Shrek!: aesthetic judgements, the relationship between desire and beauty and why we love what we love

Shrek! by William Steig
Original edition: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux 1990. 
Our edition: Square Fish, 2007

This text is an adapted reproduction of a module written by Hilary Pollan edited by Jayme Johnson for Teaching Children Philosophy, a project Story Philosophy contributes to through translations and original contributions of picture book based philosophical discussion modules.  

The Story
Shrek is an ogre who lives in a swampy home. One day Shrek's parents tell him to leave the swamp to go see the world and do some damage. Soon after Shrek leaves he meets a Witch who gives him a fortune to go wed a princess. After receiving his fortune, Shrek sets off on a journey to find the princess. Along the way he meets a pheasant carrying peasants, fights a whopper of a dragon, has bad dreams about happy little children, meets a jabbering donkey, fights a fearless knight, and gets lost in a hall of mirrors filled with ugly Shreks. Shrek is not phased by the fact that his ugliness overwhelms everyone he meets. In fact, he loves being so repulsive! When Shrek finally meets his stunningly ugly princess they instantly fall in love, get married, and live horribly ever after.

The Philosophy in the Story 
Shrek lives in a world where he perceives what is typically considered ugly by the general population to be in fact beautiful.  As philosophers, we must ask questions about how we define objects as beautiful and ugly. Philosophers refer to judgments of beauty and ugliness as aesthetic judgments, for which two main arguments exist: 1) that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and thus a matter of personal taste or preference, or 2) that there is a set of standards or principles that make something beautiful.  The second argument also believes that all people with good taste will have positive responses to an object of beauty, or in other words that there is a universal acceptance of what is beautiful. When considering what makes Shrek ugly, for example, the first argument would say that Shrek is ugly because he does not appeal to the characters he meets on his journey.  The second argument, however, would say that Shrek is ugly because he objectively lacks any degree of the property of being beautiful. In other words, on the second view, Shrek is considered ugly because, objectively speaking, he ''is''. 

Defining Ugliness:

Shrek’s mother was ugly and his father was ugly, but Shrek was uglier than the two of them put together

• (look at a picture of Shrek) What makes Shrek ugly?
• How does Shrek feel about his ugliness?  Does he like or it or dislike it?
• How do other characters in the book feel about Shrek? 
• How can people think different things are ugly? 
• What about a beauty contest? How do the judges choose the most beautiful?

Shrek not only looks ugly, but he also seems to do ugly things, things that to most people seem dirty, fraudulent, and dangerous. Nevertheless, Shrek is still a desirable character. So even though, for example, we feel appalled at Shrek's narcissistic delight in discovering that the “hundreds of hideous creatures” he sees in the hall of mirrors are all images of himself, we nevertheless find ourselves rooting for Shrek. We want him to succeed, and find happiness. As philosophers we might ask questions about the connection between beauty and desire. Typically we associate good with beautiful and bad with ugly. Usually people desire what is good, and thus people desire to see beautiful things. Some philosopher’s, however, argue that that we don’t in fact need desire to see things as beautiful. What this means is that we can desire things concerning beauty, but it’s not intrinsic to the pleasure of beauty and the universal acceptance of beauty. This is not to say though that beauty cannot produce desire. What is interesting in Shrek's case is that he does see his ugliness as beauty. This not only brings the debate back around to the question of whether beauty is subjective or objective, it also makes provides an example of the connection between desire and beauty. Shrek desires to be horrible, because for him, horribleness is beautiful.  

Looking Ugly and Being Ugly: 

Some things that Shrek does, like taking down the dragon and the knight, might be considered mean.

• What does Shrek do that is mean? 
• What does Shrek do that is nice?
• Would you call  Shrek more or less ugly based on his actions? 
• Why do we call things ugly? Do we only call things ugly if we don’t like them?
• What is it that we don’t like about someone that makes us think they are ugly? Is it just looks/appearance, or do other things play a role? 
• Can you think things/people are beautiful even if they do mean things? 
• Are people more beautiful when they only do nice things? 

This intermingling of the subjective understanding of beauty and the connection between beauty and desire is again raised in Shrek's love for the ugly princess.   As philosophers we ask if he’s falling in love with her because he has a positive response to her physical beauty. Does he thinks she is beautiful? Or, does he love her because she is like him? Philosophers have said that to love someone is to identify ourselves with him/her. Furthermore, loving someone is when we make a decision to dedicate ourselves to their values. As philosophers we question the nature of Shrek and the princess’s love, and the nature of love in general. 


Love and Ugliness:

Shrek falls in love with the princess because she is stunningly ugly.

• Can you like things that are ugly? 
• Can you love someone who has warts or is hairy like the princess? 
• Do people love other people/things only because of the way they look? 
• Do we only love people who are like us?  

There are two other important things to stress before teaching this book. Firstly, this book is the basis for a popular movie and while the book and movie share similar plots, their content is rather different. This book module is for the BOOK not for the movie.  The second important thing to note is that this book contains some difficult vocabulary. These words include: repulsive, warts, to get hitched, scything, rabid, noggin, peasant and knight. It’d be best to make sure children understand these words before reading the story.

