Election (1999)

Rated R for a lot of reasons, but primarily for sexuality, especially considering it kind of / sort of makes light of statuatory rape.  There's some pretty intense language throughout and some mild violence.  It covers some pretty icky content.  It also might be making a bit of fun of homosexuality, although that could be left up to interpretation.  R.

DIRECTOR:  Alexander Payne

For years --FOR YEARS --I've wanted to watch this movie.  It was always on Comedy Central when I was in high school, but I was an idiot then and thought that there was no better movie than Moulin Rouge!, which I can now confidently say is incorrect.  But my wife was always on the fence about watching this movie.  I think she had seen it before and had no reason to watch it again. Now that I've seen it, I know why she was probably hesitant about watching it.  I had no idea it was about statuatory rape and inappropriate relationships between teacher and student.  It also is very casual with the notion of adultery, so I can see why my wife wasn't itching to watch this movie.  

Why did I want to watch it then?  I mean, I wish I could say that it was my devotion to Alexander Payne, who has absolutely crushed it in the past.  Okay, I didn't like Nebraska.  The rest of the stuff I've seen is pretty phenomenal.  But I didn't realize that Alexander Payne did this, let alone worked for MTV Films.  Yeah, when that MTV Films thing came across the screen, I realize that Election falls into a very specific subgenre of films that I would have been all over in the late '90s / early 2000s.    But it wasn't the MTV Films thing either. It was one of those movies that kind of just felt...lost in my viewing canon.  I've seen so much and it almost felt like I should have seen this movie.  I mean, Criterion released it.  I had the pleasure of watching that edition.  But Election seemed like one of those movies that was released on a lark, but had somehow entered the cinematic canon oh-so-quietly.  I don't know. It's not like people are constantly talking about Election.  But like movies like Office Space or Idiocracy (both Mike Judge vehicles, appropriate because Election feels like a Mike Judge joint), these movies that were considered stupid filler acted as beautiful satire while preserving a snapshot of the cultural zeitgeist.

​I can't look at this movie without looking at myself.  Yeah, I don't teach history, but I'm a humanities teacher.  I'm the guy who would get dressed up in a cowboy outfit for the sake of the students.  To a certain extent, I teach the same book over and over again. If Mr. McCallister wasn't pointed at me, who was he pointed at?  (Let's establish this right now.  I know this is not just a story about a high school.  But I want to look at the diagetic storyline before I start talking about allegory.) I've never crossed any lines like McCallister does.  I've never wanted to cross any lines like he does.  Do things about teaching irk me?  Yes.  But for all of the ways that I'm like McCallister, there's way too many ways that I'm not like him at all.  McCallister kind of sees something pathetic about himself.  There's one moment that is really telling about his character. It's when he's driving Linda Novotny home and he makes a really crass comment about getting a room at the seedy motel.  For McCallister, teaching is a script that he uses to cover up who he really is.  Anyway, I feel like I'm protesting too much. Let's look at the movie.

Man, it takes a lot to make Tracy Flick unlikable.  Honest-to-Pete, the movie has to put her through the wringer to get her to where she is at the end.  From moment one, Payne makes Tracy both annoying and the most sympathetic character imaginable.  In fact, the things about her that are really annoying are almost the biproducts of an absentee character: Tracy's mom.  I mean, she's in the movie, but she's almost a spectre looking over the events of the film.  Everything Tracy does is for the sheer desperation of being the best because she needs to be the best.  It's programmed into her through insidious methods.  I don't even see Mom as evil so much as she's what women have forced themselves to be because of (God, I'm about to say it) the patriarchy.  What's interesting is how she views her relationship with Mr. Novotny.

Dave Novotny is appropriately cast as the most pathetic character in the story.  While Tracy and Novotny's relationship is pretty crucial to the story, it is played for laughs.  It's really uncomfortable.  It doesn't ruin the movie for me, but it took a lot of winning me back after this moment.  The odd thing is that Dave Novotny is two very different people and I don't know if Payne knows which one he is.  Dave is the one who says the most vulgar thing about a student ever. There's a smash cut to Dave saying something vulgar to McCallister, which really makes me wonder how complicit McCallister is.  I mean, to give McCallister all of the credit, he is the one who turns in Novotny.  But in this moment, Novotny breaks down crying screaming how much he's in love and that things aren't fair.  These moments leave a lot for us to consider because Tracy also has her duality about the relationship.  We, on the outside, know that Novotny, regardless of how mature Tracy may seem, is absolutely a rapist and should be treated as such.  But Payne doesn't let us live in a world where things are so black-and-white.  Like almost every character except for Paul Metzler, the world exists in shades of grey...

