This is probably a stupid question but what did Tracy gain from getting the teacher fired? Other than being able to photoshop him out of a picture.
18. female. totally awesome.
She pretty much sums it up in her denial as to why she wasn't sleeping with him.
shareshe slept with her teacher because he treated her like an adult and and as a friend (mainly just to get in her pants). she was pretty ignorant to his intentions at first (the clues are all in the movie) but the irony is he ended up falling in love with. it was her mother who found the note, not her. she just confirmed it when questioned. she had absolutely nothing to gain by sleeping with her teacher. another funny thing is she said she didnt sleep with him to fulfill a missing father figure then goes on to describe the things she likes about him, all of which are fatherly qualities. she was clearly thinking like a kid would in the relationship.
shareIt's creepy to me that there are people on this board who accept McAllister's view of Tracy, that she and Novotny sleeping together was Tracy's fault. There is a scene of them in a restaurant, where Novotny first puts the moves on her, showing that he is a total manipulator. Remember how McAllister said that Novotny was a teacher because he wants to relive high school? His sleeping with a high school girl is a way for him to do that. He's a perv, people. He didn't love Tracy. He loves (and misses) his own youth.
Also, Tracy did have daddy issues. Yes, she says she doesn't, but then the next line she talks about how strong or something Novotny is, supporting the idea that she is, in fact, looking for a father figure. Tracy herself was deluded in thinking Novotny was anything other than a pervert, and that their relationship was one of equals. She is a teenager, and he is a grown man in a position of authority over her.
Thank you! It amazes me that anyone would blame a 16 year old virgin for getting involved with a 40 year old man who was in a position of authority over her, or consider Tracy, a totally inexperienced kid to be the manipulative one in the relationship.
shareTracy is indeed a master of manipulation, but not in this case. I completely agree that she's the victim here. He seduced her and she went along with it. Not because she stood to gain anything (at least not that we know of), but because, as someone mentioned previously, he repeatedly flattered her and made her feel like an adult.
I also agree that she had some serious daddy issues. That's part of what drew her to him; she says it herself when she talks about how he made her feel safe and protected. These are attributes one seeks out from a father figure, she just doesn't realize it.
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Trust me, I'm a doctor.
Even though he was loser of sorts and even more of a mental case down the road, initially he was respected male teacher that had "some" power in her eyes. Someone she can use. Even after he fell apart, she tested McAllister to see if he could manipulated. At the end of the movie she was even hanging out with a male politician...
Why was she a "victim"? She enjoyed the relationship, he didn't rape her. And she didn't "seduce" him. It was a consensual relationship.
shareLook up the definition of statutory rape. Minors cannot consent to sexual relationships. And he was in a paid position of authority over her, which further criminalizes his behavior. Minors are never at fault or complicit in situations such as these.
shareI disagree she couldn't consent either because of her age of 16-17 or because of his position as a teacher at the school. I'm not talking about the law. If she was 17 it wasn't even against the law because that's the age of consent in Nebraska. Since he was merely fired and not arrested that is my guess.
I find no "fault" in the situation at all though I would also fired the teacher.
I redirect you to the post I wrote earlier. Statutory rape depends on the jurisdiction. I believe something like 11 states have the age set at 18, which is quite ridiculous as a junior (or even senior) in high school is NOT a child.
Most European countries have an age of consent between 14-16.
What makes Novotny's actions most questionable, aside from his marital vows, is the position of authority he has over her as a teacher, similar I might add to the position that Bill Clinton had over Monica Lewinsky.
I am somewhat conflicted about such bright line rules because there may be some instances where a romance between a superior and insubordinate is not nefarious, as we can more readily see in a professor student or boss employee scenario.
To be sure Novotny is hardly admirable in his actions. But what is untenable to me is the notion that Tracey Flick was somehow blameless.
So effing creepy how many posters want to minimize and normalize Novotny's behavior. GROSS. Tracy was a victim.
shareThe real danger is the Victim/Perp false dichotomy. Both share responsibility. But the teacher should be the one who bears almost all of it.
shareIt is more nuanced than that. First, this country has a split-personality disorder concerning sexual mores. Not all states have an age of consent at 18. But even 16 or 17 is higher than when most become sexually active. Compare the age of consent laws in Europe for example. In this day and age, particularly with such jailbait phenomena as Britney spears or Myley Cyrus (or the fact that many adolescent young women look celebreity pariahs like the Karadashians or Paris Hilton as role modes, it is absurd to suggest that a sophomore or junior in high school is a "child." This is particurlaly so given the rampant promiscuity that abides in young people now more than ever.
