Witherspoon\u2019s role as Tracy is one of jarring contradictions. She\u2019s a sweet-as-apple-pie teacher\u2019s pet, the Hermione Granger type whose hand shoots up to answer every teacher\u2019s question with a perfect textbook definition. She participates in every club and seems utterly committed to making her school community a better place. She has a bright smile and blond curls, outwardly presenting the image of an ideal high-school student. But Tracy, we quickly realize, also has a bit of a dark side. Her voice-over narration, delivered with the perky diction of a debate club champion who has had plenty of public speaking experience, occasionally gives way to a violent rage that belies her sunny demeanor. She\u2019s sort of like if Rachel Berry from Glee<\/em> had gone into Model U.N. instead of theater. Much of her efforts to win student body president fall under the heading of typical overachiever behavior \u2013 she brings in baked goods and offers free gum to win over her fellow students, she makes herself available to speak to her would-be constituents about the issues. And to be fair, she\u2019s up against a tidal wave of peak \u201890s apathy, faced with students and even fellow candidates who think the entire election is a waste of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But she also engages in her fair share of unethical behavior. When one corner of her poster falls down, she flies into a temper, tearing not just her poster, but those of her competitors. What\u2019s more, she throws away the evidence of her crime and hurls accusations at her fellow candidate, sophomore Tammy Metzler (Jessica Campbell), who had used her stump speech to advocate for the abolishment of the student council itself. Tracy Flick knows exactly how much work she\u2019s put into this election, and she believes she\u2019s entitled to the presidency. So what does it matter if she breaks a few rules to reach her rightful place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As much as Tracy appears to have ice in her veins when it comes to the pursuit of her own goals, Election<\/em> also shows hints of vulnerability, especially in her inner monologue and quieter moments. When she believes that she actually lost the election, it shakes her sense of self, and you can\u2019t help but feel bad for her as she sobs in her childhood bedroom, filled with overwhelming anxiety and sorrow. At the culmination of her triumph, when she arrives at Georgetown to take a giant step toward her political destiny, she reluctantly admits to herself that it wasn\u2019t exactly what she was expecting. She had imagined that everyone who attended a school like Georgetown would be as driven and focused as she was, but that\u2019s not necessarily the case, and she\u2019s just as much an outsider at college as she was in high school. Tracy Flick is a bold character whose presence dominates the screen, but these brief moments of nuance make her a much more dynamic figure than most audiences remember. She\u2019s definitely not a hero, but it\u2019s hard to fully see her as a villain \u2013 unless you\u2019re the supremely unreliable narrator, Mr. McCallister (Matthew Broderick), that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way he views Tracy, with barely concealed disgust even before the voting debacle plays out, plainly shows that she is meant to be punished somehow. Not necessarily for her crimes, which, since McCallister engaged in plenty of immoral behavior himself, he should be able to forgive. There\u2019s a sense that McCallister \u2013 and the audience as a whole \u2013 would be much more willing to embrace the idea of Tracy if she was just a cold-hearted wannabe politician. Instead, she\u2019s something that viewers have been trained to inherently dislike: A grating teenage girl who has the ability to make others root for her failure through the sheer force of her personality. After all, McCallister\u2019s hatred of her is strongest when she\u2019s happy<\/em> \u2013 when he sees her as getting everything she ever wanted in spite of how annoying he finds her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, Election<\/em> has its use of multiple inner monologues to thank for how compelling Tracy\u2019s character is to delve into. Through the eyes of McCallister, Tracy is a grasping know-at-all whose very voice makes him shudder \u2013 everything we\u2019re taught to find distasteful in women, but especially teenage girls. Yet Tracy\u2019s narration gives us another perspective. And, refreshingly, it doesn\u2019t show her in a necessarily better light \u2013 she\u2019s still irritable, judgmental, and obsessed with her own success \u2013 but we can see that although her ruthlessness is a baked-in character trait, she\u2019s so much more than just<\/em> that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Election” is streaming on Max<\/a> and Kanopy<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/election2-1024x576.jpg\")
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