I tried to watch Shrek every day for a month and now I'm in therapy

Grab your torch and pitchforks!

2001’s Shrek is a film that holds a lot of weight in the minds of people my age. Those of us born in the late '90s grew up with it, and spent countless hours transfixed by its magic. But adults also couldn’t get enough of it: it became the first animated film to compete in the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival since Peter Pan in 1953, and was also the first ever recipient of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Coupled with its box office success, the film was an instant classic. But where do people stand on it 20 years later?

Well, that’s a very easy question to answer: people still love it. Tweets about it still go viral, and the film has become something of an 83-minute meme. A perfect example of its legacy is the Twitter account @shrekframe, which does exactly what its handle implies: it posts frames from the film, in order, at regular intervals. A tweet of a naked Shrek jumping into his pond for a bath went viral on March 2^nd, and catapulted the account to nearly 30,000 followers.

Franky Campuzano, who runs the account, was caught off-guard by the popularity of the tweet in question. “I knew the account would gain some traction once it got past Shrek’s narration at the beginning of the movie,” he says, “but I never expected it to be this fast.”

The 21-year-old, from Houston, Texas, is of the perfect age to have Shrek as a cultural touchstone in his life. He describes the film as, “just one of those cultural staples that everyone knows about.” He isn’t wrong: 200,000 likes on a tweet that’s nothing more than a picture of a naked ogre is really something.

Dr Lucy Bennett feels this sharing of memes and imagery is the primary way in which social media can, “keep something alive in the hearts and minds of people.” Dr Bennett, who lectures in media culture at Cardiff University, explains that the fan labour involved in making such material can sometimes give new meaning to the original text, and give it a new lease of life in the digital age.

With Shrek, she suspects nostalgia may be a factor for some, but also feels that its themes of self-acceptance may resonate strongly with people, “especially in our current society where image has become really important online. There’s something wonderful,” she says, “about watching a film focused on an ogre, when we’re in a world with filters and often confronted by our online image.”

It’s powerful stuff – so how bad could the next month be?

Hold the phone... Where did that come from?

Day 14 was when things really started to change. A few days prior I’d had a particularly rough morning; anxiousness had prevented me from getting enough sleep, and a sudden loud noise had sent me spiralling into tears for no reason. But this day was different.

It was 7.21am on a Sunday morning, and I was wide awake, unable to sleep any longer due to nervousness. Extremely unlike me. I messaged a friend to tell her my worries and ask for advice, and she told me she thought I needed to see someone. This was the beginning of a monumental task.

I took the rest of the day off work, called my family, and went out for a walk in the sun – by the time I went to bed that night, I felt a little better. I’d put my nervousness from earlier in the day down to work stress, and began to take steps to manage that, including yoga and meditation. I still had a long way to go, but at least now I was on the right track. My Shrek quest continued without a second thought.

Week three passed slowly. A week of constant Zoom calls and not seeing any friends outside of my household didn’t exactly do wonders for my mental health, but the steps I was taking to look after myself appeared to be working. I was still enjoying the film at this point, but the viewings were starting to blur. I noted on Letterboxd (a social site for movie reviews) that I felt as though I was running out of clever things to say about it (the below, very funny tweet aside), and I was noticeably struggling to engage with it each night. Watching it was starting to become something of a chore, but I persevered.

But with another Sunday came another breakdown – and this one was accompanied by a realisation.

What you're doing is the opposite of help

Which brings us to March 8^th: the morning I realised it was Shrek, not me, that had been causing all my recent problems. It’s strange, and hard to explain, but let me try anyway. Speaking about repeatedly revisiting a film first watched as a child, clinical psychologist Morgane Glaudot explains that the effects of the experiment would be stronger the younger I was when I first saw the film – given that I was around three or four, she suggested I could see some very strong effects.

The idea of comfort watching something (watching a favourite film or show to escape stress), Morgane says, is a form of survival instinct – a way for the mind to deal with its fears. She explains to me that the main effect of my experiment could be a type of regression – a retreat into a childlike state of mind that would allow me to feel safe. “It’s about going back to that to help us feel better, one way or another,” she says. She’s keen to stress that this “regression” isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is simply an instinctive coping mechanism.

What she couldn’t foresee, however, was that this regression would unlock within me fifteen years of trauma that I was convinced had been dealt with. Specifically, trauma related to a seismic childhood event that forever shaped my life: the death of my mother.

My mum died when I was seven, after a long and horrible battle with cancer. It’s impossible to explain how hard her death hit me, but I’d mostly coped as well as can be expected. I’d had a few wobbles here and there, but I’d dealt with them well – and after writing about it, I thought I was okay. Apparently not. The low point of my breakdown on day 14 had not been related to work stress or social anxieties, but was instead summed up in a simple text to a friend: “I just want my mum.”

Not two days after I’d spoken to Morgane, everything seemed to fall into place. My sleepless nights, my loneliness, my random bouts of tears, my yearning for human contact, my general fragility – suddenly everything made sense. I wanted mothering: I wanted someone to hold me and tell me that everything would be okay.

Except it wasn’t just a want – it was a need. I needed to feel someone’s arms around me, the warmth of someone else’s body next to mine, the comfort of knowing that I wasn’t alone. I’d been completely and unexpectedly floored by grief – and Shrek had been the catalyst.

I was hoping this would be a happy ending...

When we speak again several months later, Morgane can’t help but seem surprised at the turn I took – but she admits it makes a certain degree of sense. “It had to [happen] at some point,” she says, “especially with the loss of a parent, which is a very traumatic experience. It just had to come out: if it wasn’t with Shrek now, it would have been later with something else.”

She’s right, of course, and in a way that makes me almost grateful. These issues I had needed to be dealt with; I’d always assumed I’d come to terms with my mum’s death, but that clearly isn’t the case – and if I hadn’t realised this now, when would I have? That doesn’t bear thinking about.

But if you were worrying about me, please know that I’m okay. Once I realised it was Shrek that had been causing all my issues, I immediately stopped watching it – it’s now been two months since I saw it last, and I feel great. I’m also in therapy to work through all of my problems, which I’m finding so helpful. All of this is doing wonders for me: between therapy and my amazing friends and family (who I definitely couldn’t have coped without), I feel so much better than I did a few months ago.

Now I'm a believer...

This has been a real learning experience for me – and not in the way I expected. Unlike I’d previously thought, grief isn’t a straight line. There are good days, and there are bad days. Days when we feel like we’re on top of the world, and days when all we want to do is hide from it. It’s been 15 years since my mum died, and I’m still not okay. But that, in itself, is okay.

Grieving is hard – I won’t ever argue with that. But I promise you this: things will get better. The path of grief is a long and awful one to trudge, but we will reach its end. This is what I choose to believe: I suppose you could say I’m a believer.

Oh, and if you were wondering: no, I won’t be going near Shrek again for as long as I live.

Shrek images courtesy of DreamWorks. All rights reserved.