“That girl was bad news,” Mr M says in Election. But Tracy’s devious tactics amount to baking 200 cupcakes to pass out to her classmates and tearing down a few of the jock’s campaign posters. He saw a teenage Machiavelli so myopic in her pursuit of power that there’s nothing she wouldn’t say or do to win. In fact, the whole lingering impression Tracy Flick left on pop culture comes from Mr M’s warped assessment. Reese Witherspoon in ‘Election’ (Paramount Pictures) It’s why guys like Mr M could blame Tracy for his buddy Dave getting fired and still be confused for the story’s protagonist. But it also left her alienated and vulnerable. It’s what made her special: “Whatever it is that a person needs to reach a goal like that, I had it in me, I knew I did,” she says of her dream of becoming president. Even in Tracy Flick Can’t Win, Tracy won’t condemn her teacher because she wasn’t like other high school girls. It’s the times that have changed, so much so that it’s impossible to reread Election and not be shocked that Tracy’s “affair” – her word – with her married, male English teacher, Dave, isn’t the novel’s centre. The voters are her peers – the parents, teachers, and administrators who make up the school board – and still she’s a loner. Instead of vying for class president, Tracy wants a promotion to principal. The plot of the new book isn’t much of a departure either. She’s a single mom and the assistant principal of a small, suburban New Jersey high school not so different from the one where she was epically mistreated. It feels more like a threat to the republic than a just and happy ending.īut Tracy doesn’t come close to the White House, we learn early in the sequel. Mr M is eventually fired, and monstrous Tracy leaves for college to pursue her dream of becoming the first female president of the United States. So he enlists a popular layabout, nice-guy jock – another high school archetype in need of scrutinising – and then falsifies the results when Tracy manages to eke out the votes anyway. In Election, a student council race is rigged by a high-school history teacher (Mr M, played in the film by Matthew Broderick) who just can’t bear to see a perky little snot like Tracy on top. To finally make Tracy Flick sympathetic, first you have to make her fail.ĭespite nearly 25 years between their publication, both books are preoccupied with Tracy’s likability – what Perrotta, who also wrote The Leftovers, termed “the Character Issue” in his debut novel. Now, she’s a cautionary tale for what can happen to all that turbocharged Type A energy when a woman’s life doesn’t work out. Except, at 40, she’s no longer young enough to be the precocious villainess. In this summer’s gloomy, introspective sequel novel to Election, Tracy Flick Can’t Win, Tom Perrotta resurrects the character once more to prove that being Tracy Flick is actually a terminal diagnosis. US Senator and two-time presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton? Huge Tracy Flick vibes. Taylor Swift can be awfully Tracy Flick sometimes. Rachel Berry from Glee? Kind of a Tracy Flick. Tracy Flick is such a tremendous example of the archetype that she’s also become its shorthand. How dare she care so much and try so hard? And isn’t her toothy grin sofake? She gets so deep under their skin that they struggle to explain their ridiculous revulsion. Her blatant ambition doesn’t just grate on people. It hits the ear like an insult, which it absolutely is.īecause Tracy Flick is the apotheosis of an especially sneered at subcategory of uppity female striver. Even if you’ve not read Tom Perrotta’s hilarious 1998 novel Election, or seen Alexander Payne’s rompy adaptation starring Reese Witherspoon, just the sound “Tracy Flick” probably annoys you. Is there any name in contemporary fiction – or movies or even real life, for that matter – as evocative as Tracy Flick? It’s Dickens-calibre efficient at conjuring the zizz of a pest. Pick Flick: Reese Witherspoon in the 1999 film adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s ‘Election’ (Paramount Pictures/MTV Films)
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