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Characters of Mexican descent are kind and wholesome, but they also come off as simplistic and unintelligent. The director asserts a type of Anglo normativity through his comical representations of Mexicans, yet he also undermines out- spoken proponents of border security by emphasizing that his foreign charac- ters pose no threat to US culture or way of life. Numerous critics have discussed how Napoleon Dynamite’s style makes it difficult to place both aesthetically and ideologically; indeed, the movie’s bizarre aesthetics and political discourse have caused even computer algorithms to struggle to determine viewers’ en- tertainment preferences based on their reaction to the film.23 Hess’s surprising success at the box office, where he leveraged a $400,000 production budget into a $46 million profit, has led many scholars to discuss the film’s business model.24 In these cases, Napoleon Dynamite becomes the posterchild for inde- pendent directors who dream of one day making it big in Hollywood. Perhaps owing to its almost complete lack of plot, few critics have attempted to find ideological consistency within the film. However, Napoleon Dynamite’s ties to Mormon culture – particularly as it relates to the “Lamanite” peoples – lie at the heart of its appeal. Any critic who wishes to discuss how the movie diverg- es from Hollywood must take this religious backdrop into consideration. This Mormon influence is especially visible with Pedro’s arc, which both provides a new look at Mexican and Chicano identity in the United States and serves as an allegory for the ultimate union between white North American Mormons and the descendants of the peoples of the Book of Mormon. Hess uses his main protagonists’ friendship to emphasize the relationship between Mormon “Gentiles” and Mexican “Lamanites”. Interestingly, scholars like Bill Jenkins assert that Pedro is the only explicitly religious character (Catho- lic) in the film;25 indeed, Jenkins claims that while Hess’s Mormonism “may ac- count for the lack of profanity and explicit teenage sexuality in the movie, Napo- leon Dynamite evinces no propagandistic intention”.26 The movie may not strive to convert its audience,27 but both Napoleon and his brother, Kip (Aaron Ruell), give off clues throughout the film that performatively signal them as Mormon. Hess never explicitly mentions his characters’ religion, a fact that leaves the LDS element invisible to uninitiated viewers. Eric Samuelson refers to the movie as a 23 Golbandi/Koren/Lempel 2011. See also Mackey/Weiss/Jordan 2010, 713; 717–718; Read/ Robertson 2009, 3–5. 24 Young/Gong/Van der Stede 2008, 30. 25 Jenkins 2005, 2. 26 Jenkins 2005, 4. 27 Nicolaas Mink reports that many residents of Preston, Idaho, were uncomfortable with the film’s representation of their lives, where, “rather than viewing hard work or a vibrant religious culture, Americans witnessed a comedy about a frontier community sitting a few decades back in the Turnerian evolutionary social progression that was struggling to come to grips with modernity”. See Mink 2008, 156. On (Dang) Quesadillas and Nachos | 147www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 141–165