Why Playing Shrek was a Pride Celebration for Me

Shrek (2001) came out twenty-five years ago!?

As a millennial kid, Disney films unsurprisingly shaped my imagination. So Shrek’s tongue-in-cheek, sardonic earnestness hit as a shocking but satisfying echo.

Little did I know, this farcical tale would one day become a pretty personal touchstone.

***An expression I got very used to making in Donkey’s general direction.***

In 2001, I was only 11 but I already knew I was gay.

Just as a young, tower-bound Fiona wished for Prince Charming, I had long been secretly dreaming of his own Prince Eric or Aladdin. And I knew it was a secret he must never tell.

A LOT has happened in the twenty-five years since (a story for another time), but here in 2026, Shrek re-entered my life in a big way.

I just finished playing the iconic ogre in a production of Shrek the Musical! (Shout out to Harmony Arts in Moose Jaw SK Canada!)

***Shrek & Fiona (Janice) with our amazing costume and makeup team! (Jen & Renita)***

Preparing for the role took so much time and energy this June that I missed all of the official Pride celebrations in my area. But I don’t feel cheated.

Shrek is a very queer story. Playing the part better acquainted me with a story that maps onto my own gay journey.

(Quick note: this ain’t short, so if you only read one section, the last one means the most to me)

Waving Through A Window

In the opening number, A Big Bright Beautiful World, we get a peek into Shrek’s never-before-seen origins.

A happy childhood in a swamp with loving parents is oddly idyllic––until it isn’t.

On his seventh birthday, his parents break the news that he must strike out on his own now. And they send him off with a warning:

It’s a big bright beautiful world
With happiness all around
It’s peaches and cream
And every dream comes true
But not for you

Lost innocence is a universal experience. All at once, Shrek loses both the security of belonging somewhere and his sense of hope for the future.

I can still recall the sting of hearing the first cruel words that ruptured my innocence. My first hint that some people didn’t love me. That my own family might resent my presence.

And being gay got tangled up in it. It was another way I didn’t fit. A secret that threatened my belonging.

In Shrek’s world, storybooks serve as a sort of gospel truth, an inescapable script that only the blasphemous question.

Shrek resigns himself to the doom of being forever alone and Fiona chafes against her fairy tale that refuses to come true.

I also faced stories that left me bereft. My church and our Bible seemed to insist that “gay life is bad and separates you from God and everyone you love.”

That threat of abandonment frightened me enough to keep in line.

But I could hear the unrelenting call of my authentic gay self.

That put me between a rock and a hard place. I felt doomed to either eventually snap and become a prodigal black sheep or one day succumb to despair and end my own life. No happy ending seemed available.

Attempts to believe in the evangelical gospels of gay suppression or conversion therapy through Jesus brought frigid comfort. A threadbare hope that could never truly be mine.

…every dream comes true
But not for you

Be Prepared

Lord Farquad is unhinged.

To brilliant comedic effect!

In the musical he’s got some of my favourite moments!

For me he also embodies the truism: “the strongest homophobia is internalized.”

Lord Farquad’s campaign to homogenize Duloc and reign as its king is aggressive. He exiles all fairytale creatures in the name of protecting all that’s good and beautiful.

No one from the gutter in Duloc.
Embrace the cookie cutter in Duloc.
The upshot is enormous
When you can shout “Conform us!”

But in the end everyone learns that Farquad is the love child of Snow White and Grumpy!

He’s a freak! Like us!

I’m not one who cries “closet case” every time I see a homophobic dude bro. But it does happen and I also believe the most aggressive opponents––Christian or otherwise––are frightened of losing something: belonging, security, safety, clarity on what their world is.

Certainty and homogeneity promise safety.

But those promises break too much to ethically keep them.

Not While I’m Around

Donkey effortlessly tops the charts of iconic sidekicks.

(***insert indulgent plug here for the line I’m most sad didn’t make the musical : “That’s a nice boulder!”)

After Donkey and Shrek survive the dragon-guarded tower and break the princess free, the pair close Act I by a campfire.

Donkey is buzzing with excitement for their victory. They achieved the impossible! And he sees endless possibilities for what they could do next.

And when Shrek dismisses the dreaming, Donkey persists.

SHREK: People always judge me before they get to know me. They take one look at me and shout “Ahh! It’s a big ugly ogre!” That’s why I’m better off alone.
DONKEY: But, Shrek, when I met you I didn’t think you was just a big ugly ogre.
SHREK: Yeah. I know.
DONKEY: So, is there really nothing else you’d like to be?

With his unconditional love and loyalty, Donkey shows Shrek that he might be worthy of dreaming for more.

When I was deep in my evangelical closet and incredibly depressed about it, there was a day I voiced something new to a good friend.

