Napoleon Dynamite

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Napoleon Dynamite's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Napoleon Dynamite completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 23 December 2004.

Overall comments and recommendations

Napoleon Dynamite is an offbeat movie about Napoleon, a nerdy guy and his equally nerdy brother Kip and the difficulties they have being accepted into mainstream life. The portrayal of the characters is rather extreme and while the movie does contain some humour, it is mostly at the expense of these two characters. The story line is very thin and the characters, apart from Napoleon and Kip, are poorly developed. As such the movie would have limited appeal.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Napoleon Dynamite contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

blahNapoleon Dynamite and his older brother Kip have no parents and are being brought up by their Grandmother. With limited social skills Napoleon manages to get himself onto the bus and to school each day while Kip spends his days chatting online to ‘babes'. When Napoleon's grandmother falls off her motorbike and breaks her coccyx bone Uncle Rico comes to stay much to Napoleon's dislike. Uncle Rico is a real smooth talker still living in 1982 and with fanciful ideas about how to make money. He manages to persuade Kip into going out door-to-door selling products.

At school Napoleon befriends Pedro, a new boy from Mexico who has limited English. Pedro decides to ask Summer, the cool girl at school, to the school dance. Of course she refuses as she's going with Don, the cool guy. Instead Pedro asks Deb, a shy girl at school who seems to like Napoleon and she accepts. Napoleon now doesn't know who to ask so Uncle Rico persuades Trisha, a daughter of one of his female clients, to go with him. At the dance however, Trisha immediately leaves Napoleon.

Pedro then decides to run for class president and he comes up against Summer with very surprising results.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, which is not particularly graphic and quite often meant to be funny:

• Napoleon frequently gets beaten up at school and gets his head bashed into the lockers.
• Napoleon crashes his pushbike and injures his groin – in much pain.
• Napoleon and Kip often slap each other and push each other around.
• Kip sees an advert for self-defence lessons – Kwon do – where a man's pointing a gun and then has a woman in a headlock.
• A farmer shoots a cow – not actually shown, but the children on the bus all scream.
• Grandma flies over the handles of her motorbike.
• Uncle Rico throws a steak at Napoleon, knocking his glasses off.
• Napoleon tries out a time machine Kip bought online – it's an electronic headpiece he puts on which gives him much pain.
• One of the tough guys at school grabs a smaller boy by the neck and repeatedly shoves him up and down.
• Napoleon and Uncle Rico have a fight.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Children in this age group could be scared by the above-mentioned scenes. Also, when Napoleon gets a job on a chicken farm, battery hens are all shown stuffed into cages and Napoleon has to stuff one in—this scene is quite distressing.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened

Children in this age group could still be concerned by the physical harassment of weaker boys and also by the chicken farm scene.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Children in this age group would not be scared by this movie.

Product placement

Research shows that children, particularly children under the age of eight, are vulnerable to product placement in movies. Even if the child doesn't recall seeing a particular brand in the movie, they will choose that brand in preference to another, if they have just seen it used or displayed in a movie. This effect may be exacerbated if the product is highlighted as part of the story or if an actor or character they admire is seen to endorse or enjoy the product.

The ‘Doritos' products are displayed in this movie.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references:

• Kip chats online to ‘babes' all day and manages to find La Fawndah, a female seductress who comes to visit. Kip ends up leaving with her.
• Uncle Rico sells Bust Must, a bust improver. He demonstrates it to the women using saucepans as a guide to show how big their busts could be. He tries to sell it to Deb and tells her that Napoleon would like her better if she had a bigger bust.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is no nudity or sexual activity.

Use of substances

There is no use of substances

Coarse language

There is little coarse language – Napoleon uses the word frigging repeatedly.

The movie's message

The movie's message is that it's hard for different people to fit in to an acceptably normal lifestyle.

There are no values in this movie that parents would want to encourage.

The following content could be used by parents to discuss with their children what their own family's values are, and what the real life consequences can be of harassing smaller or weaker people and making fun of people's differences.