I mentioned this subject in v14n1 on my mailing list (mail.liberal-judaism), but I figured I’d toss it out here as well.
There is a very interesting article in this weeks Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles on the fellow who wrote the screenplay of Shrek 2. Evidently, this fellow, David Weiss, was originally sent to Hollywood as a born-again out to missionize. Along the way, he converted to Judaism (Orthodox), and began developing screenplays with Jewish themes. He is the screenwriter behind The Rugrats Movie and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and was a key writer on A Rugrats Chanukah (although, surprisingly, he is not a writer on A Rugrats Passover).
The article in question talks about Jewish themes in Shrek2, in particular its strong anti-assimilation message (i.e., Shrek has the option to change his look, appearance, and behaviour to better “fit it”, but chooses to be who he is and to be proud of it). The screenwriter also notes that he injected the film with a Jewish theme of his own, learned in an “Introduction to Judaism” from Rabbi Shlomo Goldberg, that [in Judaism] ‘Love means what’s important to you is important to me’.
I didn’t catch the Jewish themes when I saw Shrek 2. Did anyone else?
[…and I won’t go at all into Jewish themes in Harry Potter. I’m not sure there really are any—there are barely any Jewish characters. In fact, I’ve always been surprised in the story at the emphasis at Christmastime, given that doesn’t seem to part of the Magical side of things. Perhaps it is just a characteristic of the UK where the story was written and takes place.]
