Cultural depictions of Napoleon

Napoléon Bonaparte, emperor of France, has become a worldwide cultural icon symbolizing strength, genius, and political solidity. Since his death, countless towns, streets, ships, and even cartoon characters have been named after him.

In Western culture, believing oneself to be Napoléon has become semi-synonymous with delusions and more particularly delusions of grandeur.

There are two reasons for this, firstly delusional patients often believe themselves to be important figures (see paranoia) such as Jesus or Napoleon (naturally the belief that one is Napoleon has declined in favour of more modern powerful people over time). In particular, the psychiatrist R. D. Laing in his book The Divided Self refers to a case of a paranoid schizophrenic who believes he is the reincarnation of Napoleon. Secondly, there is the psychiatric term Napoleon complex which describes an overly aggressive behaviour thought to be exhibited by some short men.

Thus, Napoleon has come to be used as a comedic shorthand for psychiatric illness:


 * Stan Laurel's first film Mixed Nuts shows him receiving a blow to the head, leaving him thinking he is Napoleon
 * In the 2001 film 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
 * In the Bugs Bunny film Napoleon Bunny-part a man is dragged away by psychiatric attendants for being dressed as Napoleon(despite the fact that the man in question was Napoleon).
 * Characters in Screwball Squirrel cartoons sometimes wear bicorn hats with an "N" displayed prominiently on the front.
 * In Asterix and the Big Fight the druid Psychoanalix has a patient who adopts the posture of Napoleon. Considering the fact that the comic book is set in the 1st Century B.C., the humour is also anachronistic.
 * In the film Highlander III a patient in a psychiatric hospital believes himself to be Napoleon (the credits list him as "Loony Napoleon") . Connor MacLeod pretends to be one of Napoleon's soldiers to convince the patient to help him escape.
 * In the film The Exorcist the priest says "Look, your daughter doesn't say she's a demon, she says she's the devil himself. Now, if you've seen as many psychotics as I have, you'd say it's the same thing as saying you're Napoleon Bonaparte."
 * In the Frank Capra film Arsenic and Old Lace one of the characters believes himself to be Theodore Roosevelt. The local sanitorium does not want to admit him because they "have too many Roosevelts" adding, "could you talk him into being Napoleon, perhaps?"
 * 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 (where all the patients are screaming "My kingdom for a horse!" One man who's making progress is saying, quietly "My kingdom for a horse."), and others.
 * In the popular British sitcom Dad's Army, Captain Mainwaring is nicknamed "Napoleon" due to his short stature and imperious manner.
 * In the popular science-fiction cartoon Futurama, Bender pretends to be a singing, banjo-playing Napoleon in order to fit in at an insane asylum in the episode Insane in the Mainframe.
 * In the film Napoleon Dynamite, Napoleon is a high-school student suffering from extreme social awkwardness. The name 'Napoleon Dynamite' is a pseudonym previously used by Elvis Costello. However, in the series Robot Chicken, Jon Heder (who played Napoleon Dynamite) voiced as Napoleon Bonamite, a cross between Napoleon Dynamite's personality and Bonaparte's outfit.
 * In the cartoon South Park, Butters appears on the Maury Povich show with testicles hanging from his chin. He uses the pseudonym Napoleon Bonaparte.
 * In the game Psychonauts, mental patient Fred Bonaparte is the descendent of Napoleon. Later it is revealed that Napoleon himself is haunting his mind.

Although Napoleon sometimes appears as himself:

In 1966 Napolean topped the American charts when recording engineer Jerry Samuels renamed himself as "Napolean 1Vth" for his record "They're coming to take me away Ha! Ha!",a song with a theme of mental illness which featured ambulance sirens in the background Some fictional characters are named after Napoleon:
 * He appears as a character in the time travelling comedy film Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, wherein he discovers a fondness for ice cream
 * Also appears in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits.
 * In British scifi sitcom, Red Dwarf in episode "Better Than Life", Arnold J. Rimmer meets his role model in virtual reality.
 * Napoleon the Pig in George Orwell's Animal Farm is a character resembling Joseph Stalin.