's like a flash dance reference toward the end of the movie. Yes.

There's a Little Mermaid reference, which came out in the late 80s. Like like a flash dance reference toward the end of the movie yes there's a little mermaid reference which came out in the late 80s like it's just i feel like that's this is like yeah this is i don't even know if we had the capacity to talk about this in the first track episode but like so much of the humor is like for the parents of the children so if you saw it as a kid and you watch it back as an adult um you still don't know what they're talking about which means that kids who could be our kids don't know what kids do kids still watch shrek 2 and do they know what's going on at all oh if we have any parents whose kids watch shrek 2 currently let us know do they go haha I love the Lord of the Rings joke let us know haha I get the flash dance reference um elementary school students love

a good flash dance reference okay so we get the honeymoon montage then they head back home to shrek's swamp donkey is there i mean and shrek thank god also dragons written out of this one yes okay am i remembering this correctly i think it might be like during or at the end of the ending title sequence you get a shot of like dragon and donkey and they've had babies or is that at the end of the first movie oh they've had like donkey dragon hybrid babies that's a definite thing but i just don't know where you see it i don't think it's this one no but that's but but thank you for introducing that image into my head wow wow wow wow yeah anyway so at some point in the franchise donkey and dragon have mixed babies but yeah dragon is completely written out of this movie and in fact there's a

part where uh they're like hey donkey where's dragon and he's like she's been so moody lately because women be moody. Women be extreme. Right. But that is his whole excuse for, I guess I don't really know. I guess this movie takes place over the course of what, like two weeks? A few weeks. Yeah. That's a long time to be away from your wife on the grounds of she's moody. Especially if she's pregnant, which might explain her mood swings.

Yeah, donkey. Ever think of that? I'm calling him out. Donkey's a bad husband. Seriously. So donkey's there. He's being annoying. Shrek is all like, donkey, go away.

You're bothering me. Classic. We love this dynamic we're always laughing when it's happening tried and true then Fiona and Shrek receive an invitation from her parents the king and queen of the kingdom of far far away for a royal ball in celebration of their marriage and Shrek is reluctant to go but they set off anyway too far far away they finally get there it's basically Los Angeles specifically like Beverly Hills and Shrek is very much a fish out of water he then meets Fiona's human parents who are not happy that Fiona and

her husband are ogres shrek and the king in particular do not get along well because everything is about fathers and sons uh-huh yeah her parents are played by julie andrews and john cleese yes so they really which i also, it doesn't matter because it's Shrek, but I'm like, why are her parents British, but she's American? Oh, wow. I didn't even think of that. I mean, I know that I know that children can have different accents from their parents, but I just don't. I just felt like the story didn't rise to the occasion and give me the answers that I needed to understand why her parents were iconic British people when she's Cameron Diaz. Right because it seems like everyone else in Far Far

Away also has English accents because the fairy godmother, Prince Charming, I think anyone else you hear talking who's like a local has an English accent i wonder how like thought through that was or if it really is like a like specifically american audience thing of like oh well we like the person with the american accent because she sound like us i have to maybe the director is from new zealand so who knows and then you've got canadian mike myers doing a scottish shrek if nothing makes sense that's true i forgot her yeah you know what it's a fairy tale land i just was like wow they really like got the most famous british people who would agree to do the movie right um okay so yeah shrek and the king do not get along which makes fiona sad and it puts some

strain on her relationship with shrek she sheds a tear which seems to summon fiona's fairy godmother who is surprised that fiona is now an ogre and that she has gotten married the reason for this is that fairy godmother is prince charming's mother and fairy godmother and the king had arranged for prince charming to be the one to save Fiona from the tower that she was locked up in kind of a fun plot twist i forgot about that like overlap i was like oh okay so the fairy godmother has narrative purpose that's right you know that's not guaranteed in these in this genre that's true and i mean spoiler alert but you learn that the fairy godmother has leverage over the king because she had turned him from a frog into a human so she keeps like threatening him being like don't forget the deal that i made for you and blah blah blah you owe me so genius

amazing writing the king has to make things right so he hires a hitman to get rid of Shrek. He sure does. I do kind of miss, like, I guess that this still might happen in children's movies. But I'm like, wow, he literally just hired someone to kill Shrek. Someone to murder Shrek. But we don't yet get the reveal of who or what the hitman is. But just you wait it's a great wait i knew what the reveal was and i was still like wow i loved it i loved every second of it same uh meanwhile shrek

and fiona's relationship again is rocky because fiona is upset that shrek is not making an effort to get along with her family so So then the king approaches Shrek and is pretending to want to start over and try to get along for Fiona's sake. So the king has Shrek meet him the following morning, but again, it's actually a trap. And the hitman that the king hired, who is revealed to be Puss in Boots,

voiced by Antonio Bander banderas of course cultural icon puss in boots who also has like way less to do with the story than i remember i don't know why like puss in boots he does stuff but he's also kind of like i feel like it almost becomes a joke of like oh wow now shrek has two sidekicks yeah and that's just kind of what happens i didn't totally remember this either where so he like attacks shrek for a few minutes and then is no match for an ogre so he's not going to be able to kill shrek so then so like but you would think that that information would have been like really important before accepting the job of like what

was good like what was we are we just gonna see shrek kill a cat yeah and then keep walking like the plot is confusing he kills a dog later in the movie remember at the end there's like this little like fluffy white dog that he like just falls on and probably crushes to death i so i thought it was like puss in boots i was i felt like he was underwritten because i was just like well wouldn't it doesn't help the dad to send out an assassin that would just get killed uh-huh and if puss in boots is such a good assassin why wouldn't he ask who he was killing and if he could? He does know that it's an ogre, though, because the king is like, I heard you're the one to come to if I have an ogre problem. And he's like, you heard correct.

