In
The Election, directed by Alexander Payne,
we view the politics of high school student government at
a personal level in which all the characters are cartoonized
and given voice-over editorial space so that we will know
the depth of their narcissism, which seems no different from
candidates for public offices. Tracy Flick, a prissy overachieving
female (played by Reese Witherspoon) wants to be student body
president of George Washington Carver High School in Omaha,
a school with few minorities. Jim McAllister (played by Matthew
Broderick) is the faculty adviser to student government, the
successor to a teacher who had to resign because he had sex
with a student. His question in class, "What is the difference
between ethics and morals?" is never quite answered until
the story unfolds, but the tagline of the film provides a
hint: "Reading, Writing, Revenge." Wanting to avoid being
hounded by Tracy, the only candidate at first, Jim convinces
Paul Metzler, a popular high school athlete (played by Chris
Klein), to run. Paul’s younger sister Tammy (played by Jessica
Campbell) enters the race as well to get back at a female
classmate who spurns her Lesbian advances to become her brother’s
new girlfriend. Jim, meanwhile, responds to kisses from Linda
Novotny (played by Delaney Driscoll), a recent divorcee, with
a sexual encounter, though he seems happily married to a wife
who cannot produce children. During campaign speeches in the
student assembly, Tammy is cheered uproariously on the platform
that, if elected, she will not do anything (a successful ploy
in Stanford student body elections of 1955) and will try to
shut down the charade of student government. One Saturday,
the Tracy enter the school and ends up tearing down her opponent’s
posters, though Tammy later confesses that she tore down the
posters. There are consequences to the rampant narcissism.
Tammy’s irreverent speech results in suspension from school,
and her parents transfer her to Immaculate Heart on hearing
that she tore down the posters, thus leaving a two-person
race at Carver. Tracy wins by one vote, according to a count
by a student, but Jim secretly throws two of her votes into
the wastebasket, so Paul is announced as the winner, but Jim
is forced to resign when the janitor brings the discarded
votes to the principal. Meanwhile, Linda tells his wife, Diane
(played by Molly Hagan), that she was raped, so Diane sues
for divorce and keeps his house. But just when the moral of
the story appears to be that narcissism has a steep price,
everything turns out for the best, canceling the apparent
moral of the story. Tracy gets away with tearing down the
posters, becomes student body president, goes to Georgetown,
and cozies up to a powerful member of Congress. Jim moves
to New York, becomes a museum guide, and finds a compatible
girlfriend. Tammy befriends a Lesbian at the Catholic school.
Paul presumably does not mind losing the election that he
did not enter out of ambition and, coming from a rich family,
is assured of a happy life. Filmviewers will most enjoy the
honesty of the narcissism, expressed often as catty voice-overs,
and the cinema will be filled with joyous laughter. On walking
out the theatre, however, the thought surely dawns that most
humans have failings and suffer the consequences, but clever
politicians are assholes. MH
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