Intertextuality- Shrek

Intertextuality in a media text- Shrek

Shrek is a well known animation series of films, distributed by Dreamworks Pictures. In the film there is a lot of Intertextuality and references to characters from different Disney films. This Intertextuality makes the film more familiar to the audience especially the young children who would know these characters and these characters are used to intertwine with the story lines. 

Here are some stills of the Disney characters in a Dreamworks remake.

Disney/Dreamworks princesses- Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and a Ugly Sister. 

The Gingerbread man, from the well known children's rhyme

Puss in Boots with intertextual reference to the real character Zoro.

The characters nature and personality are borrowed and transformed into a different take to make the connection with the character and the audience, for example Sleeping Beauty may not look like the Disney original but in Shrek she is always portrayed as tired, Rapunzel has the long hair, Snow White is accompanied with her seven dwarves, Cinderella wears glass shoes and the Ugly Sister is ugly. These intertextual references repeat in all the Shrek films to familiarize the characters with the audience.