So he knows he's up against an ogre. It's just like the raw power of Shrek specifically that he can't overcome. He's like, that butthole's too loose baby I can't right so anyway so wild Puss in Boots attacks them and then it doesn't work and then rather than I didn't know what I would have expected to happen like when I was watching this for the first time but basically then Puss in Boots is like sorry I tried to kill you can I tag along and Shrek is like oh you're so cute sure you can tag along and then like and then that's it that's kind of the intro like I like I don't I'll be honest I don't I'm not familiar with the actual lore of Puss in Boots. Not a character I grew up with.

Yeah, me either. So I really only know Puss in Boots via Shrek 2. Which is more or less just an extended Zorro reference. Right, because Antonia Banderas played Zorro. And so we were like, ha ha, this cat is Zorro. So let's give him $10 million and have him have a little bit of fun so it's it's amazing is what we're saying I mean I wouldn't trade it for the world I just was like oh wow he has less of a story than I I just assumed that there would have been more there

than just like wow look at this Zorro cat haha anyways. So Shrek quickly realizes that the king had hired Puss in Boots to get rid of him. So then he starts to wonder if Fiona would be better off without him. If he was some kind of prince charming, you know, no one seems to want this ogre around. Right. So Shrek gets the idea to call upon the fairy godmother to have her help him so shrek donkey and puss in boots go to the fairy godmother's workshop and steal a happily ever after potion which shrek drinks and donkey also has some it takes effect on them and on fiona okay okay tell me that hot shrek quote unquote doesn't look exactly like wreck it ralph it was throwing me for a loop i felt like he looks so much like wreck it ralph when he's turned into mr shrek I see a slight resemblance, but I don't think it's like uncanny or anything. He looks.

No, they look considerably different. I don't know. I don't know. I think he looks a lot like Rocky Ralph. Also, I felt like, I don't know. I like, I think Shrek's hotter as an ogre. I'll say it. Oh, wow.

I'll say it. Yeah. I mean, beauty. I don don't i don't see external beauty i just beauty is within and that's the message of the movie it just it shrek is more confident in his ogre body you know that's true his and his butthole is so much looser as an ogre and that's the way he likes it you can tell he's not comfortable with where his butthole is at when he is transformed yeah okay so the potion turns shrek into a subjectively handsome human man donkey is turned into a stallion and then they discover that to make the effects of the potion permanent the drinker

has to obtain true love's kiss by midnight so shrek heads back to the castle to find fiona who has also been transformed back into her human form but oh no fairy godmother and prince charming are already there and they trick fiona into thinking that Prince Charming is the new and improved Shrek. And Shrek is convinced that there's no way that he can make Fiona happy. He thinks that Prince Charming is the man she's always wanted. So Shrek decides to leave. Again, the plot is so weird here because it's like first of all Shrek and Fiona really need to like hit up a couple's therapist and work on their communication because the plot of but like

at least the first movie it's like a big thing that they can't talk about but this is like a small miscommunication that gets taken way out of context and like i was just trying to imagine like imagine if someone you had just married read your journal from junior high and was like she hates me and it's like what are you talking about first of all that was what that was a very upsetting journal for not the reasons that you thought for like all the descriptions of her parents gaslighting her right and then it's just so like juvenile to be like oh you didn't love me when you were 12 it's like she didn't fucking know you and she was 12 right what are you talking about most of my notes about this movie are about his conduct in the first like 20 or 25 minutes or so and like their relationship and like

the way that fiona is characterized the way that shrek is characterized and like the way they behave in this relationship i'm just like whoo get it together i know i feel i i feel for fiona and then it's like there's that moment too too, where it seems like Fiona is going to become involved in the action. And then she just doesn't. You're like, oh. Right. Thank you. Okay.

So Shrek has left. But Fiona is not warming up to Prince Charming. She's like, this isn't the shrek i married so fairy godmother gives gives the king some potion to give to fiona to make her fall in love with charming like if they the first man she kisses she'll fall in love with him which is an interaction this like exchange of the potion is an interaction which shrek overhears because they've all met up at this tavern so shrek realizes what's happening and he takes off and heads back to the castle to the ball in order to get fiona back but on the way they get arrested which plays out on screen in this like cops like tv show that was the whole and there's

