But even Perrotta agrees that Witherspoons tour de force performance has become the defining version of the character.
Something amazing is happening here.
(The teacher was fired, Tracy suffered no consequences.)
Author Tom Perrotta penned ‘Election,’ which became a cult-classic 1999 film.Credit: Ben King; Penguin Random House
Fletcher, for HBO.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Talk about the genesis ofElection.TOM PERROTTA:It had two or three main ingredients.
And it was pre-Internet, so you had to really work to be obsessed with something.
Everett Collection
It just structured my life.
And I think as a novelist, that really struck me.
And I remember just feeling, Oh, this is new.
Scribner
And I could just sense the discomfort that they were provoking in men.
So that was part of it as well.
And he felt like that was not permissible, and he actually torched the box of votes.
Because there was a feeling of, well, a college student is an adult and has sexual agency.
And so I think I was also exploring different ways of conceiving of the power dynamic.
And admittedly, that was very early days for thinking about that.
Because the book was unpublished.
I know these producers who might be interested.
And they called me a couple weeks later on Janices recommendation.
But I just had this weird impulse.
And I thought of it as a failure at the time.
And they were like, Oh, let us see it.
And they loved it, and they got it to Alexander.
It all happened very quickly.
Because it was my first brush with Hollywood, I had no idea what a charmed process it was.
I just thought, Oh, this is what happens.
You mail a manuscript out there, and in short order, its in production.
And maybe Im missing something, but I think in a way she was kind of a new character.
I still get people coming up to me going, I was Tracy Flick in high school.
Its a shorthand for a certain kind of ambitious woman.
So Tracy identified a pop in that existed but didnt have a pop culture representation at that point.
And its funny, because I think a whole bunch of other ones started emerging around the same time.
It wasnt like I was the only person noticing this.
And then the film itself, on a similar note.
Why do you think it has also stuck around?
So thats part of it.
But then I just think the film itself is a real work of genius.
I dont know that theres another movie that does multiple first-person voice-overs so elegantly and comically.
And then really focus on that main character.
Because it really was an ensemble book with alternating narrators.
And Alexander and Jim Taylor, his screenwriting partner, they just said, Were not picking.
Theyre all the main character.
It isnt such an innovative novelistic structure.
But it is very unusual in film.
And its done so stylishly and with such comic genius.
I think the novel is comic, but its ultimately a work of realism.
And I think the movie is much more of a hard-edged satire than the book is.
But the great thing about the movieElectionis that it is so fair.
It satirizes everyone, pretty ruthlessly.
This is how I think people are, and this is their suburban variety.
I grew up in the suburbs, I have spent most of my life in the suburbs.
And thats sort of where my imagination resides.
But they all have dark secrets that theyre trying to manage.
And for the most part, theyre not super depraved, right?
Theyre just people who are sinners in a kind of ordinary way.
They wanna cut corners to get ahead.
They wanna grab some sexual pleasure that theyre not supposed to grab.
They will do and say mean things that theyd prefer not to be held accountable for.
What can you tease about theupcoming adaptation ofMrs.
Fletcher?Todays actually our last day of production on season 1.
So I can say that were here.
We made season 1.
We have an amazing cast.
Kathryn Hahn plays Mrs. Fletcher, and she is truly one of the most extraordinary actors working right now.
And its been an amazing experience to see what shes done with this character.
Carrie Brownstein, and Gillian Robespierre, who didObvious Child.
Itll be interesting to go into post and really start to put it together.
But Im very excited by what weve done.
But I have felt even so that its been a collaboration.
Kathryn Hahn has really done a huge amount to kind of define what theMrs.
FletcherTV show is, and these great directors have done that too.
And hopefully Im making the right calls.
But it just felt like the one thing left for me to do.
It turned out to be a really big and all-consuming job.
Could you see yourself ever directing?Somebody asked me that recently.
Im not feeling a huge attraction to the idea, but maybe someday.
And I love those writer-directors.
I mean, they seem to be the real novelists of the film world.
They get to create that whole story.