It is true that a teacher has a position of authority, which makes it different than the sort of debacle Romeo and Juliet laws are designed to address. It is that authority dimension which made the Monica Lewinsky scandal so despicable.
In any case, it is possible to condemn both parties involved. Novotny ought not be lechering after his own students--most particularly because he took marital vows. But Tracy is not free from blame either. And the manner in which she non-chalantly coasts by in the aftermath, even cooly deleting his face from yearbook photos, shows precisely the sort of person we are dealing with.
I would split culpability to between 60 percent to two thirds on Novotny. However, Flick knew what she was doing.
Very well put. It was a great illustration of her character that she quickly absolved herself of any wrong doing in any situation, even though she wasn't so naive as to think it was okay to sleep with one of her married teachers. It was very similar to her casually allowing Tammy to take the blame for the poster incident.
shareI've only seen this movie once and it was at least a decade ago, so the details remain hazy. But the long-term impression I've had of Tracy was a sociopathic level of manipulative behavior.
Even at the beginning of the movie (I found it on Amazon Instant and have started watching it again), she admits joining student government committees only if she could be in charge. The yearbook photos of her in activities show her in the center of the group, presumably in a leadership role, and she has a lead role in the school play.
While you could categorize this as the ambition of a talented student, it seems more akin to the obsession of a person with at least narcissistic tendencies if not other borderline sociopathic tendencies. She also admits to having no close friends which she attributes to being busy, but this could just be because she lacks empathy and can't form lasting relationships easily, another hallmark of sociopathy.
There's no question that it was unethical and immoral for her married teachers to have sex with her. That being said, it's an open question if sleeping with teacher was the result of her being manipulated by an adult or the result of her narcissistic personality finding the intimate attention of a teacher to be just another way to find herself at the center of attention.
My guess is that even women with sociopathic behavioral tendencies have to learn how sexuality can be used as a tool of manipulation. To me, her sleeping with teachers was more about her "growth" as a sociopathic personality, not her victimhood. She even says at one point during the heated conversation with Broderick's character that if the first teacher hadn't gotten so mushy, everything would have been fine.
Where does McAllister say it was Tracy's fault? I think there's a scene or two where it pretty well establishes McAllister told Dave he was wrong and he'd crossed the line and so on. That doesn't change the fact that he still likes Dave as a friend, doesn't like Tracy and her phony visage she puts on for people, and maybe gets a certain satisfaction in just knowing a skeleton in her closet that she would not want anyone else to know.
McAllister continually treats Tracy as the villain, even while sexualizing her for himself. She had no interest in McAllister -- but the movie is mostly from McAllister's unreliable narrative. Pay attention to show and tell through the whole movie -- he tells Dave that having sex with her is wrong and he also fantasizes about having sex.
Tracy was a 16 year old girl who was looking for support from an older, trusted adult. That older trusted adult advised her that sex was part of that familiar relationship. While it wasn't aggressive rape, it was probably a situation where she felt that the only way to keep this non-sexual supportive relationship (the only relationship in her life) was to engage the a sexual aspect.
But the point is that none of that matters because Dave made the conscious choice to have sex with his student. He wasn't seduced - in fact, it was the other way around. Dave's apparent "We're so in love!" is an example that he was also desperately grasping on to a relationship -- or even just the view of McAllister of his friend as pathetic.
McAllister uses Tracy as a scapegoat to his own crumbling life. He refuses to take responsibility for everything.
McAllister uses Tracy as a scapegoat to his own crumbling life. He refuses to take responsibility for everything.
Despite her ambition, it's made pretty clear that Tracy is lonely and struggling to cope. Also she denies having daddy issues, but the denial makes it clear that she does.
shareTracy's personality is such that I doubt she could get emotionally close with a bunch of average kids. The idea of it may intrigue her, but the reality would turn her off. She's also highly intelligent. I've had the pleasure and the pain of being around some highly intelligent folks. They admitted they're highly manipulative because everybody deserves a hobby.
shareshe didn't try to get him fired, she liked him, and he molested her.
shareIt was just that the teacher took advantage of how alienated she was by telling her what she wanted to hear so that he could get what he wanted sexually. She fell rey to an obvious trap, a trap made obvious by the insincerity of the narration, which Payne uses to highlight the hypocrisy of the characters. However, it was very convenient for her that the teacher was fired quietly so that their affair couldn't ruin her campaign, and I'm sure both Tracy and her mother knew this and used this. While Tracy was taken advantage of, it doesn't mean that we can't be frustrated at her naivety and how after this guy's life is ruined she goes on with a stainless reputation. Every character in the movie is a hypocrite.
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