For most of the week, Miles has been insisting that our next Family Movie Night should be dedicated to “Shred.” “We have to watch Shred!” he’ll say. And while I was hoping he was talking about some sort of ’80s skateboarding movie, it turns out he was actually talking about this bastard:
I want to go on record here as someone who has NEVER been a fan of the Shrek movies. And before you say, “Oh, you’re an adult. Of course you don’t like it,” I want to remind you that 1) I’m a 42-year-old man who JUST BOUGHT a $200 Wolverine action figure and 2) the main defense of this movie since it was released 21 years ago is that so much of its humor is “for adults.” To that second point I would add that humor can be aimed at adults and still not be very funny.
Upon realizing that Miles was now aware of who Shrek is and was interested in learning more (like this kid NEEDS more fart jokes in his repertoire), I made it my mission to dissuade him from his movie choice by any means necessary. At different points in the week, I floated Paddington (“Hey…we never finished watching that!”), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (“It’s got Miles AND Gwen in it!”), and Pixar’s new Turning Red (“It isn’t Shrek!”).
Fortunately, once Miles got a look at the main character of Turning Red (or, rather, what she turns into), all this talk of “Shred and his donkey” subsided. And while the movie’s puberty allegory went way over his head, there was enough silly humor to keep him entertained.
The Perils (& Pride) of Paternity 
