Stephen Thompson

a butt-kicking princess voiced by Cameron Diaz, and a diminutive but treacherous villain named Lord Farquaad voiced by John Lithgow.

But there really are a lot of familiar fairy tale beats.

There's a quest, there's a dragon, there's a princess, there's a love story.

So, Aisha, I'm going to ask you first.

How did you come to Shrek, and what do you think of the movie itself?

Please keep up on the grass, shine your shoes, wipe your face.

Duloc is Duloc.

Wow.

Okay.

So, Serena, distill, if you can, how you came to Shrek and what you think of it.

And I'm having an existential crisis because I'm realizing I heard David Bowie's music for the first time in the Shrek franchise.

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

Don't tell them to grow up and out of it.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

Wow.

Yeah, you know, you had said that, and I did a bunch of research trying to figure out that it can't possibly be the first animated movie to use pop songs in that way.

And you may be right.

I was surprised to see that, but it certainly was enormously influential in that way, and its success has been copied in a million different ways.

Picking up on something both of you said, Shrek does really function in a lot of ways as entry-level satire.

That it's kind of like your first foray into lashing out at things that you take comfort in.