Why I Liked "Napoleon Dynamite"

I know I am WAY behind the times, but I saw “Napoleon Dynamite” over Christmas and thought I would post my thoughts about this movie that has shaped much of pop culture in the last few years. Let me preface the following by saying, Napoleon Dynamite was one of the dumbest movies ever. At the same time, it was one of the funniest. Did I like it? Sort of. Perhaps I should put it a different way. If I am forced to sit down and watch a “teen movie”, I would pick this one over any of the others. Why? Because it depicted teenage life as it really is, or at least closer than the overwhelming majority of movies in such a genre.

I’ve never heard a teenager speak the sorts of ways that Freddie Price Jr. did in his “teen movies” and I have never seen teenagers act as mature as these “actors”. Granted, most movies “stretch” or even destroy reality, but come on—25 year olds playing 16 year olds just isn’t believable. Which is probably why I enjoyed “Napoleon Dynamite.” That is as close to a “Teen Movie” has there is. It portrayed teenagers just as they are. They may take offense at such a comparison, but if they were to watch videos of themselves, the truth would come out.

Just look at the attempts at wooing
Didn’t buy a guitar or serenade from the stadium top like “10 Things I Hate About You.”
Didn’t take up an interest in a girl just to facilitate some big transformation like “She’s All That.”

It was real. The baking of a cake. The offering of a portrait. It was what they had. I remember my first girlfriend in middle school—Brooke. We had been going out a few weeks and Christmas was rolling around. She got me a huge stick of candy cane. It was the biggest candy cane I had ever seen. Anyway, I felt obligated to return the favor so I went to K-mart to find something (I was in 6^th grade after all) and the best I could come up with was a value pack of Juicy Fruit gum. I thought, “Girls like gum.” Well, it wasn’t too much later that she “moved on.”

That is what teenage life really is like. Failed attempts at relationships. No clue about life. Speech that resembles primitive beasts. These are the things that endear teenagers and also make us shake our heads in disdain.