1. Enan

   10

   Rigged: Routines and Dreams in Alexander Payne’s Election We enter the world of Mr. McAlister. He teaches civics in Omaha. The story begins as he runs around the school track before the upcoming school day. It is late fall and the skies are heavy. Despite the hope McAlister alludes to while circling the school field, it becomes clear he is stuck. He will continue on the same track, teaching the same things, on the same cloudy day for the rest of his life. Unavoidable cycles and the tricky nature of teacher student dynamics take on hyperbolized form in Alexander Payne’s film Election. We follow McAlister down a nearly bottomless pit of embarrassment, failure and despair as he rebels against the loopy educational paradigm. Tracy Flick is the gifted student in his class. Not only that, but she is the most tenacious and go getting student Mr. McAlister has ever encountered. Although Tracy is featured all over the school yearbook, she cannot get anyone to sign her own at the end of the year. She is so ambitious, that it comes off threatening to student and teacher alike. When Tracy decides to become class president, Mr. McAlister decides she shouldn’t run unopposed. He recruits Paul Metzler, the ex-football star of the school. Having been injured, Paul couldn’t play, but had the opportunity and popularity to beat Tracy. McAlister wanted Tracy to lose. He knew that she thought she would move on to bigger and better things in life while he remained trapped. She knew that he thought she was cut-throat and deceptive; she had gotten his fellow friend and teacher Dave Novotny fired due to an indecent sexual relationship. Tracy took his friend away only compounding her pretension and selfishness. Paul competes with Tracy and loses by two. McAlister’s spite runs so deep that he trashes the two votes she would have won by. Paul’s false victory is short-lived as the high school janitor’s thorough trash perusal thwarts McAlister’s voter fraud. The janitor calls McAlister’s sinister behavior out and gets him fired due to his own harbored resent. The film finishes with McAlister having moved to New York City. He works as a tour guide instructor at the History museum. He lives in a miniscule studio, with the bathtub next to the bed, and pays 1550 a month. While he finds himself in a similar job, he has broken the cycle that led to his self destruction. McAlister proves that he can teach, but can’t succeed when taking action for himself. Teaching becomes a frustrating routine forcing him to compare his own relevance and merit to the potential of his students. His own lack of maturity is at the core of the film. To frame this movie as a story about a teacher would be misleading. First and foremost, it is about human nature. It is about a desire to better oneself and the implications of such a desire on others. It’s about greed, vengeance, ignorance and lust. It’s less about the teacher, than what it means to be taught something by someone else. Election deals with how the obligations of teachers and those of students are vastly different. Director Alexander Payne has recently elaborated on some of the themes he first presented in 1999’s Election through his HBO series Hung. In both of these projects, a teacher wrestles with his sexuality outside of the classroom and how it negatively impacts their performance and commitment to the students. The inadequacy inherent to the salary, and lack of respect educators experience from other professionals, directly links to the emotional hardships teachers strike with them own peers. Dealing with a necessary emotional and sexual disconnect with the majority of people a teacher encounters during the day can prove psychologically challenging for some. I have a close friend that has lost two jobs because of starting relationships with his subordinates. While the settings were call centers, it was still disturbing and troubling when his jobs were stripped away so quickly due to romance. While I don’t think it was smart of him to fall for girls he worked with, compared to a teacher falling for a student, his trespass is lesser. While a teacher is paid to be at a school, the student is a captive. Having healthy and caring people to talk to outside of the school setting seems the greatest lesson Election has to offer to both students and teachers.… Expand

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2. KS

   10

   This movie was great, and really gives a good view of the bigger picture-American elections and middle class society.

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3. [Anonymous]

   9

   Great movie. Hilarious. I thought Kevin Kline was surprising good.

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