8 Movie Villains Created Out Of Spite

2. Lord Farquaad (Shrek)

Lord Farquaad Shrek
DreamWorks Pictures

One of the reasons Shrek has endured is because it works as a fun, harmless movie for kids, yet it also contains a bunch of "wink-wink nudge-nudge" jokes that only adults will understand. Hell, if you say Lord Farquaad's name really fast, it basically becomes Lord F**kwad.

The origins of Farquaad's character can actually be traced back to a 1990s feud between studio executives Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner. They both worked at Disney during this time, with Eisner serving as Katzenberg's superior - however, tensions arose between the pair when Katzenberg was denied a promotion, which eventually resulted in him leaving the company and founding DreamWorks in 1994.

And this is where Shrek's pint-sized baddie comes in. Still pretty pissed at Eisner, Katzenberg decided to take a shot at his former boss when producing the animated mega-hit, and created Farquaad as a mockery of him: a short, short-tempered, and ruthless ruler of a fairytale empire, a direct parallel to Eisner's reign over Disney.

Furthermore, Eisner and Farquaad even look a little similar, and just to make it clear that Farquaad was meant to be one massive insult, there's that aforementioned "F**kwad" thing. Not very subtle, Katzenberg. Not very subtle.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!