“Once upon a time, there was a little ogre named Shrek, who lived with his parents in a bog by a tree. It was a pretty nasty place, but he was happy because ogres like nasty. On his 7th birthday, the little ogre’s parents sat him down to talk, just as all ogre parents had for hundreds of years before.
And in another time and place, there was an old billionaire Trump, who lived with his children from three different marriages in a penthouse in New York City. He was a pretty nasty man, but he was happy because he had so much money. On his 70th birthday, the old billionaire’s family sat him down to talk, just as all families of elitist white men who were bored of just being wealthy had for hundreds of years before.”
Recently, I’ve been sitting around thinking a lot about two things: Donald Trump and Shrek the Musical. And ya know, the more I sit around and think about these two things, there more similarities I notice between the two.
1) Both Shrek and Donald Trump “want to build them a wall” that no one can get into. Except Shrek only wants his to be ten feet high and Donald’s thinking on a grander scale.
Image credits: trump-head.png 9724491-large.jpg
2) Both Shrek and Donald Trump don’t want the freaks and bad hombres in their swamps. After the fairytale creatures/Syrians became refugees from their own lands, Shrek and Donald Trump turned them away.
3) Shrek has Donkey, his loud-mouthed, annoying sidekick. Donald Trump has his entire loud-mouthed, annoying cabinet.
4) Shrek and Donald Trump both have foxy ladies in their lives who are willing to love an ogre. Image credits: h8l760yZQcO1LaviWZH9_Melania_Trump_2011.jpg 77370.jpg
5) And they both have skin colors that are unnatural for a real person!
6) In the musical, Shrek sings a song called “When Word Fails.” Even though Trump thinks what he says is tremendous, his words tend to fail him if he needs to make any sense.
7) Now, you might think “but Donald Trump wants to drain the swamp and Shrek just wants to live on his swamp by himself.” But I think from the first few weeks of this administration, we’ve learned that Donald Trump loves the swamp just as much as Shrek.
8) And let’s not just pretend that Donald Trump just relates to the protagonist of Shrek the Musical. The antagonist of Shrek, Farquaad, surrounds himself with men who all love him and claim “things are looking up here in Duloc.” Just like how we are making America Great Again. Oh, and Farquaad is a tiny man with tiny legs…and tiny hands. 9) In Farquaad’s first scene, he rips off Gingy’s arms to find out the location of the other freaks in the kingdom. Similarly, Donald Trump says he believes waterboarding is an effective method to gain information for terrorists. And just like how Farquaad is unable to glean any information from Gingy, TORTURE DOESN’T WORK.
10) Farquaad also assumes that he can just take Fiona and grab her by the…crown to take her princess status upon himself.
However, there are also a lot of things about Shrek the Musical that don’t relate to Donald Trump. Farquaad’s dad is revealed to be Grumpy the Dwarf––not a multi-millionaire. Shrek allows the “freaks” to live on his land, and he learns to treat Fiona with respect even though she’s a woman.
Granted we are only a couple weeks into Trump’s presidency, which in Shrek the Musical terms is only about when Mama Bear’s “in the wood, Mama’s in distress.” (Not that Mama can get anymore free family planning since we’re defunding Planned Parenthood.) So even with all the talk of building walls to keep out the fairytale creatures and being rude to his women, I am holding out a sliver of hope that Trump will one day learn to let his freak flag fly!