like a police brutality joke from donkey that i was like this no no this is not the venue to have this discussion no and this show this tv show yeah that like that felt like i don't know i mean i'm interested what listeners thought of that because i was like this seems like an inappropriate joke to be making and also the fact that it was being made in 2004 in a children's movie is like also interesting i don't know i don't know how to feel about it and then the gingerbread man loves the show cops and it's like okay you with your like cop why yeah why does it why is the gingerbread man telling me blue lives matter like what's going on right but so shrek's friends back at his swamp are watching this show so it's like gingy the big bad wolf pinocchio the three

little pigs etc so they realize that it's like shrek and donkey and puss in boots who have been detained so then they somehow very quickly within the span of a few minutes to hours are able to get to uh far far away even though we saw it took shrek and fiona days to get there so plot hole much uh yeah a loose plot hole not unlike shrek's loose butthole anyway this was nominated for a look we anyone can be nominated for a Palme d'Or. Gosh, I need to, yeah, I need to write some movies that are better than Shrek 2. Okay, so Shrek's friends show up and bust Shrek, Donkey, and Puss in Boots out of the dungeon prison they're in. But they still need to get to the castle past the security past the big moat all that stuff so they have to go to the muffin man and have him bake a giant gingerbread

man so that they can get into the castle and crash the ball that's happening i never realized how ridiculous of a plot point this was until re-watching it this time around that like their amazing idea of getting into the castle is to bake a giant gingerbread man it was i thought it was hilarious in 2004 i mean flawless writing let's go to can let's do it so then as shrek is getting into the castle prince charming is dancing with and trying to kiss fiona at the ball and then shrek bursts in and then fairy godmother tries to stop him but she gets turned into a bunch of bubbles and it's now it's almost midnight so shrek and fiona have to decide everything's happening at once like if nothing is happening and yet everything i mean this climax wowie wow i mean so yeah the clock

is ticking down it's almost midnight so shrek and fiona have to decide if they want to kiss now and stay humans or wait and then transform back into their ogre selves and fiona is like i want to live happily ever after with the ogre i married so we're rid we're literally returned to one at the end of the movie and it's like why did this movie even happen who has grown what do we we've met john cleese and forgiven him for some reason. For some reason, yeah. So then the clock ticks midnight. They transform back to ogres. They kiss.

And then Donkey and Puss in Boots sing Live in La Vida Loca. And that's the end of the movie. They sure do. Also, now as an adult, I can appreciate how the music at the end of Shrek clearly happens to get it to be feature length. This movie is 81 minutes long, but if you add all of the musical numbers at the end, it's about 90 minutes long. Incredible. I mean, I love a short film, so no complaints here. This is basically a short film. Let's take a quick break and then we will come right back to discuss. So, y'all, this is Questlove and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on with the Story Pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records.

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Are you ready for an explosive new podcast that brings together hip-hop and history? My name is Nimany, and I'm the host of Historical Records, a brand new podcast for kids and families that proves in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Flash, slam, another one gone. Bash, bam, another one gone. The crack of the bat and another one gone. The tip of the cap is another one gone. And the best part? I make this show entirely by myself. Impressive, right? Okay, okay. Maybe I get a little bit of help from my sidekick, Tina the Raccoon. Every week on Historical Records, join me, Nimini, and Tina the Raccoon as we learn about the unsung heroes of the past and turn their history into hip-hop.

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I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum.

Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Welcome back to our fifth anniversary party. Woo! Let's discuss. I mean, there's a lot of extremely dated, hateful humor in this movie we we already touched on this movie's very bizarre attempt to reference how there's police brutality glorified in cop shows there is a continuous

joke about the wolf that goes across this entire franchise that is repeatedly i've been punching down at trans people and like the wolf is referred to as gender confused there's like all of these just very flippant ways of referring to the wolf and it's clear the way that the movie is written and the way the character is posed that you're laughing at yeah i would say this extends to a few other characters as well this movie has a real problem with any person or creature or animal or whatever who doesn't adhere to a like very rigid binary prescribed gender norm because any like literally any expression of gender that is not rigidly binary is commented on aggressively down to even like prince charming wearing glitter like what yeah yeah yeah there There's that. There's like the ugly stepsister character. There's the Pinocchio, the joke where they're trying to get his nose to grow. So they tell him to say, I'm wearing ladies underwear. like, oh my gosh, isn't that so funny and weird and ha ha ha. And a children's movie too is like makes it extra insidious of how normalized punishing and mocking any form of not very rigid, rigid, rigid gender expression was at this time yeah to the point

where it could appear in a children's movie no problem and um i'm assuming in 2004 got very little blowback because that was just so deeply normalized and to an extent still is very, very normalized in mainstream movies. Totally. There was also, I mean, I think that similar jokes are made about the wolf in the first movie. And also because I am a connoisseur of Shrek the musical, they had to take a line of the wolf's dialogue out of the musical because it included a transphobic slur yikes so this franchise has some severe issues that i feel like are very reflective of the time it was and also reflective of like again who is in the room and who is at the top creatively and like this 2000s era edgy edgy humor that was all dictated by like vast majority cis people um mostly white people

