You To Childhood

I’m sure I wouldn’t have been as big of a Star Wars fan if it wasn’t for my dad’s enthusiasm for my new interest. This enthusiasm led to my relatives gifting me exclusively Star Wars-related presents for a few years afterwards. Star Wars jigsaws, Legos, posters, and books. You name it, I had the merch. There is some beauty in my fairy lego characters enjoying flying around on my millennium falcon with Yoda and Ewoks. I even remember that I dressed up as Darth Vader for Halloween one year.

It does sadden me that I no longer watch Star Wars with the same joy that I did when I was a child, but I don’t think any of the newer films will be able to capture the magic that the first three did.

When I finally sold my Yoda digital clock in a car boot sale last year, I said a final goodbye to the obsession that consumed my Christmas presents for many years. I may not be the hardcore Star Wars fan I was when I was ten, but the original trilogy will always hold a special place in my heart.

Shrek

Words by: Tegan Davies

One day, a first-time mother put a relatively new DreamWorks film on as an attempt to stop her months-old newborn from her continued wailing. It was supposed to just be one of those background films, like a Disney classic that draws your child in and leaves them in awe at the various voices, colours, movements. Except, for young Tegan, that first viewing of Shrek (2001) was undoubtedly the cause of a butterfly effect that rippled into a life-long obsession.

Picture this, a ‘typical’ little girl in the mid-2000s would be swooning over Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid or maybe Prince Philip from Sleeping

Beauty. Not me. Since that fateful day, I had become enamoured with a green ogre who bathes in mud and uses his earwax for a candlelit dinner. I had the teddies, the sticker books, and the sign on my door saying ‘Tegan’s room’. I was head-over-heels.

By the time I was about three or four, my mum could successfully quote the film word-for-word. The DVD was on a constant loop every hour of every day. In school, learning my ABCs, I knew the letters S, H, R, E, and K due to the spelling of my future husband’s name (“S is for Shrek!”). When my dad told me I couldn’t marry him, as he ‘wasn’t real’, I cried. Bawled, even. “But I love him!”

We won’t discuss the second film. Older me does regard it as a great sequel, but little me frowned on it with the utmost disgust as she watched her one true love turn from a handsome ogre to a human prince. I didn’t love him anymore, not like that. Even then, I knew it was wrong to change who you are for someone you love.

Looking back, Shrek was a very fitting film for me to love. Despite its witty dialogue and satirical elements, the film tells the tale of someone who was ousted from the society he lives in due to who he is. Bisexual, ogre, potato, potato. Someone who thrived in their own company (and, despite having step-siblings, I mainly lived as an only child who kept herself busy whilst her mum worked hard for us).

When I got my Shrek-themed tattoo a few weeks back, I was transported back to the life I lived as a young girl, who knew all the words to Smash Mouth’s ‘All Star’, and where nothing else mattered but a creature in a swamp. Oh, to be back there. The most I can do is push the play button and relive it from afar.

Page Design: Rida Rehman