[2] In the films, Shrek was voiced by Mike Myers, and in the musical, he was played principally by Brian d'Arcy James.

After scaring away an angry mob, he arrives at his swamp, enters an outhouse, and literally breaks out as the adult Shrek.

Though surly, dangerous, cynical, misanthropic, and venomously cranky, Shrek is peaceful and does not care to hurt anyone, but just wants to live in solitude and be left alone.

In Shrek, during a conversation with Donkey, he laments that he is constantly judged by the outside world the minute people meet him, and is thus better off alone ("Look, I'm not the one with the problem, okay?

Shrek is hired by Lord Farquaad to rescue Princess Fiona in exchange for the deed to the swamp, with which he can legally banish the squatters.

Being an ogre, Shrek has considerable physical strength, being able to break wood and metal constructions, defeat armored humans in combat, and lift or turn objects that are too heavy for a human being, such as a gigantic vat of magic potion against the maximum security of the Fairy Godmother in Shrek 2.

Shrek has difficulty socializing due to the fact that people think he is a mean ugly ogre, even though his appearance is remarkably humanoid, with a few cosmetic exceptions.

In the fourth movie, people manage to realize that Shrek is not dangerous, and lose their fear and prejudice against him.

[11] In August 1998, DreamWorks then re-cast the role with Mike Myers, who insisted on a complete script rewrite, to leave no traces of Farley's version of Shrek.

[12]In February 2000, after Myers had completed providing the voice for the character, and after a rough cut of the film,[13] he requested to re-record all of his lines in a Scottish accent, similar to the one his mother had used when she told him bedtime stories, and also used in previous films he was in such as So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993) and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999).

[1] Myers explained his decision, "There is a class struggle in Shrek between the fairytale kings and queens and the common people.

"[15] Myers later reported: "I got a letter from Spielberg thanking me so much for caring about the character... And he said the Scottish accent had improved the movie.

[17] Art director Douglas Rogers visited a magnolia plantation in Charleston, South Carolina for inspiration for Shrek's swamp.

Fans of Shrek on the imageboard were known as "brogres", a play off of "bronies" that refers to members of the My Little Pony fandom, and memes often involved graphic material including sex, drugs, and violence for their shock value.

The Atlantic writer David Sims compared this phenomenon to the Shrek franchise, saying: "it's symbolic of so many things we briefly loved before quickly realizing their emptiness.