and mostly guys yeah so yeah this this movie is um co-directed by three people all white guys so there you go woof woof yeah that's what that dog said when shrek killed it yeah so um that was the main thing i noticed as far as like again we talk about this a lot in terms of American comedy movies specifically and their reliance on punching down as a source of comedy, especially in this era. It was like at the kind of height of that things have been changing slightly in more recent years. But this was like the prime time to be doing like punch down humor and yeah this is no exception even though and i think we've talked about this too where children's family movies are not as frequently perpetuators or participants in this type of humor because a lot of that type of humor is also would be like maybe more like pg-13 or r rated right so

they can't really get away with it in a lot of cases but this movie found a way to make repeated transphobic jokes at the expense of multiple characters in a movie that's rated pg or whatever right like it's it's which again just like shows I mean god we could discuss movie ratings all goddamn day but like what is considered to be harmful slash offensive and then who is the person deciding that that's a whole other discussion but yeah this is like so deeply 2004 and I feel like that's reflected in a lot of the more uh attempted jokes that are simply just punching down yep yeah that sticks out terribly terribly and then on top of that the story's just like confusing gosh um yeah i want to talk about shrek i mean let's talk about shrek

let's talk about shrek's behavior in his relationship and then also like the way fiona is characterized in that relationship as well and that whole thing because so first well the first like five minutes of the movie are letting you know that shrek fucks where it's just like all these times he's like trying to have sex with his wife and it's just like why why fine i know and also i'm just like wow i god it really hit when it's like i just was like wow this whole musical opening montage is about shrek trying to loosen his butthole and have some fun and then right after that when they like get back from their honeymoon like the honeymoon phase is literally over then their relationship. Okay. So basically what happens is they get this invitation to visit Fiona's parents. And Shrek is like, your family seems really pretentious.

We're not going. And that's final. And then what ensues after that is, to me, the movie subscribing to this idea that, like, my wife is the old ball and chain whatever she says goes and i'm just like it's her world and i'm living in it kind of thing right where he's like we're not going and that's final and then we cut to them packing up and leaving because apparently off screen there was a scene in which fiona fought to get her way you know as if to say like women and you know his wives are unwilling to compromise and you know they're you got to do what they say you know and you're you just have to accept the fact that you're quote unquote whipped

all that kind of stuff yeah so that's those were the vibes i was getting from all of that agree meanwhile shrek is being an absolute asshole in these scenes where he's like making assumptions about her family and saying like oh i don't even want to be a part of this family so you know he he doesn't want to make any compromises or anything like that. But it's Fiona who is the one who is being presented as unreasonable because she especially because like Shrek turns out to be right in this situation because his assumptions about her family end up being correct. And, you know, he keeps saying this is a bad idea and he turns out to be right. So it makes Fiona look like she doesn't really know what she's talking about or that like she's being unreasonable. Which is really frustrating because it's like the Fiona character. I mean, I didn't rewatch Shrek 1 for this and that's on me but like I do feel like the Fiona character like she's a especially for a like princess character that's supposed to be commenting on other princess characters I feel

like in the first movie she's that's done pretty effectively and she's a very motivated character she participates in a lot of the action like it seems to like successfully subvert where this movie just doesn't seem to as much which is frustrating because it there's I think a lot of interesting stuff set up for Fiona but then either it's dropped or like Shrek resolves the conflict instead of her resolving her own conflict and so then it just sort of plays into the princess tropes that the character was written to subvert of like, well, she needs her husband, her hero to resolve her childhood trauma question mark. interesting concept for a kids movie that feels like it fits in the world which is like that fiona really wants to maintain a relationship with her parents even though it's clear that her parents have gaslit and abused her in the past and she she like wants to find a way to

you know remain in their lives and have her husband get along with them and like i don't know i was like wow this is a very adult issue to be working through you know, remain in their lives and have her husband get along with them. And like, I don't know, I was like, wow, this is a very adult issue to be working through, you know, like, but she doesn't really get the opportunity to explore that at all. Like she's just told by other people and things start happening to her. And then I feel like the Fiona from the first movie is kind of like, especially by the point that she's being shown a different guy. And she's like, I don't know, is this Shrek or not? I'm like, you're Fiona. Like, I feel like Princess Fiona would know, you know, like and would get into a fight about it.

Not be like, I'm confused. Not like go along with it and be like, uh something's not right here but i am not gonna do anything about it and i'm just gonna keep and then like forgive her parents for a world of trauma at the very last second of the movie where you're just like uh huh what yeah yeah it's just like i i was so i didn't realize what a princess fiona stan i was until i re-watched this movie and i was like wow everything that like is cool about her she she doesn't really get to like do in this movie she doesn't get to really participate in any action i feel like we're told that her trauma is resolved but we don't understand why and like right it's just like her dad being like my bad that i was going to literally murder your husband like that's not a

like no you don't just bounce back from that sorry i forcibly incarcerated you for your entire childhood and then tried to murder your husband the second you found happiness whoops like and then and then she's like it's okay i love you like i was like oh man not to mention force her into a marriage that she was like probably not going to want to be in or consent to because like again he had arranged with the fairy godmother for prince charming to come and like sweep fiona off her feet so like yeah the king is awful she should honestly i mean forgiveness is complicated but if it were me i would not forgive the king if he was my dad well that's yeah forgiveness is complicated but i feel like in a movie like this it would

