What are you gonna give up for Lent, Napoleon?

Whatever I feel like! GOOSSHH!”

Many of us have a movie dear to us that we feel best encapsulates or embodies our high school experience. For some, it is The Breakfast Club. For others, it’s Superbad. And still yet for others, some logic or affinity leads them to Degrassi.

Mine is Napoleon Dynamite.

Most people seem to either love or hate Napoleon Dynamite. Shortly after its release in 2004, a church youth group leader made the comment “I don’t know why Napoleon is so cool now. We used to beat up kids like that when I was in school.” Ironic, considering how many of us in youth group thought this film was fantastic.

To this day, I love Napoleon Dynamite. (If you haven’t seen it, or at least not in a while, give it a watch before you continue. I’ll wait…)

The understated, but definitive theme of Napoleon Dynamite is that of identity. Like many a high school story, this film is about learning to be yourself and no longer attempting to conform the popular, adolescent notion of “cool.” Films like Mean Girls revolve around the main character’s rise to Popular Girl status (or varsity athlete, or teen heart throb), only for said character to realize that such a social position in high school is not all glitz and glamor, relationships were damaged, and his or her reflection does not resemble “who I truly am.” What follows is usually a climactic and impassioned “Be Yourself” speech at a school assembly or in the cafeteria. There’s cheering and the mending of relationships, and probably a romantic kiss between the lead and love interest. I am not knocking those films (too hard…). I genuinely enjoy Mean Girls, because most anything Tina Fey writes is comedy gold. But the narrative arc of such high school stories is formulaic and predictable. There is also a presupposition that everyone in high school wants to be in the in-crowd, and every lead is capable of joining it with the right makeover and compromise of conviction.

Napoleon stands out in the homecoming crowd because the viewer knows from the outset that the title character will never achieve such in-crowd esteem. There is nothing in Napoleon’s demeanor, conversational skills, or fashion choices that lend himself to a make-over trope. His attempts to impress are absurd. His claims include that he spent his summer in Alaska hunting wolverines, and that the school’s “many gangs” want him to join because he’s “pretty good with a bo staff.”

Beyond the school walls, Napoleon’s older brother Kip chats with “babes online all day,” and is an aspiring cage fighter. Most intriguing (and irritating) is their Uncle Rico, a thirty-something man who videotapes himself throwing footballs and constantly reminiscing about 1982 when he was a high school football star. Rico goes as far as to buy an alleged time machine off the internet. Each family member (save for Grandma) is out to define or redefine his identity.

Ironically, Napoleon’s two friends, Pedro and Deb, are not so preoccupied. Pedro may be navigating this high school in rural Idaho as a Mexican immigrant and ultimately decides to run for school president, but at no point does he put forth some facade or false self. Similarly, Deb may be quiet and shy when the audience (with Napoleon) first meets her, but from the start she is an aspiring business woman trying to save for college. Give credit where credit is due. How many high schoolers would start their own “Glamour Shots by Deb” in an attempt to achieve higher education? Both of these relationships are new to Napoleon, and I believe shape him into the confident person we see at the film’s climax. “Napoleon becomes a confident person, you say?” Yes, I do say.

The climax of the film comes not with a speech, but with a dance.

This dance occurs, like many high school movie speeches, at a school assembly. At this point, the school presidential election speeches have both fallen flat. There’s nothing about Pedro’s speech that is dynamic. His tone is deadpan, and he advocates for setting up saints in the hallways to guard the students and bring them good luck. And his opponent, Summer Wheatly’s speech is full of cheap fluff. Her skit has no substance, but Pedro does not have a skit prepared. Then Napoleon steps up. Napoleon’s dance puts him in a place of total vulnerability. Not only that, the viewer knows he has practiced it. Napoleon guzzled gatorade and sweated it out in his bedroom, working on his sick dance moves all because he found an instructional dance video in a thrift store. The climactic speeches in high school movies are always polished and well-articulated. It appears that Hollywood is under the impression that high school classes on public speaking produce orators who need no preparation, just the zestful energy of emotion and epiphany.

Not here, good sir, not here. Napoleon’s moment is one where rather than talking about some sweet skills he doesn’t have, he demonstrates the culmination of his hard work and practice. And the dance does not occur because he has some revelation about “being who he is,” but because his friend Pedro is in need.

“Cute, albeit brief analysis, Dan. But what does this have to do with Lent?”

Glad you asked, dear reader!

It is fitting that many high school movies deal with identity. Adolescence is a time in which we desire to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the world, while paradoxically also desiring to be embraced socially by our peers (which we all do by various degrees). In the midst of my adolescence, I tried to be a guitar guy, because girls dig guys with guitars, but I had no rhythm. I tried to be a skater and practice on my friends’ boards. But my center of balance was too high and I didn’t handle the public humiliation of falling on my ass well. I’m sure we all have stories to share. But the desire to define our identity does not stop in high school. It may be reflected in the professional position we strive for or the car we buy. Our attempts at definition may be more evident in what we choose to post on social media (or even what we name our blog…).

During Lent, some of us may need to let our preoccupation with the cultivation of our identities die. The Christian mystics described the threefold path of spiritual formation as Purgation, Illumination, and Union. For the season of Lent and the intent of this series, discussing Purgation is enough. Purgation is the process through which we are purified. It is how we learn what is infecting us and the beginning of how we are healed from it.

The Christian Tradition has often understood the Wilderness as a place of death. It is where the Israelites are forced to wander for forty years, and it is where Jesus is tempted before he starts his earthly ministry. The Wilderness is a place of Purgation. And for many, high school is a wilderness. It is no coincidence that this movie is set in rural Idaho. Farmland is everywhere, and no character can escape it. Popular girls Summer and Trish are only popular at school. They live on dusty country roads, and Summer works at the local grocery store as the checkout girl. They are all in this place together.

I believe we witness the purgation of Napoleon in Napoleon Dynamite. The change in Napoleon is subtle. Even after his performance, he still wears shirts adorned with unicorns, and he still draws pictures of ligers (duh, they’re bred for their skill in magic!). Yet he no longer makes up stories about himself to seem tough, or badass. In fact, the farther we get in the film’s runtime, the less Napoleon speaks. Napoleon discovers more about who he is when a) he is around people who care for him and enjoy his fellowship, and b) he has grown most comfortable in his own skin. At the assembly, following Napoleon’s dance routine, the crowd cheers. And they cheer loudly. I believe they cheer for Napoleon’s vulnerability, which reflects his newfound sense of self.

For some of us, Lent may be a season for the purgation of the idolatry of striving for any particular identity. Maybe we need to learn to be comfortable with being nothing more than the person God created us to be.