Steig’s tale is presented as a children’s book thus meant for children. A message is included but is still a message just for children. Meanwhile, Shrek appears similar to “Shrek!” as the presentation of the tale initially appears and is advertised for children but differs from “Shrek!” and compares to “Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” more similarly as the tale contains material for mature audiences. Shrek even appears to “[reject] the book [(“Shrek!”) which] signals that the film intend[s] to dispense… a fresh more sophisticated tale for modern audiences” (Roberts 2). Similarly, Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” appears to be presented as a children’s story, as it is labeled a fairy tale which holds a juvenile connotation, the connotation of fairy tales is similarly felt between Shrek and “Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.” It can also be seen in certain films that the “movie itself is an experience that is inclusive of both adults and children” (Roberts 6) which can evidently be applied to the movie Shrek. Hence, both Perrault’s and Anderson’s tales contain dual messages for more mature audiences as well as children setting them apart from Steig’s …show more content…
A movie retelling can be evaluated by “‘what new and old meanings and uses the filmed version brings to audiences’” (Preston 124) which incorporates the differences in time-period. The audiences may change over time, but that is just indicative of a portion of history that can be analyzed and understood. This would make the target audience for each tale even more important to understand and relate the similarities between the stories. Anderson’s film, Shrek, includes references from commonly known cultural references such as when Shrek alluded to “the film Babe (‘That’ll do, Donkey. That’ll do’)” (Roberts 8). These references are meant for specific audiences and indicate more of the time-period which is prevalent in some retellings as they “‘[draw] upon…motifs commonly found in traditional culture’” (Preston 124) that will evidently relate to their time-period. This allows one to evaluate the era differences to filter out the excess additions from the core similarities between the tales and thus evaluate the tales more effectively. These tales can be assessed by considering the intended audience in reference to the story’s own time-period and the present time-period. This allows the tale’s significance to not be