have been kind of cool to see princess fiona be like i don't trust you motherfuckers like because i just feel like that's a message you never get like especially in family films you're always told like your family is your family no matter what, which is like not a universally applicable message for a lot of people who have difficult relationships with their families. And Fiona is such an independent character that it would have been nice to either see like her family really make amends with her

in a way that wasn't just completely bullshit end of movie stuff, or maybe some ambiguous like i don't know like you'll have to earn my trust back or i feel like the real badass choice would have been like you know what i found true happiness in spite of you i don't need you in my life me and shrek are going to couples counseling at the swamp like that's that's the ending i wanted for shrek 2 because also shrek is like being a real dipshit and yeah you know that's yeah i know that's the problem too where so after we get those few scenes that are basically there to communicate fiona is this like kind of naggy

like i'm gonna get my way because what I say goes because I'm an unreasonable his wife character. After that, they arrive at the castle and there's a scene after the dinner scene where Fiona does seem to be acting more like the Princess Fiona we know and love where she's like calling Shrek out on his behavior. Like, I can't believe how you are behaving. No one is considering what I might want in this situation. She tells him he's behaving like an ogre, even though I would argue that like Fiona's expectations are similarly kind of uncompromising

and a little unreasonable. I agree. I agree. But then when she said like well but i don't know yeah they're both kind of i was like wow this is actually this is this is the marriage story i want to see shrek and fiona marriage story um but then i yeah because i was kind of conflicted about that because i was like well i don't think that it's like unreasonable that shrek is like no i don't want to meet these people and get along with them. They like imprisoned you. I don't like them. I don't like that.

Like, I think for a spouse, that is actually maybe a good attitude to have. Yeah, he's advocating for her in a way that I'm like, I'm fine with that. And then also, you know, like Shrek's baggage is not that phrase. Shrek's baggage emotionally is that he was like aggressively rejected from society for a really long time. So, of course, going to the highest, fanciest levels of the society that rejected him for his whole life is going to bring up a lot of shit for him like i get why he doesn't want to go for multiple reasons that's why i was like i was kind of joking about the get out thing but like that like i was legitimately reminded of that where there's like a scene in the beginning of that movie where chris is like i'm having hesitations about being a black man going to your like rich

white family obviously it's not the same as like you know whatever in Shrek but like there there is like a like a class difference thing there's a cultural difference thing like Shrek has every reason to be really concerned about the way that he is likely to be treated by this like royal family of like, right, who are again, like the ruling class and the people who are generally responsible for marginalizing ogres like Shrek, and Fiona, like will not hear about it. And it's just like, you need to listen. But then I also like, I it and it's just like you need to listen but then i also like i'd like i think that fiona does need to listen and also think that her refusing to hear him on that is like a trauma response on her end because she can't believe that her parents are bad and she

like that's why i was like god this is such a rich story and it's like wild that they just drop it because i do feel like i agree with you that like shrek is absolutely right to have you know issues with going to them and to go in with zero trust in these people because of all the reasons you just described and then also it's like fiona i feel like there's a part of her that knows that but also like that kind of thing that you have with in any difficult relationship where you're like well if i admit that they were wrong to do this this is just going to unravel something and i'm not going to be able to have a relationship with them anymore because all the fucked up stuff is going to start bubbling to the surface or that's how i sort of felt like fiona was coming from at least at the beginning of the movie before her motivations became increasingly confusing and less relevant to the story but yeah it just felt

like she's like well I can't like if I admit that my parents were wrong to lock me in a tower and wrong to like judge me for being an ogre at night question mark then i will have to admit all this other stuff and i'm not ready because i want to have a relationship with them so it's just like they're so like their stuff is so at odds i yeah and then they just like don't really explore it and i don't disagree with the story choice that like shrek is absolutely right like i'm glad that the story didn't take the choice of like and Shrek just misjudged the ruling class they were actually really cool like right that at least it's not that like he's proven right right away when they get there and once again Shrek is

rejected which is his you know worst fear and also what he said was going to happen. And they reject Fiona, which also hurts them both. And yeah, oh God. Yeah, Fiona's having like a denial issue in this movie. And Shrek is having a protagonist syndrome issue in this movie. There are just so many layers, much like ogres have layers onions have layers the story has layers i always appreciate their onion carriage i think that's funny oh yeah but yeah the movie doesn't feel equipped to like handle all the things that it's presenting uh no but i thought a very interesting setup to to. Yeah. I mean, those are two very specific

outlooks on the situation, both of which in character, I see why they feel the ways that they do. But then it just goes nowhere. It goes nowhere. And yeah, again, the way because it doesn't explore it fully enough. It just makes Fiona seem unreasonable and like unwilling to compromise and it makes Shrek seem I don't know just like an asshole and then so there's like that the dinner scene where like Shrek and the king are arguing with each other in that scene basically what happens like after the first half hour of the movie is that fiona is relegated to a his wife type character where all she's doing is just sort of being like shrek stop it come on stop it shrek which kind of starts in this dinner scene where both of his wives are just like, Harold, stop. Shrek, stop.