This text is an adapted reproduction of a module written by Hilary Pollan edited by Jayme Johnson, and translated by myself for Teaching Children Philosophy, a project Story Philosophy contributes to through translations and original contributions of picture book based philosophical discussion modules.  

(c) of all the illustrations in this post, Wiliam Steig, 1990.  

This text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Press Here: causality and the paradox of fiction

Press Here, by Hervé Tullet

Chronicle Books, 2011

The book

Press Here by Hervé Tullet is one of the most innovative, clever and sophisticated children's books published in recent years. Books can't get more interactive than this, yet it has absolutely no gimmicks, sounds or batteries in it. Pure paper. And imagination. Lots. 

It starts off with a blank page and a yellow dot in the middle of it and invites you to "press here and turn the page". And the magic starts. On the next page, there are two yellow dots, and we are invited to press again and turn. The next page shows three dots. Here we are invited to rub one of them gently and turn the page, to discover we've made it go red. Over the next pages we are invited to tap a dot and turn the page (to discover our taps have generated a tower of dots), to shake the book and turn the page (to discover we've made all the dots move about the page), to press down hard on all the yellow dots (to discover on the following page we've made the light go off and it's all black), to blow hard "to get rid of the black", to clap and make the dots grow, and grow and grow, until we eventually end up with a white background and yellow dot again and are invited to do it all over again. Sheer genius. And a great little techno-generation joke.  

The publisher's own book trailer is probably the best way to explain what it is and what it does!

The philosophy in the book

Press Here touches on two main philosophically interesting issues, namely, causality and the paradox of fiction. 

Two thematic blocks of questions to prompt debate among children follow, with a very brief and general, non-specialised and name-free background introduction to each of them for teachers / parents / grandparents / anyone out there interested. 

The paradox of fiction

The paradox of fiction refers to people being "moved" (normally emotionally) by fictional characters, events or situations despite knowing that they are fictional and not real. How can we explain that we feel sad for a character in a book even though we know that they do not really exist? Or that we feel frightened by a monster in a film, despite knowing that no such monster exists? Or, in the case of Press Here, that we reach out and press, or blow, or clap, despite knowing that we are not really making anything happen when we do so? 

Philosophers of art have tried to explain this paradox in different ways. Some have suggested that, with fiction (at least with good fiction), we enter a special state whereby we willingly suspend disbelief and -at least momentarily- embrace it as "real". Others suggest that it's not entirely accurate to say we are moved by fictional characters or events. When we say we feel sad for a character in a book, what we are really saying is that we feel sorry for people in real life who could be in that situation or in a similar situation. Others suggest that it is another form of "pretending" or make-believe (that is, we don't "really" feel sad or frightened, we are just pretending). 

Press Here is interesting in this way, because, although not strictly emotionally, it does move us in a very clear way, to take part and engage in the illusion that we are making things happen in the book, even though we know very well we are not. And this does not only happen the first time we read it. It happens again and again every time we look at it. 

Prompts for philosophical discussion about the paradox of fiction

• Is Press Here different from other books you have read? In what ways? What makes it different? What do you like about it? 
• Who makes things happen in the book?
• Is Press Here like magic?  
• Did you laugh while you were reading it? What do you think made you laugh?     
• How hard did you blow on the black to get rid of it? How did you feel when you turned the page and saw that a lot of the black was gone? 
• If you know that it's not you making things happen, why do you do it? What makes you continue doing it? 
• Is Press Here a book or a game? Why?
• Are all books a kind of game? 

Causality

Press Here plays with the assumption that our actions are "causing" things to happen; that when we press a dot, we make it duplicate, that when we blow, we get rid of the black, that when we clap, we make the dots grow, etc.  In doing so, it raises timeless philosophical questions regarding causality. 

Prompts for philosophical discussion about causality

• 1a. When you press the yellow button on the first page of Press Here, it turns into two on the second page. By pressing it, do you cause the one yellow button to turn into two? 
• 1b. When you press a doorbell, it rings. By pressing it, are you causing the doorbell to ring?
• 1c. What is the difference between the two cases above? What is it that makes us say that in 1b there is a cause-effect relationship between pressing the doorbell and it ringing, whereas in 1a there is no cause-effect relationship between pressing the button and it turning into two?  
• 2. How can we know when two things are linked through cause and effect? If you pressed a doorbell and you suddenly felt ill, would you think it was an effect of having pressed the doorbell? Why? 
• 3. Does experience of seeing two events occurring one after the other again and again confirm that there is a causal link between them? How many times do you think you have to see two events together to conclude there is a causal link between them? 
• 4. Can you think of two things that always "go" together but do not have a causal link between them? 

General Comments

The philosophical questions raised by Press Here are quite abstract and may suit slightly older primary school children. Younger children will still enjoy thinking about some of the questions about the paradox of fiction though.  

Remember that the idea here is to use this as a very rough guide for a lively child-led discussion about the book. Let them lead and you follow their flow!

Enjoy! And leave a comment telling me how it went if you used any of the above  material. 

Read more about the idea behind these picture book reviews for philosophical discussion among children here and about some proposed general "discussion rules" for facilitators and participants, here (coming soon). 

(c) of all the images in this post, Hervé Tullet, 2011

(c) of text, Ellen Duthie. You may copy this or reproduce it, but please be nice and credit the author and site.