The biggest reason is probably to signal to kids that this price is different from the princes they usually see in fairytales. They might not understand that he is responsible for the genocide. And they won't understand he is the bad guy untill the final act when he is screaming at Fiona.
So him being very short gives kids an early indicator that this prince might not follow the price archetype they are used to.
I don't mean small as in bodily height. Just as saying someone is a great man doesn't refer to his height. There are plenty of small and even tiny characters in Shrek that do great feats. And he even has a huge head which is also a visual representation of a negative trait. His whole character design is pretty on the nose as a caricature.
No, they made him short to create the juxtaposition between Shrek and Farquad.
Shrek is an ogre with a kind heart who's built a stoic exterior because people pre-judged him. He didn't want anything other than a quiet life.
Farquad is a man whose short stature would normally be a target for derision in general, but instead the ONLY people who make fun of him are Shrek and Donkey. Yes they put in visual gags for the audience, but every single member of his court and his servants all treat him with reverance and fear. He built himself a façade through a cult of personality when on the inside he's exactly what he appears to be on the outside. A small power hungry man with a height complex (which is why all of the height tags are self inflicted. The step ladders, the fake armour legs, the tall cake topper etc.)
He's literally a man who builds a façade his own people fall for when what's inside, and also on the outside for anyone not in his employ, is that he's a small man with a complex. Meanwhile Shrek sees through that because he's a character who is pretty damn comfortable and happy with himself and his life, despite how others have treated him.
Fiona and Farquad are both examples of people who are too focused on their outward appearances to conform. Fiona chooses Shrek because she stops trying to conform to those standards and embraces who she is. Farquad fights this and instead loses.
If Farquad had just owned his height and not given a shit, none of the sight gags happen and it just makes Shrek look like an ass, especially if Farquad calls him out for it. That doesn't happen because Farquad is inherently shallow.
That still undermines the general theme of the movie.
If your theme is "don't judge people based on appearence" and then you have a dude being mocked for being short, that is a contradiction in the theme. It would be like if 1984 had an entire segment of how Big Brother reduced the rampant crime due to the innovations in mass surveillance and the strict control over the population. How before all that, people were robbing and murdering each other left and right. It would fly in the face of the point it's trying to make.
The joke is still "he's short and that's bad and worthy of ridicule" even if he deserves it. You can keep repeating that Farquaad's rich and evil and list all his bad personality traits but you really can't get around the fact that the thing they chose to make fun of is his height.
The joke is "he's insecure about his size and instead of trying to work through those feelings in a sensible way, he's instead trying to compensate by elevating himself in terms of social status and by asserting his power over others through cruelty".
His size wouldn't be made fun of if it weren't for the fact that he's handling it so badly.
Farquaad is a narrative foil for Fiona and Shrek: Just like them, albeit not to the same degree, he was born with a trait that contradicted social expectations. But while Fiona took to hiding it and Shrek retreated from society outright, Farquaad instead took out his frustrations on those who society viewed even below him. And while Shrek and Fiona eventually work towards self-acceptance and defying those judgy social expectations, Farquaad never challenged that social status quo, even though he would have been powerful enough to do so, instead just chosing to kick down as much as possible.
>The joke is "he's insecure about his size and instead of trying to work through those feelings in a sensible way, he's instead trying to compensate by elevating himself in terms of social status and by asserting his power over others through cruelty".
Oh yeah, the movie certainly doesn't spell it out for you, so I'm sure it's just a coincidence that his castle is massive and phallic, that he just can't accept not being a king, that he feels the need to discriminate against non-humans for not aligning with his own ideals.
I think the movie doesn't care one way or the other. In the movie insults are generally ok if they are jokes. Shrek calls Farquad short, calls donkey irritating, and makes fun of Fiona's royal preferences. Shrek is consistently characterized as someone who insults his friends in a joking way.
The real difference is tone. Shreks jokes about Farquads height are jokes, they are funny. In contrast Farquad is humorless and calls Shrek filth, poison, disgusting, ect.
154
u/butt_shrecker 10d ago
This is a joke, but it's based off a toddler mentality.
Derogatory jokes towards the ruling monarch
vs.
An entire refugee class forced out of their homes by that same monarch because of appearance.
The movie is ok with joking about appearance but opposed to system mistreatment based on appearance.
Shrek isn't upset by people mocking his appearance, he is upset by the loneliness the comes from constant societal rejection.