And then for the rest of the movie, Fiona is just like, yeah, not really participating in the narrative. And every scene she's in after that, she's just like, Dad, what's going on? Where's my husband the most annoying thing too is like she almost sets off to go find Shrek but then the plot stops her from doing that right yeah it's like raining and she's like I guess never mind right I was like wait why are you throwing this in my face right now this stinks and then I feel like i mean there's not much to say about the queen character but she's given not like nothing to do except to be like harold what's going on right something seems amiss but what is it i'll ask my husband who's clearly the reason things are going

wrong she literally doesn't know that her husband's a frog she's just out of it man and then like the fairy godmother i think the fairy godmother i thought was like a pretty effective villain i liked that at least she was like i don't know i mean it is all kind of connected to being a mother but yeah which is not my favorite but i do appreciate the the onion layers that that character is given of like she shows up with an agenda she's she's literally like girl boss villain like she wants power she's blackmailing rich guys and you're like well yeah you know it's not right but it's interesting to watch she's a female business owner she's a small business owner so go off queen um yeah i i was on the surface i was

like oh that's pretty cool that there's a female villain especially in a i think we've talked about this before but um i've noticed a trend in movies where if the villain is a woman chances are the protagonist is also a woman and it's rare to see a female villain with a male protagonist because I think the idea that a lot of like writers and storytellers assume is that oh a woman wouldn't be a formidable opponent to a man. A woman would only be a formidable opponent to another woman. And I feel like this is especially true in fairy tale narratives where there are a lot of like Disney female villains. You've got your, you know, the witch from Snow White, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, Ursula from Little Mermaid,

but those are all movies with female protagonists as well. And I think it's kind of rare to see a movie with a villain who's a woman and a protagonist who is a man. So for this movie, I was like, okay, damn, we get a subversion of that. So I was like, okay, that's cool. But then I started to think about fairy godmother's motivation and you like hinted at this but it is very much revolving around her son where she's just like i want my son to be king or something but not because she wants power it's just that like she just like wants to elevate the status of her son and everything she's doing is like for her son. Oh, I guess I sort of I sort of assumed maybe I'm giving the story too much credit.

I sort of assumed that she did want an elevated status and she did want power and like. But she never says that. So. Right. I just sort of assumed because her son was so like doofy that like and so like clearly not equipped to be king that and she was so motivated and capable that it was gonna that it was almost like an arrangement of I guess I was really headcanoning this but I was like oh well you know he'll become king and then she'll tell him what to do and that's how she'll get the power that she wants to have and that was I think I've just been watching succession too much because I was like well clearly there's a chess game going on here but uh maybe I'm reading into

it too much I mean yeah that would have tracked if she was like I want more power and the way I'm going to get it is by orchestrating this thing where my I can gain access to power via my son and if that was like something she clearly articulated that would have completely tracked for me right but she doesn't ever explicitly say that so she doesn't say no yeah i was literally just i just watched i just watched succession for the first time and i was just like yep there's i get i know exactly what's going on here i get it i understand Rich people are so fucked up. Truly.

Okay. So, I mean, I guess if you view, I guess listeners, what did you think? Was she just being mommy or was she going to be like roundabout queen? Because the far, far away does appear to still be a deeply patriarchal structure. So it does seem like the sort of thing she would have to work around in order to accomplish the power she may or may not have wanted. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Anyways, so she has more interesting things going on than Fiona in this movie, which sucks. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, gosh. She's really like neutralized in the middle of the movie in a way that it made me so bummed out and then you see her like sad youth gaslighting journal and shrek is like jealous of her crush for when she was 12 prince charming i was like shrek you're not emotionally intelligent period and like that's just such a huge invasion of privacy that i'm like

so much of what shrek does in those first like i don't know 25 minutes i'm just like dude you need to really work on yourself like you need couples counseling you need individual counseling like problematic you're you're so insecure and but you're refusing to work on yourself he really does weaponize his insecurity against the people he loves doesn't he he sure does god shrek shrek is deeply insecure and that is why we love him but also it's like um you have to you have to improve shrek i think that you know I'll say it I'm gonna say something that's very controversial I think Shrek and Fiona should have dated longer okay I think they should have gotten to know each other better hang on I'm not saying that they couldn't live together I'm not saying that they couldn't be in love I'm just saying I mean they got married very quickly and

the and the strain on the relationship starts to show right after the honeymoon I mean, they got married very quickly. And the strain on the relationship starts to show right after the honeymoon. I mean, come on. Anyways. Do they get married? They get married at the end of the first movie, right? After only knowing each other for a few days? Yes. Is that correct?

Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I mean, like, that's true love canon. But it's also like, but Shrek 2 shows the consequences of true love canon, which is that you don't realize that your husband is so insecure that he's ruining your life. So I don't know. I did appreciate like that in the moments that Fiona does get to advocate for herself. I do.

I generally liked those moments where Shrek is being it's so complicated because it's like he is right that her family sucks and that they don't have her best interests at heart but the way he expresses that is very is a very selfish not empathetic towards his new wife way yeah so it's like his communication is bad. But, and then, and then when Fiona is just like, well, Shrek,

I don't think you have like really considered how much I've changed my life to be with you. And I'm like, damn, she's right. She's right. She's right. Damn it. What a complicated relationship.

