A comparison between a summer love story and the true love between Shrek and Fiona
Summertime is the new Shrek
A wooden puppet, witches, seven dwarves, a talking donkey, an ogre, a cursed princess waiting to be rescued and a female dragon. Every creature is different and coexists in a unique and fantastic world. Diversity is the key and love doesn’t seem to be discriminating. Shrek is the love story that we all love and I’m sure every person has seen at least one film of the saga.
If anyone feels like following the misadventures of another love story and the struggles the protagonists have to go through, I suggest you to watch Summertime, an italian TV show, released on Netflix the 29th of April 2020.
Summertime is the modern version of Shrek and it’s the love story between Summer, an introvert girl and Ale, an ex motorbiking race champion who’s ready to leave his ex girlfriend behind and
The summer season has arrived and the students can finally take a three month break from education. Summertime is about summer love stories, about revealing your true feelings, kissing your best friends and leaving your ex behind. The peculiarity of the show is the protagonist, Summer, a girl who hates the summer season and struggles to enjoy her vacations with her two best friends, Edo and Sofia.
Before I talk more about the show I want to show some similarities between them
Ale’s storyline is very much similar to Fiona’s. Both trapped in a situation they can’t seem to get out of and they can only be saved by true love. Fiona is trapped in a castle, protected by a fire breathing dragon that acts as a gatekeeper to her freedom while Ale is locked into a relationship with Madda, who doesn’t want to let him go and keeps locking him in the relationship despite him expressing multiple times his desire to leave.
Summer’s storyline is much more similar to Sherk’s. Shrek goes to save the princess just so that he could have his swamp back after being invaded by the fairytale creatures and Summer goes to a summer party just because her best friend Sofia wants to go.
The protagonists are not perfect and are apparently not destined to be together. Their encounter is special, however, when Ale expresses his desire to get to know her, she rejects him, due to her constant fear of love and being abandoned. I believe Shrek also struggles to enjoy social events because of his past. The most iconic conversion in Shrek is the one under the moonlight, when Shrek reveals to Donkey that he is ‘better off alone’ as people judge him before even knowing him. The constant rejection by society has led him to isolate himself and take the decision to be alone. Despite this, since the first minutes of the film, Shrek was surrounded by creatures who were very much happy to spend time with him. The most clear example is Donkey, who ends up becoming his best friend. In comparison, Summer has a loving mother and a wonderful sister whom she has a positive relationship with.
The friendship dynamics
Both Shrek and Summer have a best friend who is extremely different to them. Shrek, who likes the quiet peace provided by his swamp and Donkey who likes spending time with people and most importantly he likes talking. Sofia is very much outgoing. She likes going to parties and making new friends. Summer is extremely empathic, she has some existential crisis caused by difficult memories connected to her dad and because of that she struggles to enjoy summer. The reasons are explained in the show and I encourage you to find them out.
The show also explores Sofia’s story and her homosexuality. Sofia spends most of her Summer with Dario, Ale’s best friend. I like to compare their friendship relationship to Donkey and the dragon. Donkey randomly meets the dragon while helping Shrek to rescue the Princess. They conversate in a very chaotic environment and while this happens, Donkey finds out the dragon is a female and the dragon shows affection towards him. Due to the circumstances, they have to leave each other, however, they’ll meet again by the end of the film. Both Dario and Sofia are unaware of the wonderful friendship they will experience over the summer and while this happens they keep discovering things about each other. In fact, before becoming very close, Dario has to discover about her homosexuality and she has to discover about her insecurities in relation to her friendship with Summer that seems to be having issues.
Summer is similar both to Shrek and Fiona
Like Princess Fiona from Far Far Away, Summer also has some secrets to hide. She is what she is, a young woman, living her best life on the Adriatic Italian coast. However, she has a past that often stops her from choosing love. The memories related to the summer season and her dad do not allow her to enjoy her life. The same thing happens to Princess Fiona. Fiona is aware that she’s in love with Shrek but decides to marry Lord Farquaad in an attempt to break her spell. "By night one way By day another. This shall be the norm Until you find true love's first kiss And then take love's true form."
Summer impersonates both the characteristics of Fiona and Shrek. Fiona has to find the courage to open up about her past and about the spell she’s a victim of and Summer has to find a way out of her fear of love. Her encounter with Ale drives her and us through a romantic adventure where they both discover each other and open up about their family dynamics. Alex has a difficult relationship with his dad who forces him to continue motorcycle racing. However, he is totally against this imposed choice due to a terrible incident that almost took his life.
Now that I’ve shown you a few similarities and reasons why you should watch, here is a thing that I really love
The type of representation
The protagonist summer is a mixed Italian girl and her best friend Sofia is homosexual. The protagonist of Summertime has an amazing talent for acting and this is also her first role in television. Her younger sister is also part of the show. In Italy, it is very rare to see afro italians in television, it is even more difficult to have women wear their natural afro hair. When I choose to watch a show I have to make sure there is representation, therefore, I suggest you spend a few hours of your day to discover every aspect of this love story.
About the Creator
Alessia Mavakala
Hey, I'm a filmmaker and I also love acting. Writing is my passion. I love interior design, good food and I believe self care is a form of art.
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