...you know.  Like Nebraska?

But Tracy is all over the place when she talks about her relationship with Novotny through the film.  Payne has to make her a villain.  Not the main villain.  She's a villain in a bevy of villains.  When she talks about Dave Novotny, she both treats him like a child whom she manipulated and someone whom she adored.  It's really weird. I know, I'm talking about the rape a lot.  I can't help it.  I tried getting someone like Novotny booted at a school, so I tend to rage about these things.  But all this creates a feeling of mystery behind Tracy Flick.  From her perspective, she is absolutely the hero of the story.  She knows she can do the most good for the school.  She looks at a school full of burnouts and bullies and she knows that she can make change.  Yes,s she is selfish because her mother taught her to look out for number one.  But that selfishness has put her into the position to make drastic change.  It's this stuff: the obsession, the drive, the success, the brainwashing that makes her the perfect allegory for government.  Of course Tracy Flick ended up working for a congressman.

It takes a sociopath to run for office.  There are presidents I like. There are presidents whom I loathe.  But one thing that they have in common is the really screwy notion that they can tell everyone what's best for them.  Like, who has that kind of confidence?  I'm irresponsibly confident and even I have to draw a line saying that I can fix everything that other people can't.  If Election was concerned more with morals than themes, the message would be that we encourage sociopathy by fostering Tracy Flicks.  The Mr. McCallisters are the folks who keep crossing moral lines for small subjective goods.  I mean, the answer to McCallister's problem is right in front of him.  Let's pretend that we live in a world where people can't control their sexual impulses.  McCallister, a teacher in a place of authority, should never be left in a room with Tracy Flick, a girl that he has forbidden feelings for.  Do you know how to fix that problem?  Don't be the head of student council.  His internal conflict is that he doesn't want to be placed in a situation where he's tempted.  Fine.  But then he starts seeing himself as the hero of his own narrative, despite constantly crossing lines in other areas of his life.  When he finds out that Tracy won by two votes (by the way, nice moral dilemma that Payne gives McCallister), he sees himself as ridding the student body of the girl who tore down posters and keeps breaking little rules, like finding out the results of the count early.  

But that's what makes Election great.  McCallister and Flick are the same person, just at different ends of the ladder of success.  Both are willing to break little rules for the sake of what they consider the greater good. That's why we have the Metzlers running in the race too.  These two are the foil to the insanity of the race.  Say what you will about Paul, he'd make a great student body president.  If the Presidency is about sociopaths taking what they want, Paul is doing this because he was told it was what other people wanted.  He acknowledges that he might not be the best person for the job.  It's so endearing to see him confront McCallister at dinner with his ideas for the student council.  But McCallister, like Tracy, can't see what's good for the whole through the rage and self-centeredness.  Similarly, Tammy, who is in the race for the worst reason, acknowledges that government refuses to change itself for the better.  Now, there's a very innocent 1999 view of government in this if you present Tammy as a valid candidate.  Like with Trump, Tammy wants to clear out the swamp and disband government (Okay, there's a loaded sentence, but the short version is that Trump didn't want to do that, but just push the Trump name and narrative).  But we now realize that if you don't vote, you get Trumps.  A weird irony there.

I get pretty heavy into politics since Trump took office.  I didn't think that the world could get as bad as it did before he took office.  Whenever I take breaks, I have to kick my own butt to get back in.  Unfortunately, this means that I checked my CNN app today (It's actually January 10 while I write this) and got really depressed over Biden's parallel crimes to Trump.  Election, for all of the laughs it gave me, depressed me just like politics.  I suppose that's Alexander Payne's way of torturing his audiences.  For all the laughs and giggles, you probably end up leaving his movies a little more depressed than you came into them.