This is truly marriage story. Scenes from a marriage, more like the shrek franchise okay jamie wowie wow i know we're breaking this wide open i wish that shrek kissed fiona's armpit like they do in that show i haven't even seen the show i just know that os Oscar Isaac kisses Jessica Chastain's armpit. Yeah. That's all I need to know. I'll watch that scene. I don't get anything about what's happening there. But yeah, Shrek and Fiona's relationship crumbles, which like provides the impetus for why Shrek does everything he does in the movie, which I guess like lends a discussion

about the theme of the movie or like, you know, the message, the moral of the story kind of thing, which is, you know, something I appreciate. Again, I think the first movie handled it more effectively, but the message of don't judge someone by their exterior appearance or you know draw conclusions about them

just because they're an ogre right what happens in this movie does communicate that message to some degree but again i feel like it gets a little muddled and and also it's just in a, in like a common theme throughout a franchise you know being something that like ties the franchise together but yeah when you just sort of this movie doesn't like it doesn't like build on that message and it doesn't even communicate that message as effectively as the first movie did and so it just feels like they just tried to do the same thing again which is like a bummer because it's like shrek has so many lessons to communicate to the world you know i mean it there is room for it there yeah the premise is ripe for a lot of like meaningful conversation and commentary on that and the story that's set

up here is like actually genuinely pretty interesting like the conflict between Shrek and Fiona like but then they just don't really I thought that this movie could have like gone in a lot of different directions that would have been more interesting if like you know this first the first movie is very much about Shrek's journey and the second movie could have really focused of different directions that would have been more interesting of like you know this first the first movie is very much about shrek's journey and the second movie could have really focused on like fiona trying to figure out how she fits in the world because keep in mind she just got out of a tower like less than two months ago when this all takes place she's like still you know i know that it's like we don't want to like extremely

harp on trauma in this children's movie but it's like this could have been a cool way to explore her character and the fact that you know if this movie wants to be as like bringing contemporary themes and ideas to fairy tales as it says it wants to be then like let's examine the idea of her being like a prisoner of her royal family parents immediately going into a wife role and like being transferred from one controlling force to another controlling force and like let's have her like figure herself out a little like i just feel like yeah i guess i'm just a princess fiona stan but i'm just like there's so much with this character that would be more interesting to explore than repeating the message of the first movie in a less effective way also the movie could have explored her identity as a full-time ogre now because prior to this she had she lives half of her life as a human and half as an ogre and then decides to become a full time ogre. And like, what does that mean for her new identity in her life now? Like there's, yeah, there's so many other things are just like other directions the movie could have taken to examine these interesting things that it just doesn't really do.

Yeah, it feels like a wasted opportunity. However, when you think about it, was the song Accidentally in Love nominated for an Oscar? And the answer is yes. Really? Yes, Counting Crows, Oscar nominated band, the Counting Crows. Oscar-nominated band, The Counting Crows. Did they? Was that an original song written for this movie? Oh, yeah.

It had to have been, right? If it got nominated for an Oscar. Yeah. Wow. They really handed The Counting Crows a golden opportunity that The Counting Crows, to their credit, did not waste. Because that's a bop. It's good.

Who did they lose to? Who did they lose to? Who did they lose to? So Shrek was nominated. Shrek 2. Shrek 1 was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature and won. Okay, yeah. Shrek 2 was nominated and lost to The Incredibles, which is a much better movie. And that makes sense.

Yes. Who did Counting crows lose do i feel like the oscar for like original song whoever wins i'm always like huh it's like so many shitty songs okay let's see i agree there's it was a song from a movie called the motorcycle diaries oh that i haven't seen al otro ladoado del Rio is the name of the song. Is The Motorcycle Diaries good? What is it? Yes, it is.

It's Gail Garcia Brunel, my crush. Your crush. So of course you've seen it. It's a biopic about early Che Guevara. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Wait, that sounds way better than Shrek 2. It's a very good movie.

And again, Gail is in it and he's hot. Not that that's important, which is what we learned from Shrek. Yeah, I was like, don't you fly in the face of the message of Shrek here. Be careful. Watch yourself. Yeah. Well, I just wanted to let everyone know that yes the counting crows are an oscar nominated that's musical group hilarious good for them i love that for them

do you have any other thoughts about the film shrek 2 i really don't think that i do i think that you know there was a lot more to talk about than i than i thought there would be uh as usual and i realized that i um i i feel like fiona because isn't like shrek three like shrek three fiona has to have 500 babies fiona gets pregnant with a million gregs and shrags they have shrags all her shrags hatch oh my god that's the funniest thing i've ever heard um yeah that i haven't seen i've only seen Shrek 3 once, and it was a long time ago. And then I never saw Shrek 4. I feel like Fiona, for a character that starts really strong, is forced into a series of very binary, boring roles.

