Tutorial 5

Was what happen to Jim McAllister was Tracy Flick’s fault?

Well, I believe it was Jim’s fault on a whole. I think in this film, Jim used Reese’s character, Tracy as an excuse to show that he was somehow innocent. I mean at first we really thought that Tracy was someone who wanted to destroy Jim’s career or even be his mistress. But we got it all wrong. In my opinion, I thought Tracy was being a normal student in school; she was just to obsessed with the election. Oh, many not obsessed but paranoid. She wanted to be the president that’s all. However, Jim wanted to stop her. Why? I think that he wanted to stop her not to do anything good to Tracy but actually for his own benefit. Why do I say so?  Firstly, I could sense that Jim felt that Tracy was a bother or rather an irritant. He feels annoyed with the presence of Tracy. Furthermore, he did not want to work together with Tracy if she were to win in the elections. Thus, by letting her being opposed, the other people who were to run the elections against her will make her feel insecure about winning and then, his chance of working with Tracy will be slimmer. Yes, Jim might have an intention to make Tracy realise that she has been selfish and too ambitious for a lady at her age. But even so, I felt that he was using the pupils that ran against Tracy as a tool to avoid Tracy to win.

His career downfall was due to his own mistake; he threw two pieces of votings into the bin. He made the choice to cheat so that Paul wins the election.

In Election, I thought that Jim was not really the good guy. He did advised his friend, Dave about cheating on Linda but in the end, he had sex with his own friend’s wife! If he such a good husband, he would not do that to his wife.