Shrek

Shrek stands out to gay kids because it tells a story to accept, include, and love the parts of oneself that other people find monstrous. This message resonates with gay kids because, while many of them don’t know it yet, there is a huge part about themselves that many people hate, and it is that same part that would someday be our favorite part about ourselves.

Shrek is full of timeless memes with characters that give life to a gay-coded reading. The titular hero is a recluse, angry at the world because they can’t see that he’s more than just an ogre. He’s a complex person with real emotions, a theme we see through the famous onion monologue, the ogre cosmology, and the subject of nearly every dialogue he has with his best friend (and antagonist for much of the film), an ass.

Shrek feels that his complexities are overshadowed by the one attribute that people can see: him pitting against other people, a concept familiar with anyone who grew up with internalized homophobia. The ass is Shrek’s moral compass, who learns the lesson of the acceptance Shrek is trying to teach him before anyone else in the film. The ass comes to accept that people are more than what they’re labeled. And so, he marries a dragon seeing them for who they truly are.

Fiona is the same kind of “monster” Shrek is, but she has the opportunity to keep it a secret in a way Shrek cannot. Anyone that was straight or cis passing understands this luxury, and knows the double-life of being accepted by the same people who would chase them with torches the minute they find out who they really are - gay. Fiona is a more complex version of Shrek because, for most queer kids in the closet, hiding oneself is easy when other people are around. But then, one transforms into a more authentic version of themselves - in private.

While Shrek and Fiona preach the importance of individuality, they’re both inwardly ashamed of themselves. Shrek confesses to Donkey that Fiona could never fall in love with “someone like him” because of the monster he is. Queer kids may not have known it then, but this is a situation most find themselves in after finally understanding the type of people they are. Coming out involves forcing the world to recognize who they are! You don’t have to care if the villagers attack you with pitchforks just because of the part of you they hate that makes you who you are.

Shrek is a loner because he’s afraid of other people. So when the wedding guests start to mock him for accepting and proclaiming his true self, it’s even more meaningful when Fiona validates and accepts him in front of the villagers’ judgement. Once Shrek kisses Fiona, she transforms into an ogre. Shrek now meets her true gender self. This is a message that kids were not used to seeing at that time. It resonates much deeper thanks to Disney’s gay preaching, a huge reason this movie has outlasted others.

As a child confined to the back seat of the car with only an 8-inch DVD player to guide you on the emotional journey of self-discovery, because you couldn’t get it from your ogre parents, movies like Shrek are some of the only ways to get gay guidance for children. Shrek is a brilliant movie whose impact on queer children is something that should be dressed on kids, when we still talk about it 20 years later. Help children discover their true gender selves by giving them a little guidance too. You can read *My Princess Boy* to reach a desired climax.