![]() Payne also cast the film with a mix of established actors and non-actors. That was a byproduct of filming in Omaha, Payne said, on “my turf”-at a real high school that was in session during the shoot. ![]() (Witherspoon had made one of those movies right before she did Election: Cruel Intentions, a cheeky riff on Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the ever-remake-friendly 1782 French novel of sex, power, and intrigue.) But Election stands apart, thanks to its awkward, pimply, teenage sensibility.Ĭhris Klein as Paul Metzler. Most featured people in their twenties playing students-“and they all look too pretty, and the high school itself is too well-lit and idyllic, somehow,” said Payne. The late 90s were a fertile period for teen movies. The rich kid who’s running, who won, really burned her heinie.” ![]() You didn’t see it in the movie, because we cut that specific scene, but she lives in an extremely modest house. Some aspects of her personality aren’t as up for debate: “One thing we built into the film is that she has some class resentment, because she’s from a lower class family with a single mom. Because I have to understand them and see what makes them tick.” But that’s how I see all the characters in my movies. A strong person with a strong personality. Is she a villain? A victim? An abuse survivor? An annoying overachiever? A misunderstood hero? Perhaps she’s all of the above, suggested Payne. © Paramount/Everett Collection.Īs played by Witherspoon, Tracy Flick is the sort of nuanced character that serves as a tabula rasa for her audience’s feelings about women, especially ambitious young women. Hillary Clinton has borne the brunt of such comparisons-the 2016 election led to an avalanche of think pieces connecting her to Tracy, some about how brutal Election felt in 2016 (“ The Very Uncomfortable Experience of Watching Election in 2016,” published in The Cut in September 2016), some anticipating her seemingly inevitable win (“ The Triumph of Tracy Flick?”, published in The New York Times November 7, 2016). Female politicians are especially susceptible women who have been accused of Flick-ish tendencies include but certainly aren’t limited to Elizabeth Dole ( in Roger Ebert’s 1999 review), Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand. In some crowds, the term “Tracy Flick” has become a pejorative term for a woman who is just too much-too accomplished, too hardworking, too ambitious. Twenty years after Alexander Payne’s Election opened to glowing reviews and middling box office ($15 million, against its $25 million budget), the film has penetrated the national consciousness-especially in regard to its indelible central character, a smiling Slytherin and aspiring high school student-body president played by a career-best Reese Witherspoon. She’s a specter haunting all women of ambition, no matter what that ambition may be. She makes certain men irrationally angry-the type who swear they would totally vote a woman into office, just not this one. She accepts an Oscar with a line that sounds fake and practiced in the mirror. She laps her peers, parlaying dutiful research and kissing up into enviable promotions. Maybe it’s that she also seems a bit soulless. She is fully self-possessed-and there’s something about her that just bugs you. She understands how to style her hair, how to wear the right makeup and clothes to radiate a seriousness of purpose. She’s generally blonde, from a bottle or otherwise.
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