Tracy Flick

Witherspoon as Tracy, greeting students during her election campaign

In the late 1990s, following her starring roles in the 1996 dramas Fear and Freeway, Witherspoon found herself in an unexpected career slump that led her to change direction. "All my serious dramatic performances suddenly weren't getting me the jobs or opportunities that I really wanted," she said in a 2005 interview. "I have stacks and stacks of letters from great directors saying I can't cast you because you don't mean anything to the studios. That's why I turned the boat toward comedy."[3]

Election's director Alexander Payne was eager to cast Witherspoon, based on her performances in Freeway and The Man in the Moon, and she was equally eager to sign on to the project—but not to play Tracy.[4] Witherspoon was drawn to the part of Tammy Metzler, the cynical outcast who becomes the election's dark horse presidential candidate. Referring to the scene in which Tammy delivers a shocking campaign speech denouncing the school's administration and the entire concept of elected student government, Witherspoon said, "That speech alone made me want to play Tammy! So I was terribly conflicted."[4]

To play Tracy, Witherspoon developed a distinct speech pattern combining strident intonations with a chipper Midwestern accent. She also worked on clenching her facial muscles and maintaining a clipped walking pace. "That was just Tracy; it so escapes me how it came out!" she said. "I just imagined how uptight people carry themselves, and they grind their teeth at night and they clench their jaw because everything has to be just perfect."[4] Of Witherspoon's performance, her co-star Matthew Broderick said, "From the first she knew exactly what she wanted—a very aggressive person in a small and cute package... she comes out very funny and very scary at the same time."[4]

Witherspoon's performance received widespread critical acclaim, as well as her first Golden Globe Award nomination and several other accolades.[5] But she later said that her career struggles continued after Election due to public confusion between her and Tracy. "I'm not Tracy Flick. I couldn't get jobs for a year after that because people thought I was that crazy and angry and controlling and strange."[3]

Roger Ebert began his review of Election, "I remember students like Tracy Flick, the know-it-all who always has her hand in the air, while the teacher desperately looks for someone else to call on. In fact, I was a student like Tracy Flick." He goes on to compare Tracy to Elizabeth Dole: "a person who always seems to be presenting you with a logical puzzle for which she is the answer... She is always perfectly dressed and groomed, and is usually able to conceal her hot temper behind a facade of maddening cheerfulness. But she is ruthless. She reminds me of a saying attributed to David Merrick: 'It is not enough for me to win. My enemies must lose.'"[6]

A 2006 profile of the character in The Washington Post called her "wonderfully monstrous." "In Payne's study of her pathologies, Tracy's will is so fiery and her perfection so total that no one dares stand against her in her goal."[7] The Stranger wrote, "Like Humbert Humbert, the Reverend Harry Powell, and Baby Jane Hudson before her, Tracy Flick is a real and lasting contribution to the cinematic understanding of the villain, and the feather in Witherspoon's cap."[8]

Tracy has often been a point of comparison in commentary on real-world political figures. Hillary Clinton has more than once been compared to her.[9][10] In a January 2008 video mashup produced by Slate, campaign footage of Clinton was combined with clips from Election to draw a comparison between Clinton's and Tracy's feelings about the inferiority of their opponents. The video was widely circulated and praised.[11][12][13][14]

A Christian Science Monitor review of Clinton's 2003 autobiography, Living History, quoted an excerpt in which Clinton discussed her participation during high school in a Cultural Values Committee and noted, "There is obviously some truth here, but the tone of the passage reeks of Tracy Flick, the overachieving, overly serious high school student from the film Election. Not to belittle the efforts of the Cultural Values Committee, but a brief aside to show that Clinton understands that high school sociopolitics is not exactly on par with race relations would be nice."[15]

In 2008, after Clinton's defeat for the Democratic presidential nomination, multiple commentators likened Tracy to the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.[16][17][18] Actress and comedian Tina Fey credited Witherspoon's performance as Tracy as an influence for Fey's extremely popular, Emmy-winning impersonation of Palin on Saturday Night Live.[19]

In the late 2010s, in the wake of the MeToo movement, some critics began reevaluating the character, noting that Flick, an inexperienced underage girl, was the victim of child grooming by one teacher, and subjected to an effort to deny her legitimate election win by another, as revenge for her part in revealing the misconduct of the first.[20]

Tracy Flick has been included on a 2007 mtv.com list of "our 10 favorite high school archetypes from the movies" (as "The Annoying Overachiever");[21] a 2008 New York Daily News list of "high-school fast-talkers before Charlie Bartlett";[22] and a 2008 E! Online list of "the top 9 creepiest movie bad guys."[23] TV writer Dan Harmon has also said in interviews and on his podcast that she was the inspiration for the character Annie Edison on Community.[24]