![]() ![]() Once upon a time, the most wonderful of all children’s authors, William Steig, brought out, at the age of eighty-three, a book that became the book in many families, including mine, where the boys relished its snarly splendor. “Shrek” is postmodernism for towheads, pastiche for the potty-trained. Maybe seven isn’t too early for irony after all. ![]() The “Shrek” phenomenon is one of those seeming oddities in our culture-children being entertained with derision before they’ve been ravished by awe. The parents may get more of the jokes than the children do, but the kids are being fed non-stop satirical hobbledehoydom, in which past and present, Gothic dungeons and Valley Girl talk, are all jumbled together. Did the girl’s parents read to her from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen? Has she seen “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” or any of the other drippy-beautiful Disney animated features, with their butterflies and wondrous glades and shimmering harp glissandos? DreamWorks must assume that she has, and has no tender feelings for them, because the “Shrek” movies are filled with parodies of the old, honeyed Disney style. ![]() ![]() “The Chronicles of Narnia” and the “Harry Potter” series have discovered their own kind of wonder, but the gang at DreamWorks assumes that its audience lives in an unillusioned media world.īut there’s a mystery here. Then, as the movie began, I realized that a child with a cell phone represents what DreamWorks Animation, the producer of this most lucrative of franchise animated features, envisions its audience to be-tiny, pre-corporate techies who live far from the fairy-tale emotion of enchantment. Even in this culture, seven is too early for irony. PABLO LOBATOĪt a recent preview screening of “Shrek the Third,” I was settling into my seat, enjoying the good sight lines (nothing but pipsqueaks between me and the screen) and the excited anticipation of the children, when a little voice behind me said, “Have to turn off my cell phone now.” The child, a girl, couldn’t have been more than seven. Hollywood in-jokes still proliferate in the latest movie to star the green ogre. ![]()
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