Fairy Godmother (Shrek)
The Fairy Godmother is a fictional character in DreamWorks' Shrek franchise, voiced by actress Jennifer Saunders. Introduced in the animated film Shrek 2, Fairy Godmother is the mother of Prince Charming, who Princess Fiona was originally intended to wed prior to meeting Shrek. She plots against newlyweds Fiona and Shrek's relationship, using her magic and potions in an attempt to trick Fiona into falling in love with Charming. Fairy Godmother is loosely based on the stock fairy godmother character in fairy tales, specifically "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty", serving as parody of the common trope.
The Shrek franchise is based on William Steig's children's book Shrek!, which mentions a witch who predicts that Shrek will meet a donkey and marry a princess uglier than himself. Early drafts of the first film included a character named Dama Fortuna, a witch from whom Fiona receives the potion that modifies her enchantment, forcing her to alternate between her human and ogre forms on a nightly basis. Originally intended to reveal Fiona's backstory via prologue, the scene was discarded because it was deemed too depressing by test audiences. Wanting to incorporate some more fairy tale elements into the sequel, writer Ted Elliot reimagined the witch as Fiona's bigoted fairy godmother. Saunders recorded her role in four days and also provided her character's singing voice.
Fairy Godmother has received mostly positive reviews from film critics, who appreciated her humor and villainy, as well as Saunders' performance, which some critics compared to her Absolutely Fabulous character Edina Monsoon. Saunders' performance earned her a People's Choice Award for Favorite Movie Villain.
Development
Creation
Although loosely based on William Steig's children's book Shrek!, the Shrek franchise differs greatly from its source material, particularly pertaining to its main characters. In Steig's story, a witch foretells that Shrek will marry a princess she describes as uglier in appearance than Shrek himself, prompting the ogre to pursue her. The witch also predicts that Shrek will meet a donkey, who will play a prominent role throughout his journey. Early storyboards for Shrek featured a witch named Dama Fortuna, a character originally intended to have been voiced by actress Linda Hunt. The character was written for a sequence entitled "Fiona’s Prologue", which was intended to depict Princess Fiona's backstory and disclose how she came to be imprisoned in the first place. Having originally been born an ogre to human parents who lock her away, Fiona escapes her tower and seeks assistance from the elderly Romani Dama Fortuna. In addition to teaching the princess about her past, the witch is responsible for giving Fiona a potion that alters her curse, initially offering her a choice between two potions, one of which promises to turn Fiona beautiful once consumed, while the other guarantees Fiona's happy ever after. After Fiona drinks the "Beauty" to find that she is still an ogre, Dama Fortuna explains that the potion allows her to become human during the daytime, only to revert to her ogre form each sunset until the spell is broken by true love's kiss.The prologue was ultimately discarded because test audiences deemed it too depressing, prompting Hunt's departure. While discussing potential ideas for a sequel, DreamWorks recalled that they had enjoyed incorporating traditional fairy tale concepts into the franchise, specifically a fairy godmother "who eventually turned out to be a bit of a trickster". In May 2001, Ted Elliott, screenwriter of the first Shrek film, confirmed that a bigoted version of the Dama Fortuna character would be written into the sequel. Thus, the idea of Dama Fortuna was resurrected, and Fiona's fairy godmother was conceived as a magical entity whose use of magic and potions do not always benefit Shrek and Fiona. As described in author Cynthia O'Brien's book Fairy Myths, fairy godmother characters typically aid the fairy tales' heroines, such Charles Perrault's "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty". However, Fiona's fairy godmother plots to have Fiona marry her own son, Prince Charming, despite already being married to her true love, Shrek. Thus, the character is considered to be a parody of traditional fairy godmother characters.
When developing Shrek Forever After, the filmmakers wanted the film's villain, Rumpelstiltskin, to be as different as possible from previous Shrek villains. Compared to Fairy Godmother, Rumpelstiltskin was envisioned as a "ratty, childish, scummy man" to contrast with Fairy Godmother's eloquence as a businesswoman.
Voice and characterization
Fairy Godmother is voiced by English comedian and actress Jennifer Saunders. Saunders recorded her entire role in only four days over the course of one year. The actress found working on an animated film to be liberating and found the experience to have several advantages as an actor, describing voice acting as a "perfect" career "because you get all these perks... but you don't have to do any of that other, you know, filming... no one's going to say, 'That movie didn't work because Jennifer Saunders' voice wasn't good.'" Saunders concluded that performing in Shrek 2 "has been one of my favourite jobs in the world", additionally appreciating that critics and viewers were not able to judge her physical appearance. Saunders recorded her dialogue solely opposite director Andrew Adamson, who temporarily fulfilled all other characters' roles during Saunders' sessions. Saunders elaborated, "You feel that you've just done some stuff, and they then go away and pull it all apart and make this fantastic thing. Everyone in the cast has the same experience of the film... It's like you haven't really been in it." Decca Aitkenhead of The Guardian believes that Saunders "must have been the obvious choice for the producers of Shrek 2, for this ambiguous sensibility is the very essence of the film - a Hollywood send-up of Hollywood."Saunders provided all of her character's singing, recording two songs for the film. Saunders sang the "Fairy Godmother Song", a scene that parodies Disney's animated film Beauty and the Beast by featuring dancing furniture. Saunders also recorded a cover of Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero" for the film's soundtrack, which her character performs towards the end of film. During the sequence, Fairy Godmother sings while lying atop a grand piano, referencing Michelle Pfeiffer's sultry rendition of "Makin' Whoopee" in the film The Fabulous Baker Boys. As Saunders had recorded most of her part in isolation, it was not until the film's premiere at Cannes Film Festival that she met her castmates, including Antonio Banderas and Julie Andrews, who voiced Puss in Boots and Queen Lillian, respectively. The Dallas Observer journalist Robert Wilonsky found it interesting that Saunders, as opposed to Andrews, received two songs in the film. In terms of animation, Shrek 2 featured more human characters and complex costumes than its predecessor, among them the Fairy Godmother, who wears a floor-length one-piece gown. The final design was assembled using a combination of "an upper portion deformed by the character and a lower section simulated by the clothing department."
