Would you join Ada’s Lambily? This is the July feature. If you missed last month’s short about my daughter, the lamb from Lamb, you can read that here.
In this issue: Napoleon Dynamite (2004, 95 minutes, available on Hulu)
You know this boogie is for real
When I rewatched Napoleon Dynamite (2004) I saw a much kinder movie than what I remembered. I was waiting for the inevitable homophobic punchline that seems to deflate every once-beloved movie, or some teacher-sanctioned cruelty toward Napoleon and his geeky friends. That meanness I was anticipating never comes and the film also thankfully avoids the overly wholesome bent a lot of indie cinema indulges in. I’m talking about movies like Juno (2007), 20th Century Women (2016), and most recently Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022), films that are defined by the main characters’ unflinching if imperfect kindness. Movies that are basically the cinematic equivalent of “in this house we accept…” lawn signs on lakefront property.
Napoleon Dynamite is different. The movie never mocks or exonerates Napoleon’s oddities: it just presents them. While watching it with my roommate Rachel, she pointed out that there are plenty of moments where the movie could put the joke on Napoleon but never does. Yes, Napoleon is bullied but it’s not egregious, and the cool kids that look down on him aren’t even that cool. They’re wearing dorky keds and in the Happy Hands Club, just like Napoleon and Deb and Pedro.
Napoleon Dynamite is an obviously low-budget movie with a shred of an a-plot and dozens of b-plots. It’s probably best remembered through Borat-esque punchlines that barely had a set-up in the first place and thus can be repeated without any context: “Make yourself a dang quesadilla,” “I caught you a delicious bass,” “Whatever I feel like I wanna do, GOSH!” Bolstered by a flawless soundtrack, Napoleon Dynamite gently rambles along like an extra-long episode of Freaks and Geeks or Joe Pera Talks to You. And then it famously culminates in Napoleon’s dance.
It is unsurprising to hear that Jon Heder improvised most of the dance. There was no budget for a choreographer (I have no idea how they got the music rights), and so Heder does a series of complicated dance moves that have almost nothing to do with the music. It’s a showcase of every single move he’s absorbed from the dance VHS he found, and maybe some of the cartoons he continues to watch.
When he dances, Napoleon loses the stiff, overgrown childish physicality we’ve watched for the last 80 minutes. The body language is still undoubtedly Napoleon—he never makes eye contact or changes his half-gaped facial expression—but suddenly he is grooving with fluidity and presence. Ending with a dance number is too cliche to even be considered a cliche, it’s a trapping of comedy as a genre (take it up with Shakespeare), and there’s goofy dancing that same decade in other comedies like The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006). But the difference is that Napoleon’s dance is good.
And perhaps that’s why the student body erupts in cheers once Napoleon flees the stage. I found this surprisingly touching, maybe because I didn’t remember or expect it. They could reject him but they don’t. Led by Deb, they stand up to applaud and embrace him. It becomes clear that Napoleon is not just one of them, he is them. If they could hang out all their hang-ups, as the song says, they could also dance freely and apply chapstick without shame. Like in Rocky (1976), it doesn’t matter to the movie, or to the audience, or to Napoleon whether Pedro wins the election. What matters is that he went the fifteen rounds.
What I enjoy about watching high school movies is how it fuzzes the line of my own high school experience. Surely I have a memory of a school outcast uniting the student body with their talent show performance? Wasn’t it me in a dance circle in a barn with Kevin Bacon in a maroon tuxedo? These moments feel like they could have happened not because they’re realistic but because they’re better than reality, and presented from the perspective of the students who are also delighted with what they’ve done for themselves.
It seems impossible that Jon Heder won’t go on Late Night and do the dance again for a significant anniversary of the movie. I think you can draw a straight line from the dance in Napoleon Dynamite to the Evolution of Dance viral video to the dancing segments on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (but let’s not hold that against Napoleon). This dance scene is memorable because it reminds us of all the ways we have and haven’t been brave. It feels like a miracle that we could’ve been a part of, when we questioned whether our community could handle something strange and then they did.
It’s a moment that feels like it could have happened, because in 2004, it did. Everyone saw Napoleon Dynamite, and this tiny movie made by a mid-twenties couple who went to BYU about one of their bumfuck hometowns made a hundred times its budget. There is a Vote for Pedro t-shirt at your local thrift store to prove it.
Gratuitous insult by author doesn't liveup to the movie