By: Hunter Doiron
The
movie Napoleon Dynamite shows the difficult social life of Napoleon, a socially
awkward character. His high school life consists of bullies, making up socially
desirable stories, and an attempt to form a social group.
His
social awkwardness leads to him being bullied. One scene shows him unknowingly
being bullied as he answers questions from more popular guys laughing at his made-up
responses. Baier et al. (2019) looked at how bullying affects the mental health
of victims because they recognized the different ways bullying occurs that can
all still be harmful. 10,638 students participated in their cross-sectional
study at a German high school where they were surveyed on different ways they
experienced bullying (physical or psychological, from classmates or teachers,
cyberbullying, etc.). Their results showed psychological bullying was the most harmful
form of bullying on an adolescent’s mental health. Even though the bullies were
not physically harassing Napoleon, this study shows how their sarcasm can hurt
Napoleon’s mental health.
There
is another scene where Napoleon claims he is the best person he knows at drawing.
A different study looked at how adolescents responding in socially desirable
ways correlates with their narcissism. They defined social desirability as leading
to what they call “self-deceptive enhancement” (Barry et al., 2017). Napoleon’s
false stories play into enhancing how he views himself and how he thinks others
see him. From the 161 adolescents who answered questionnaires to gage their
socially desirable responses along with narcissism, the researchers found there
was not a correlation between narcissism and socially desirable responses. Despite
no evidence why there was a lack of correlation, they suggested that narcissistic
adolescents may not feel compelled to portray themselves positively to others
as they already see themselves highly. For Napoleon, his socially desirable
stories are not a result of his narcissism but rather some other motive.
Napoleon’s
true motive may be to find his social identity according to another group of
researchers. They said social identity refers to a social group offering “meaning
and belonging” (Koni et al., 2019). Two separate studies were done which consisted
of 136 and then 91 adolescents broken into small groups on a sailing voyage
where they learned to interact with new people in each study. The researchers
were interested to see if new social groups could still promote a healthy sense
of social identity which they found to be true in both studies. Napoleon finds
two new friends, Pedro and Deb, and he still responds in socially desirable
manners with them. It seems that Napoleon’s responses are his attempt to strengthen
his social identity in his new social group.
Napoleon
Dynamite is typically seen as a comical movie with no plot, but it shows the
struggles that so many adolescents go through: bullying, making up desirable
stories, and forming new social groups. We can all relate to Napoleon in some
way which should encourage us to better empathize with adolescents and attempt
to help them as they work through the same struggles we all went through.
References
Baier, D.,
Hong, J. S., Kliem, S., & Bergmann, M. C. (2019). Consequences of Bullying
on
Adolescents’ Mental Health in Germany: Comparing Face-to-Face Bullying and Cyberbullying. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 28(9), 2347–2357. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1181-6
Barry, C. T.,
Lui, J. H. L., & Anderson, A. C. (2017). Adolescent Narcissism, Aggression,
and
Prosocial Behavior: The Relevance of Socially Desirable Responding. Journal of Personality Assessment, 99(1), 46–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2016.1193812
Koni, E.,
Moradi, S., Arahanga-Doyle, H., Neha, T., Hayhurst, J. G., Boyes, M., Cruwys,
T.,
Hunter, J. A., & Scarf, D. (2019). Promoting resilience in adolescents: A new social identity benefits those who need it most. PLoS ONE, 14(01), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210521
For Image:
Fabrizio, Doug. “Napoleon Dynamite: The Film With All The Great Skills.” RadioWest, radiowest.kuer.org/post/napoleon-dynamite-film-all-great-skills.
