[afandian]

I was horrified by the literal waterboarding scene in Shrek. Granted it was a year or two before the USA started trying to normalise that form of torture. I don’t know what was in the popular consciousness in the US at the time. But it’s very spooky.

Children’s fiction has always had a very dark side though.

[Grombobulous]

Yeah, I think the “adult media disguised as kids media” has been a thing for a long time.

But I also think that a lot of teen and preteen media has very little functional distinction from adult media.

A lot of non-parents don’t realize that the difference between G and PG can be huge. Shrek sounds like it should be something for a 3 year old but it really isn’t. Even without the torture scene it’s immediacy really scary. You have to go with something a lot more gentle than that for young kids.

I think the torture scene is funny to an adult as a mockery of the zeitgeist if you decide to interpret it that way. After all, Farquad is intended to be a villain.

[afandian]

It's been dark since the Grimms, and likely long before!

I just rewatched it (link in sibling link). It's mocking Farquaad, but I think is clearly meant to be taken as slapstick. Implying that torture is no big deal.

[Grombobulous]

Yeah and I guess there are two directions you can go with slapstick like that: “it’s minimizing torture in a disturbing way,” or “all slapstick comedy necessitates suspension of disbelief.”

Makes me think of the Home Alone series.

[IveSeenItAll]

There is no 'literal waterboarding scene' in the theatrically released Shrek. In the scene you've seen, unless you're deep into dubious fan-remakes, Gingy 'just' gets dipped in milk (mostly off-screen) by an executioner-style heavy, then Lord Farquaad taunts them with their torn-off legs, which suggests legs-first dipping, not the head-first submersion that is the entire point of waterboarding.

Still pretty bad (even though the gingerbread buttons were apparently spared), but... not literal, and not even figurative, waterboarding.

[afandian]

I'm referring to this scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYcm_9YELQE

At the opening of the scene, the gingerbread man is being drowned in milk. You see from the shadow, and the voice, that he's having his head submerged in liquid. then Lord Farquaad says "enough! he's ready to talk". So that's simulated drowning as part of interrogation to get information.

Nit-picking about the exact _orientation_ of the victim, and therefore what type of simulated-drowning torture this constitutes, is somewhat missing the point I was trying to make! i.e. that torture is normalised to the point of being slapstick in a children's film.