1/18/08: Election (1999)This was supposed to be an entry about
Cloverfield, but that has to wait until Monday. We’ve seen too many recent articles comparing Hillary Clinton to
Election’s Tracy Flick. This reinforces the kind of lazy critical groupthink that usually gets us all upset, and then keeps us from writing about movies like
Cloverfield. Also, now we have to throw in lots of SPOILERS to make our point about
Election.
And don’t go thinking that
Election isn’t trash. It was an acclaimed small film, but the plot is about high-school sex, and
Election could’ve made it onto any drive-in bill of the ’70s. There’s even a cast member from
The Swinging Cheerleaders playing one of the heroines. And don’t forget the lesbian teen subplot. That’s probably what got MTV Films to make the movie.
But the important thing is that
Election is the best live-action conservative cartoon since Arnold Schwarzenegger perpetually foiled Kirk Douglas in
The Villain. Yes, we know there haven’t been many live-action conservative cartoons.
Matthew Broderick stars as Mr. McAllister. He likes being called “Mr. M.” McAllister is a popular Social Studies teacher who’s true to his Nebraska high school and serves as the advisor to the Student Government Association. He reads to his class from the
New York Times. McAllister also likes to play rock ’n roll music with his fellow teacher Dave, who’s having sex with one of the high school’s most promising students.
That would be the greatest teen heroine of the ’90s: Tracy Flick, played by Reese Witherspoon. The vapid Dave quickly becomes an ex-teacher once Tracy’s mom finds out about the creep. This is good, because Tracy has too many things going for her. She’s a smart, ambitious, positive gal who loves student government. She doesn’t have many friends, but she’s still running unopposed for Class President.
Mr. McAllister—knowing that Tracy has had sex with a teacher—is terrified of working with her as part of the SGA. He decides to recruit the school’s most popular male student to also run for Class President. He does this by explaining to Paul that Tracy’s popularity as a candidate is equal to a dictatorship. McAllister should actually be teaching Orwell over in the English department.
Tracy is unprepared for these machinations. Her only advisor is that supportive (if shrill) mother who’s taught Tracy an important lesson: “The weak are always trying to sabotage the strong.” Mom is absolutely correct. That’s how Tracy knows something’s wrong the moment that she sees Paul is in the running. She immediately demands, “Who put you up to this?” She figures out the answer just as quickly.
Tracy doesn’t whine or complain. She simply redoubles her efforts against this unexpected obstacle. She’s a little more perturbed when Paul’s sister Tammy also signs on as a candidate. (That’s part of the lesbian teen subplot.) Mr. M is pleased with all this chaos. His only concern is not being alone with Tracy Flick.
McAllister is the most pathetic man in America. He’s scared of a teenage girl’s vagina. Even worse, he bases his paranoia on an imagined sexual collision. Tracy’s own narrative shows that she has no sexual interest in McAllister. She’s learned her lesson about having sex with shallow older men. McAllister, however, knows that he’s an adulterous weasel at heart. He doesn’t trust himself, and so Tracy must be sabotaged in the name of his weakness.
You have to love this tough little girl. Tracy’s smart, but McAllister throws together a devious left-wing conspiracy. It’s genuinely heartbreaking when Tracy finally has a temper tantrum while alone in the school one night. Frustrated to the point of tears, she rips down Paul’s election posters the day before the vote. She seems really upset afterwards. McAllister doesn’t feel nearly as bad when he sleeps with his wife’s best friend. In fact, he’s in a great mood while piously accusing Tracy of vandalizing Paul’s posters.
Fortunately, Tammy steps in to take the blame so that she can be sent to an all-girls school.
We can now discuss the SPOILER of a happy ending. A desperate McAllister gets caught rigging the vote count, becomes a national joke, and is left with nothing but his crappy sub-compact car. (It automatically puts his seatbelt on for him.) Tracy Flick becomes Class President. The filmmakers then show true insight by giving McAllister the perfect fate for a modern Leftist douchebag. He ends up in Manhattan, talking about how happy he is to be paying $1,550 a month for a lousy studio apartment. That everyday delusion is sweetened by his insistence on remembering Tracy as someone who “lied and cheated her way into election.”
As we’re now being reminded, many filmgoers left the theater thinking of Tracy Flick as the film’s villain. Even stranger, they saw Mr. McAllister as a universal victim of the calculating phonies who—as the Trench Coat Mafia would’ve assured you—go on to rule the world.
To these people, we pose the following question: What about Larry?
McAllister’s defenders never know who we’re talking about. They’ve forgotten the earnest boy who heads the Student Election Committee. McAllister doesn’t think twice about usurping democracy and making Larry look like a fool. Of course, ignoring Larry allows the teacher to blissfully ask, “What harm has really been done?”
We can’t imagine why those other folks are kidding themselves.
Those same people make a curious assumption about the film’s closing scene, set a few years later. McAllister is working as a particularly petty museum guide. He glimpses Tracy being chauffeured with a Republican congressman from Nebraska. It’s been established that Tracy is a smart young woman with sentimental disdain for the schoolteacher who seduced her. McAllister’s fans still insist on assuming that Tracy is having sex with that Nebraska congressman.
Election came out in 1999. We know which political party was busy trying to rationalize sex with employees. But, also, what kind of misogynistic losers are eager to assume that a bright young woman is having sex with her employer?
McAllister does manage to be right about one thing. You have to feel sorry for Tracy. We sincerely wish that life was like
Election’s high school. Instead, idealistic people like Tracy will go on to find themselves outnumbered by professional liars like Sidney Blumenthal. She’s only fictional, but nothing in this world can stop us worrying about that girl.
Make it your own: You can pick up
Election for cheap, and see what director Alexander Payne has to say for himself on the DVD commentary track. We haven’t listened to it, but Payne went on to provide other fine conservative moments in films such as
About Schmidt and
Sideways. There’s also been a lot of debate about Payne’s 1996 abortion comedy
Citizen Ruth—which, like most of Payne’s recent films, was co-written with Jim Taylor.
Election has a source novel, too. We should read it someday.
