Way back in 2001, Dreamworks released a film that had a huge impact on animated movies. I speak, of course, of the original Shrek, an irreverent riff on Disney fairy tales that taught the importance of not judging others by their appearance. I quite liked Shrek, but there is one piece of the movie I have long found frustrating. The last third of the movie is enabled by Shrek overhearing, and specifically misinterpreting, Fiona and Donkey.
“… who could ever love a beast so hideous and ugly. Princesses and ugly
don’t go together, that’s why I can’t stay here with Shrek.”[1]
Fiona was speaking of herself, but Shrek took her to be speaking about him. The next morning, they have this exchange.
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything princess, I heard enough last night.”
“You heard what I said?”
“Every word.”
“I thought you’d understand.”
“Oh, I understand. Like you said, who could love a hideous ugly beast?”
I find this scene frustrating because it feels contrived. If Shrek had stayed but a moment longer, or if either of the two characters had used a different turn of phrase (e.g., “you heard that I’m an ogre at night?” or “who could love a hideous ugly beast like me?”), then the entire conflict would have dissolved.
The ‘overheard but misheard’ trope is one I generally dislike, for a couple of reasons. First, it drives the plot through coincidence. The storyteller manipulates the character’s behaviour by making them overhear exactly what they need to hear to make them act out in whatever way the storyteller desires. Coincidence can have a role in a plot, but I think it should rarely play a pivotal role.
My second issue with the trope is that it creates trivial conflict. Rather than giving characters actual flaws that need to be resolved, the characters are brought into conflict over a misunderstanding. It seemed to me a lazy way to create story, almost an excuse rather than a real justification. On the surface, neither Shrek nor Fiona have displayed any significant character flaws: they misunderstood each other because the plot required that they do so.
Recently, however, I’ve somewhat changed my mind. In a previous housing arrangement, I overheard one of my housemates talking about how he disliked me with another housemate, and this caused me a significant amount of distress. It wasn’t just that he disliked me, but rather it instilled in me a deep paranoia whenever I heard anyone talking in the house. With the right frame of mind every half-heard word and vague phrase can seem like an attack.
This recontextualized the above Shrek scene for me. Though I still find it rather contrived, it does pick up on a central theme of the movie. Shrek and Fiona are not just misunderstanding each other in a vacuum, they are also clearly set up as primed to misunderstand each other. Both have internalized the view pushed on them by society that they are ugly and unworthy of love, and therefore do not dig deeper into the other’s meaning. Neither seeks clarification because they think they already understand. By reaching back out to Fiona at the end of the movie, Shrek begins to transcend his own trauma.
In summary, I now appreciate the misheard conversation trope more. When used for non-comedic purposes I think it has the most impact when it is used to explore the ways in which someone may be primed to misinterpret what they overhear.
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