Napoleon in popular culture

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Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, has become a worldwide cultural icon symbolizing strength, genius, and military and political power. Since his death, countless towns, streets, ships, and even cartoon characters have been named after him. At the same time, however, he has become a cliché and a comic figure in popular culture. Today this caricature of Napoleon often overshadows the real historical figure.

However during the Napoleonic Wars he was taken more seriously by the English as a threatening tyrant, poised to invade their island. A nursery rhyme warned children that Bonaparte ravenously ate naughty people.[1] His contracted last name 'Boney' became 'Bogey' and then 'bogeyman'.

The stock character of Napoleon is generally comically short, indignant, and bossy; the literal embodiment of the "petty tyrant". The historical accuracy of Napoleon being short is questionable, but he certainly was not as short as commonly depicted. He is often portrayed wearing a comically large bicorne hat, often with a big 'N' badge, and shown with one hand tucked inside his coat as in the famous portrait of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David.

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[edit] Books

[edit] Film and television

  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! GX character Vice-Chancellor Bonaparte is based on the cliché Napoleon: he is short (see the debate on Napoleon's height below), pudgy, French, has a short temper, and dresses similarly to Napoleon.
  • In the series Robot Chicken, Jon Heder (who played Napoleon Dynamite), voiced Napoleon Bonamite. A cross between Napoleon Dynamite's personality and Bonaparte's outfit, life, and setting.
  • An animated caricature of Napoleon appeared as a semi-regular on the Warner Bros. series Histeria! Here, he spoke like Hervé Villechaize, who also was French and short in stature. Napoleon hates to be reminded of his short stature (in the episode "When Time Collides!", Miss Information mistakes him for a leprechaun), and he also likes to play the tambourine, which he keeps behind his coat (hence why he keeps his hand in it, as he states in "Great Heroes of France").
  • In the famous Iranian novel, later turned into a successful TV show, My Uncle Napoleon, the main character, Daaee Jaan, loves Napoleon so much that he starts to believe he is him.
  • Napoleon appears in the Terry Gilliam film Time Bandits, endlessly reciting the heights of very short but highly eminent people (although whether he himself was short is the subject of some debate - see below).

[edit] Music

  • The Mark Knopfler song "Done with Bonaparte" from his 1996 album Golden Heart is sung from the viewpoint of a soldier in Napoleon's army. The song recalls the soldier's many battles serving in Napoleon's Grande Armee.
  • The Ani di Franco song "Napoleon" satirizes the desire to continuously "conquer"; more specifically musicians who sign with big labels - thus employing "an army of suits" in order to "make a killing" rather than just "make a living".

[edit] Napoleon's height

A caricature depicting a diminutive Napoleon
A caricature depicting a diminutive Napoleon

British propaganda of the time depicted Napoleon as of smaller than average height (see contemporary caricature right) and the image of him as a small man persists in modern Britain. However, because the French inch of the time equalled 2.7 centimetres, while the Imperial inch is 2.54 centimeters,[2] some have argued he was 1.68m and others 1.58m. This equates to average height for the time or slightly shorter.[3]

Napoleon's nickname of le petit caporal has added to the confusion, as some non-Francophones have mistakenly interpreted petit by its literal meaning of "small". In fact, it is an affectionate term reflecting on his camaraderie with ordinary soldiers. Petit ami and petit amie are French for "boyfriend" and "girlfriend", and mon petit chou ["my little cabbage"] is a term of affection.

Napoleon also surrounded himself with the soldiers of his elite guard, who were usually six feet or taller.

Whether truly short or not, Napoleon's name has been lent to the Napoleon complex, a colloquial term describing an alleged type of inferiority complex which is said to affect some people who are physically short. The term is used more generally to describe people who are driven by a perceived handicap to overcompensate in other aspects of their lives.

[edit] Napoleonic delusions of grandeur

Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the most famous humans in the Western world. As delusional patients sometimes believe themselves to be an important or grandiose figure (see Delusion), he was a notable object of such delusions.

