Rise of the Nerd
Jon Heder is Napoleon Dynamite (Searchlight Pictures, 2004).
By C.A. Ramirez
20 years later, Napoleon Dynamite is unrivaled.
High school is hell. The many factions within fight like chimps. Jocks brutalize nerds, metal heads chastise punks, and the goths smoke quietly in the corner. The teen films of the 1990’s followed a very stale format. Nerdy girl likes a popular guy, friends transform her into a pretty swan, and the jock suddenly takes notice. They hook up. Champagne flows, velvet ropes part, cue song by The Cure, roll credits. The beautiful succeeded no matter what, and the frumpy were doomed to fail. Siblings Jared and Jeruca Hesh shattered that stagnant paradigm with their legendary 2004 film debut, Napoleon Dynamite.
“Knock it off Napoleon, make yourself a dang Quesa-dilla!”
The youth of cinema have always yearned to spread their wings and fly. James Deen soared higher than any before. Dean personified young American male angst in such a palpable way, that many today are still trying to harness the passion behind his torment. Mathew Broderick would wield that magical mania with his Ferris Bueller character in director John Hughes 1986 blockbuster, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Broderick brought the devil may care attitude to the forefront of cinema that reflected a lighter side to what Dean had portrayed in 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause. No matter the generation, there exists within youth, a desire hotter than hell to never conform.
Napoleon Dynamite is the culmination of Dean and Broderick’s iconic characterization. John Heder managed to masterfully pull off, with the siblings Hesh, a character so intensely unique and relatable, that it would go on to become part of pop culture immediately after its release in the summer of 2004. Heder’s chemistry with co-star Efren Ramirez, as Pedro, forged a dynamic duo that rivaled Batman and Robin. Despite the odds, you wanted them to succeed.
“This tastes like the cow got into a onion patch.”
No college dorm or high school hallway was free from its impact. “Vote for Pedro” shirts rocked every quad from Sacramento to Nantucket, and their embrace was clear. The individual is a celebration, no matter how out of place they may seem; your time to shine is whenever you want. Napoleon Dynamite proved to the world’s disenfranchised youth that their place was anywhere they wanted it to be, and audiences trailed with more determination than Jim Jones’s followers.
The movie is a masterpiece. From its lunch room opening credits set against indie folk music; Napoleon Dynamite is charming from its opening scene to its last. After its release, jocks wanted to be friends with the geeks, and the nerdy wanted to fall deeper into their niche proclivities. The film had managed to negotiate a consensus between the warring factions of scholastic bodies; convincing them, albeit for a moment, that anyone among them was worth celebrating.
“How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?”
The film is iconic. Few can ignore its magnetic pull over the viewer, and fewer still can argue against its cinematic importance. It is the definition of the off-beat comedy, but its sheen attracts even the most cynical among us. Napoleon Dynamite manages to channel Rocky; replacing the boxing ring of the 1970’s with the pre-social media era of a mid-west high school in the early 2000’s. Instead of training for a fight, Napoleon strives to make his mark by taking a popular girl to the prom. The number of quotable scenes in this movie stretches from the first minute to its last second, culminating in a legendary dance off that rivals Footloose, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance, and Fame combined.
Younger generations need to make Napoleon Dynamite a part of their movie collection. It is a window into the amazing era that predates the explosion of social media, a time when being an individual was an independent decision; free from the push and pull of caustic influencers. Napoleon Dynamite is the celebration of the individual spirit and its meteoric rise to prominence–a modern classic that everyone should see at least once in their lifetime.