“Happiness Is Just a Teardrop Away”: A Neo-Marxist Interpretation of Shrek

Abstract

Cartoons have always been a part of politics. Yet while the use of caricatures in newspapers and of cartoons such as Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny as propaganda tools is fairly well established (Smoodin, 1994; Bell et al., 1995; Giroux, 1999), the socializing effect of animated movies has only recently been considered worthy of attention in political science. It is only with the so called cultural turn that the analysis of cultural phenomena such as films has become widely accepted as genuine scientific research (Weldes, 2006; Grayson et al., 2009). The central notion in much of this research is that movies not only reflect aspects of politics but actively take part in the construction of the world as we know it (Weldes, 2003; Weber, 2006). There are now quite a number of studies that examine the depiction and constitution of politics in “children’s films” such as Harry Potter (Nexon and Neumann, 2006) but also animated movies such as The Incredibles (Dunn, 2006), Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, or Rescue Heroes: The Movie (Doucet, 2005).