This idea has often been used in popular culture:

  • In the 1922 film Mixed Nuts, Stan Laurel plays a book salesman whose only volume for sale is a biography of Napoleon. When the character receives a blow to the head, he comes to believe that he is Napoleon and is subsequently admitted to a mental institution.[4]
  • In Asterix and the Big Fight, one of the druid Psychoanalytix’s patients has adopted Napoleon typical posture and a bicorne. The nurse comments that no one knows who he thinks he is.
  • In one episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, there is an insane asylum with wards of people organized by delusion—there's the Napoleon Ward, and the King Richard III Ward. In another episode, Napoleon was credited as one of many famous people (including Julius Caesar) who liked to pretend to be mice.
  • The video game Psychonauts features an inmate named Fred Bonaparte in an insane asylum who is a direct descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte and has multiple personality disorder which was the end result of a massive inferiority complex he developed. Half of him knows of his real identity and the other half thinks he is Napoleon.

[edit] Parodies of the cliche

This cliché has itself been parodied:

  • In the Bugs Bunny film Napoleon Bunny Part, the actual Napoleon is dragged away by psychiatric attendants, who believe he is delusional.[5]
  • In The Emperor's New Clothes, Ian Holm plays Napoleon who stumbles into the grounds of an asylum and finds himself surrounded by other "Napoleons" - he cannot reveal his identity for fear of being grouped with the deluded.[6] Holm also played a less-than-serious Napoleon in the 1981 film Time Bandits.
  • The Discworld novel Making Money features a character who believes himself to be Lord Vetinari, imitating Vetinari's mannerisms and entertaining delusions of grandeur. It is later revealed that the local hospital has an entire ward for people with the same delusion, where they engage in competitions to determine who is the "real" Vetinari.

[edit] "Napoleon" as a first name

While the popularity of "Napoleon" as a first name never equaled that of other famous conquerors such as Alexander, it does occasionally occur. Salvadoran President José Napoleón Duarte and Florida Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward was named after the emperor.

Fictional characters named Napoleon include Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte, an Australian aboriginal detective created by the writer Arthur Upfield, Napoleon Dynamite, and Napoleon Solo, a spy from the novel, film and television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Bogeyman", "Period glossary", Napoleon.org. Retrieved 07-03-2007.
  2. ^ Weights and Measures. historydata.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-30.
  3. ^ Napoleon's height was put at around 5 ft 2 ins by three French sources (his valet Constant, General Gourgaud, and Francesco Antommarchi at Napoleon's autopsy) which on the French scale equals around 1.68m. (La taille de Napoléon Bonaparte (Napoleon Bonaparte's height). www.1789-1815.com (2002-11-25). Retrieved on 2008-05-28.) Two English sources (Andrew Darling and John Foster) put his height at around 5 ft 7 ins, equivalent, on the Imperial scale, to 1.70m. This would have made him around average height for a Frenchman of the time. (La taille de Napoléon (Napoleon's height). La Fondation Napoléon. Retrieved on 2008-05-30. How tall was Napoleon?. La Fondation Napoléon. Retrieved on 2005-12-18.) Nonetheless, some historians have claimed Napoleon would have been measured with a British measure at his autopsy, since he was under British control at St Helena, implying the 5 ft 2 ins is an Imperial measure, equal to about 1.58 meters. On the other hand, Francesco Antommarchi, Napoleon's personal physician, despised the English, considered their touch "polluting," and may never have used their yardstick to measure his emperor. (Antommarchi, F. G (1826). The Last Days of Napoleon: Memoirs of the Last Two Years of Napoleon's Exile. London: H.Colburn, p157. Retrieved on 2007-11-01. )
  4. ^ Garza, Janiss, All Movie Guide. "Mixed Nuts (1925)", Review Summary, The New York Times. Retrieved 09-25-2006.
  5. ^ "Napoleon Bunny-part", Scripts, Delenea's Bugs Bunny Page. Retrieved 07-18-2007.
  6. ^ French, Philip (The Observer). "The Emperor's New Clothes", The Guardian, 02-04-2004. Retrieved 07-19-2006.
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