The Evolution of Election

I saw Election (1998) for the first time in middle school, after having witnessed a friend’s parents laughing hysterically while watching it. If they liked it that much, it had to be funny, right? As a twelve year old, I liked it in a way I couldn’t explain or understand – even if I didn’t really find it that hilarious. I then proceeded to watch the movie every couple of years until the current day, and each time I did, a whole new layer made itself clear to me. Election is a perfect microcosm of the US, our inherent mistrust of ambitious women, and the gross reality of being a human.

For those who have never seen Election, I guess I’ll do a quick summary but I’d rather you actually went and watched the movie for yourself. The premise is a cutthroat high school election where the highly intelligent and motivated Tracy (an adorable and psychotic Reese Witherspoon) is running unopposed for president. Mr. Macallister (played with perfect middle aged schlubiness by Matthew Broderick) has an intense dislike for Tracy, though he fancies himself a good guy, and manages to convince himself that anything he does to stop Tracy from becoming president is for the best. Macallister teaches a civics class where he discusses the difference between morals and ethics, a theme that crops up consistently throughout the movie. He recruits the sweet-natured but dim-witted Paul (Chris Klein is a performance that is note-perfect) to run against Tracy. Paul, a former athlete with a broken leg, decides to go for it.

What happens next is gross lunacy complete with political sabotage, rumor mongering, and voter fraud. Macallister absolutely obsesses over Tracy's rise to power while also lusting after his wife’s best friend and unsuccessfully attempting an affair with her. He seemingly has no qualms about cheating either in the personal or political realm though he does maintain he is an ethical (or is it moral?) man who will wind up sacrificing his career for his unnerving cause.

In the simplest of descriptions, this might not sound particularly funny but consider the intensity of nearly everyone involved (Paul remains the go-with-the-flow outlier) in this low-stakes situation. Tracy and the other high school students have an excuse: they’re teenagers and even the smartest teenagers can be pretty dumb about what is important and how much of an impact high school will have on their overall life. This is not the fault of the teens but rather a failing of a society that insists on calling these years “the best of their lives” while making a big deal about ‘permanent records’ and SAT scores. The adult here is Macallister, and he is the worst offender of all, a fact that took me longer and more viewings than I care to admit. Thus began the evolution of Election – in my mind, at least.

As a kid, my sympathies were with Macallister. Tracy annoyed me to no end, and I felt Macallister was an alright guy that was just making a few bad decisions and stumbling over himself. Part of this, I hope, was from still seeing Matthew Brodrick as the loveable scamp Ferris Bueller. The movie also underlays an oddly sweet soundtrack to most everything Macallister does while playing aggressive and almost tribal music during Tracy’s freakouts. Her monologues of internally boiling rage are scored with an uptempo staccato seemingly designed to induce anxiety. What I was responding to the first time I saw this movie was exactly what director Alex Payne was aiming for: the stress of being inside of Tracy’s head.

Tracy as a character can be hard to like but the more times I watched this movie, the more I understood the saying “takes all kinds.” I don’t ever want to be Tracy, I wouldn’t want to spend time with someone like her, but there are people in this world that take on jobs and challenges that would break someone like me. We need those people the same way we need people who want to teach or write or drive buses. If everyone in the world was like myself, nothing would get done. If everyone in the world was like Tracy, no one would ever have any fun.

The second thing that started to come clear to me as I rewatched the same film over and over throughout my life is that Macallister is not just afraid of Tracy’s ambition but also her sexuality. Early in the movie, we learn that Macallister’s best friend Dave had an affair with Tracy, subsequently losing his job and marriage. From an outside perspective, Macallister never blames Tracy and seems to know that the responsibility in this scenario came down to the adult. What we see when we’re treated to a glimpse of his anxiety is Tracy whispering in his ear about spending time together. He even pictures her face on his wife’s head when they’re having sex with the express purpose of conceiving, which is probably the most disgusting part in a purposefully gross movie.

The only character, aside from Paul, that I personally would spend any time with is Paul’s younger sister Tammy, a loud-mouthed, anti-authority lesbian played by Jessica Campbell. Or as she would say, “not a lesbian. Just all the people I’m attracted to happen to be women.” Tammy runs a campaign for president after Paul joins up with her main platform being “who cares?” She electrifies the student body, giving a speech for the ages that admits none of this matters and it doesn’t make a difference who they elect. Watching this before I could vote, I just thought it was cool that someone could get away with saying what they wanted. As a full grown adult who has witnessed several contentious elections, this rings true. So does the fact that the competition (aside from Paul) try desperately to get rid of Tammy. The establishment doesn’t want a radical angling for power, even limited power like a student body president.

Macallister and Tracy are the only two that engage in deliberate sabotage but their differences are clear even there. Tracy snaps one night while leaving school late and tears down all of Paul’s posters in a fit of angsty rage. Macallister disposes of two votes so that Tracy’s narrow lead over Paul is reversed, and when he’s later caught, still holds fast that he was doing this for the good of humanity. He truly believes Tracy is a larger threat though we as the audience don’t see how. She is an overachiever and ambitious to a fault; she will undoubtedly do well in the world and rise to a position of real power but as of yet, we don’t see the problem with that. Macallister does, and spends the run time of the movie convincing the audience and himself that he is in the right. He must understand this stuff since he teaches a class about morals, after all. Or was it ethics?

The very end of the movie that gives a quick wrap-up of the characters sees Tracy as pleased, triumphant, and vocally pitying Macallister. Paul is perfectly happy where he ended up (popular and happy and recovering from a slightly broken heart), musing that maybe he would be dead right now if he had been elected president. There’s no basis for this but it’s hysterical to hear it. Tammy finds the love of her life at an all-girls school, and we pretty much leave the kids in a better or similar place to where we found them.

Macallister we follow into his new life in New York City, where he works for the Museum of Natural History and is dating a new woman who “understands him more than [his wife] ever could.” Again, from his narration we’re told that he’s happy where he is, though the reality we’re shown doesn’t quite seem that way. On a trip to Washington DC, he spots Tracy getting into the back of a limo with a senator, and we get to see the first honest moment of Macallister. He goes from thinking how bad he feels for her and how sad her life must be. It slowly dawns on him that he just watched her climb into the back of a limo with a person in a position of power, and clearly she got what she wanted and “who the fuck does she think she is?!” He throws the milkshake he was drinking at the limo then turns tail and runs when shouted at.

The penultimate image of the movie is Macallister scurrying away after what amounts to a tantrum. Which makes the final moment all the more effective: while giving a group tour to grade school kids, Mcallister asks a question, and a little blonde girl’s hand shoots up immediately. He scans the rest of the group, asking if anyone else knows, and the screen cuts to black as we hear him repeat, “anyone? Anyone?” His experience with Tracy only taught him to distrust ambitious women even more than he did.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit how long it took me to realize the obvious in Election. The movie does a great job of making Tracy seem crazy but also making Macallister seem grotesque. Tiny disgusting realities of being human are shown through him, be it public urination or washing one’s balls before sex. Tracy might be firing on too many cylinders but we really should be on her side. Macallister is an adult who let himself be bent out of shape by a try-hard teen. He pushes a popular, dim but sweet boy into the race to thwart her, engages in voter fraud to stop her, and can’t even move on when he sees her as the adult she worked so hard to become.

The monster in Election is a mediocre white guy who sees himself as the hero, and for some reason, that still rings amazingly true.