Christopher Fiduccia of Screen Rant believed Saunders closely resembled her character, describing their facial features as "pretty much identical". Saunders described her character as "an attractive blonde with blue eyes, a tan and a nice smile." Writing for Variety, Todd McCarthy wrote that the character's appearance consists of "stylishly swept-back gray hair, glasses perched skeptically down her nose and constantly whirring wings keeping her airborne like a hummingbird." Michael O'Sullivan, writing for The Washington Post, described Fairy Godmother as "as far from the benign, Disney-fied wand-waver as possible." Comparing the character to Sleeping Beauty
Josh Larsen of the Chicago Suburbs News wrote that the character behaves "like a magically powered plastic surgeon." The character's bubble motif references Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. James Kendrick of Qnetwork.com deemed the character "a perfectly distilled satirical jab at corporate ruthlessness."
Appearances
Fairy Godmother first appears in Shrek 2 as the mother of Prince Charming, who had originally planned to rescue Fiona and become heir to the kingdom of Far, Far Away. Newly married Shrek and Fiona visit Far, Far Away to meet Fiona's parents for the first time, who are surprised to learn that Fiona has both married an ogre and remained one herself. When Fairy Godmother discovers that Fiona has married Shrek instead of Charming as originally intended, the character plots to manipulate Fiona into marrying her son, conspiring with Fiona's father King Harold to uphold a deal they had once made and kill Shrek in the process. Fairy Godmother also manages a potion factory, from which Shrek steals a potion in hope of becoming handsome to win his father in-law's approval. After Shrek consumes the potion that turns both him and Fiona into attractive versions of themselves, Fairy Godmother tries to trick Fiona into believing that Charming is Shrek but she resists his new personality. Partnering with Charming and King Harold, Fairy Godmother instructs Harold to give Fiona a potion that, once consumed, will force her to fall in love with the first person she kisses, intending for it to be Charming. At Shrek and Fiona's wedding ball, Harold reveals that he intentionally did not give Fiona the potion. Angered, Fairy Godmother aims a blast from her wand at Shrek, which is deflected by Harold who ultimately turns into a frog in the process. Fiona chooses not to kiss Shrek in favour of the pair returning to their ogre forms so that she can remain married to the ogre she fell in love with. The character also appears in the video game adaptations Shrek 2 and Shrek Forever After: The Video Game.Reception
Critical response
Teen Ink hailed Fairy Godmother as "the perfect villain", while Angie Errigo of Empire described her as a fun character. ReelViewsThe Washington Post
Christian website Crosswalk.com deemed some of Fairy Godmother's behaviour "objectionable" and "unnecessary", particularly the scene in which she "writhes on a piano, singing a sexy song." Despite believing that Andrews could have voiced the character well, Bill Beyrer of Cinema Blend felt that Saunders "did a bang up job", but found the character's appearance to be too realistic at times. In a more negative review, the San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle found the character too distracting from Shrek and Fiona's storyline, continuing, "The filmmakers invest too much time and faith in the idea of the fairy godmother as being wickedly amusing, but she's no Cruella De Vil, and the movie suffers." However, LaSalle enjoyed Fairy Godmother's performance of "Holding Out for a Hero" nonetheless. Michael Sragow, film critic for The Baltimore Sun, wrote that "Not even... Saunders can add zing to the script's rough sketch of a sorceress", dismissing her as "a female impersonator caught in a female body, promoting specialties that are the fairy-tale equivalents of super-extreme makeovers." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Recognition
Screen Rant ranked Fairy Godmother the third best DreamWorks villain, with author Matthew Wilkson attributing her high placement to her deceptively kind nature. The author crowned her "one of the most memorable villains in the history of Dreamworks". Saunders won Favorite Movie Villain at the 31st People's Choice Awards, one of five awards Shrek 2 won at the ceremony. Allison J. Scharmann, contributing to the Harvard Crimson, believed the "franchise would not be complete without the sequel’s introduction of Fairy Godmother". The Daily Edge ranked Fairy Godmother the seventh reason "we need to appreciate Shrek more than we already do", with author Rachel O'Neill describing the character as "a STUNNING villain" who is "constantly fixing all the problems the men in her life cause her". Bailey Rymes of Her Campus called Fairy Godmother the main reason she considers Shrek 2 the second best film in the series, describing her as an icon.Her Campus ranked Fairy Godmother the second "Top 10 Female Villains in Animation", with contributor Lilivette Domínguez writing, "instead of hating to love her, you love to hate her because she is a likable villain... you can’t really hate her because she was smarter than everyone else". Entertainment Weekly recognized Fairy Godmother as one of "13 who have us under their spell". Ranking the Fairy Godmother's performance of "Holding Out for a Hero" as the best song in the Shrek franchise, Grace Kinnicutt of Odyssey wrote "Fairy Godmother's outfit? She's slaying it. The song? A banger... what more could you ask for in such a song?" At the 90th Academy Awards in 2018, several fans compared actress Meryl Streep's red gown, up-do hairstyle and glasses to Fairy Godtmother's on social media. Fans also suggested that the actress play the character in a live-action adaptation of the film.