True. As the franchise goes on. And that's my final thought. Not nice to her. puss in boots get its own oh my gosh yeah puss in boots has a spinoff and tv series there's also something called wait puss in boots the last wish which is checks are clearing. You know, good for him. I cannot believe it. Oh, yeah. And then the TV series. My friend worked on the Puss in Boots Netflix series. It sounds like it was fun. Wow. Amazing story, Jamie. Thank you. fun okay wow amazing story jamie thank you um does the movie pass the bechdel test we think it

does but only a very few i'm gonna say in context i'm gonna say no yeah i don't because even if it does pass it's a barely pass and i don't think that the themes of the movie make it worth arguing for a potential pass i'll say no yeah i think by our standards no because the few conversations i do remember between women either fiona and her mother or fiona and the fairy godmother the subtext is still something about a man yeah i yeah let's just say no let's say no it's been five years we're authorities no we're the experts yeah yeah as far as our nipple scale goes on a scale of zero to five nipples how well does the movie fare when examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I don't remember exactly what each of us gave the first movie.

I gave it one nipple. I'm giving Shrek 2 a half nipple. It went down. It got worse. Between the awful jokes made at the expense of anyone who doesn't fit a very like cisgender gender binary quote-unquote prescribed norm yes all of those jokes are horrendous the way that the women in the movie are generally not meaningfully included except for the villain the fact that like the villain is a more active character than fiona is ridiculous the way that there are just

you know certain stereotypes at play with the way fiona is characterized as a like his wife ball and chain quote unquote type of character it's just yeah it's it's all a mess donkey saying that his wife is moody come on and then we don't even get to see her yeah no dragon I forgot about how that is also unjust. Wait, I swear to goodness that there's like a post-credit scene. Was it in or the hell is it? See, maybe I didn't watch post. Maybe I didn't treat this enough like a Marvel movie. And I stopped watching when I thought the movie was over.

Oh, wait. Yeah, here it is. Hang on. It's like kind of after the first batch of credits oh my god i'm watching this on hulu brave yep yep yep yep this is a real thing wow dragon shows up i didn't see that the ball after everyone's gone home and she has all of her dragon donkey babies sheesh okay well this does happen i knew i wasn't imagining good we just needed to get one more extremely normative thing in before the before we could go home

jeez louise oh good grief so who are you gonna give your half nipple to my half nipple goes to puss and boots because i think puss and boots is the reason i loved this movie in 2004 you're not alone there all right i guess i'll i'll meet you there i'll give it a half nipple i i feel like i mean for all the same reasons the the jokes that are at the expense of marginalized communities in a children's movie, that is always going to absolutely piss me the fuck off because it just like it feels like even, you know, more harmful than when they appear in movies for adults. Because it's just like, you know, creating transphobia at a very ground level for people with very squishy brains. And yeah, you can't, you can't do that. Yeah. And then, you know, just the general like kind of undermining what was fun about the

first movie by sidelining women and just being like, yeah, first you're in jail and then you're in wife. Like this pipeline, I don't love. So yeah, I'll do a half nipple and I'm going to give it to the boot. You gave it to puss in boots. I'm giving it to the boot. Oh, okay.

Yeah, I gave mine to- Das boot. Mine went to puss and yours went to boot. To boot. So now, you know, cats famously have how many nipples is it well let me draw back to my cat facts knowledge i believe it's eight nipples well this one only has one and half of it belongs to his boot bummer sorry puss yikesikes. You know, maybe next time, maybe next movie. Welp. Well, there you go.

There you go. Happy anniversary, Caitlin. Oh my gosh, Jamie, a happy anniversary to you. I love doing this show with you. I love how much, how we've grown and we're constantly learning and, you know, and knocking out bangers of episodes, if I may say so myself. Not us knocking out bangers. No, but truly, I love doing the show with you. I love you.

I love you, too. Let's do 50 more years. Okay. Yeah, someday we're going to be like, it's been 84 years okay it's been yeah someday we're gonna be like it's been 84 years it's been 84 years and i can still smell the fresh pod the microphones had never been used the zoom had never been logged in we could keep going Bechtelcast was the podcast of dreams and it was it really was beginning around 2019 um we I I love you I love doing this show here's to 500 more years we'll do Shrek 3 for our 10-year anniversary wow wow I'll hold you to that well let's see if the if the world the integrity of the the

planet we live on lasts that long can't wait and thank you to our listeners for five years of incredible memories yeah we wouldn't have continued to release episodes of the show if no one was listening to them. So truly, we owe you a debt of gratitude, listeners. Thank you so much. Whether this is your first episode or whether you've been with us from episode one or you came somewhere in the middle. Or whether you hated this so much that this is your last episode and you're out of here. You know what?

The spectrum is vast. But truly, thank you for listening. We wouldn't be doing the show without you. Thank you for helping us learn and grow. That didn't happen in a vacuum. So our listeners have been a major part of why the show, you know, keeps improving and the reason that we keep wanting to do it. So, and thank you to everyone who helps make the show. Thank you to Sophie. Thank you to Aristotle.

Thank you to Jack. Thanks to all of our wonderful friends and collaborators and to all of our guests. And truly, you know, it sounds like we're accepting your award and a reward an award we're not we've never we're the counting crows we famously never won an award yeah yeah we're just like the counting crows

it's an honor to be nominated as I'm sure the Counting Crows have aggressively said many times. Oh, goodness. All right. Bye. Bye-bye. Hey, y'all. Niminy here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records.

Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting

your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.