“Do you think it’s possible God might be okay with this?”

It felt so dangerous to ask. My conditioning taught me that a good Christian shouldn’t even wish that God would approve of gay love. Wanting evil to be good is itself a moral failing.

I felt safe enough with this friend that I expected him to gently say ‘no, I don’t think so.’ I just needed to share because I was aching. I felt alone and needed to be heard and seen.

But he answered so gently.

“It’s a great question. And an important one for you. Spend time praying and reading the best literature on the subject. It may take time but you’ll find an answer.”

My shoulders relaxed and I felt kind of floored. I had always thought that even wanting to embrace being gay would threaten my belonging in my community. But this opened a new possibility.

I could be honest about wanting it.

Similar to Donkey prompting Shrek to dream for more, my friend gave me the space to imagine a future where I wasn’t doomed.

Years later, I connected with an online community of gay men who together worked on dismantling the shame instilled in us by church backgrounds.

I was nervous to engage with them since I’d always been trained that gay people, progressive Christians, and former Christians were all ideologically dangerous and negative influences.

It took a while for my defence mechanisms to calm down, but those men became a massive support in seeing a new future for myself.

We helped each other deepen our honesty and pursue character growth built on authentic beliefs––not what we’d been compelled to accept.

I do firmly believe that we’ve got to arrive at self-acceptance and conviction using our own faculties, but I’m convinced that community helps us see things we can’t on our own.

Maybe This Time

Shrek answers Donkey’s question with the Act I finale: “Who I’d Be”

I guess I’d be a hero, and I would scale a tower
To save a hot-house flower, and carry her away
But standing guard would be a beast, I’d somehow overwhelm it

When Shrek lets himself dream, he paints a picture of bravery, of courage that he has already demonstrated––even if he can’t see it in himself.

All the while, Donkey looks on with pride. He knows Shrek is already a hero.

But Shrek takes it further. He dreams of being courageous, but also loved.

I’d get the girl, I’d take a breath, and I’d remove my helmet.
We’d stand and stare, we’d speak of love, we’d feel the stars ascending
We’d share a kiss, I’d find my destiny
I’d have a hero’s ending, a perfect happy ending.
That’s how it would be
A big bright beautiful world

My Christian upbringing showed me so many wonderful things. It shaped me in beautiful ways.

And as I’ve opened myself up to more honest dreams, I’ve also seen new depths of love that I no longer want to shut out.

Now Is the Time to Seize the Day

In the end, when Fiona is standing at the altar with Lord Farquad, Shrek throws a Hail Mary. He tries to reach her armored heart with the hope that he’s freshly taken hold of for himself.

It’s a big bright beautiful world
with possibilities everywhere.
If true love is blind
maybe you won’t mind the view?

He acknowledges the implausibility of their being together.

I don’t have a fancy castle,
and I’m not sophisticated.
A princess and an ogre,
I admit, is complicated.

And then he takes a swing at the very heart of the matter.

You’ve never read a book like this,
but fairytales should really be updated.

Now, I’m not one to get emotional at material that I’m performing. Sure, I’m a man of big feelings! But I usually intellectualize those. In private. Those aren’t for public consumption.

But that line got me tearing up in several rehearsals.

You’ve never read a book like this,
but fairytales should really be updated.

I grew up with a sacred storybook that condemned me as an abomination.

It spelled my doom as one tragic figure or the other.

The traditional (so-called) teachings of heteronormative family-making didn’t leave room for any happy ending that I could recognize as mine. Not without lying anyway.

So to voice an outcast who gently insists “fairytales should really be updated” brought up a lot of feelings. All the aching and grieving and searching and bargaining and fearful bravery I experienced throughout my own revision of my beliefs.

Why can’t we update the fairytales?

What is lost if the theology is revised?

I understand that it unravels certain intellectual frameworks.

It threatens the security of certainty.

But my life depended on finding a way through.

It may not offer airtight answers to every question, but it’s something I can live with integrity and with actual hope.

Plus, the alternative losses of never revising anti-gay theologies are more serious.

People will keep dying because of it, or alternatively leave the faith entirely. For so many of us, it doesn’t offer a path of integrity, wholeness, and flourishing.

***A 2006 Tim still searching for the courage to fight for himself.***

The End

What a bummer! On another day I’d be more light on my feet and find ways to say all that with more levity. But it is today and tomorrow is for other things.

In summary, playing Shrek was my private pride celebration. It shouldn’t surprise me that the show was so queer and would give me so many opportunities to reflect.

Even with Pride month ending in a few short hours (perhaps it already has when you read this), may we all more deeply understand the stories we’re telling each other and the stories we are living.

Happy Pride!