How are indirect speech acts used to speak about controversial subjects in Shrek? Utterances that referred to violence or sex were deconstructed using the concepts of locution, illocution, and perlocution (Austin, 1962). Additionally, the co-operative principle (Grice, 1975) was used to show how speakers circumvent using direct speech acts, and instead rely on the addressee's frames of reference to understand threats and sexual innuendos. Eight extracts from the source material (Steig, Adamson & Jenson, 2001) were selected by the author based on their noticeability and their speakers' methods analyzed. The results show that violence is represented in the indirect utterances in the form of veiled threats that leave the addressee to interpret the threat. Furthermore, context was amply provided, and such interpretation is likely easy to make even for young audiences. The subject of sex was represented in indirect speech acts in the form of sexual innuendos, that could be understood as targeted toward either children or adults. Concluding the essay is a discussion of which subjects could be considered controversial in a children's movie, and a suggestion to use a norm-critical perspective (Persdotter, 2015) to analyze such media in future research. Additionally, it suggests using a language philosophical approach to understanding when an utterance is produced.