"I'll show them all by further defiling all things they are already busy defiling."
Shrek worked as a middle finger to Disney because it was a parody of Disney Renaissance movies (while also being a fairy tale played straight), with the big bad being a walking insult to Eisner and the plot being an extended comment on Disney's sanitization of fairy tales. Which everyone agreed Disney was doing at the time. The themes resonated with the viewers who had enough of that.
With whom this is supposed to resonate? How many decades ago a "princess locked in the tower" actually was a thing in Disney movies, instead of something they subvert all the time?