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Abbott Elementary’s second-season renewal is no surprise, given its success among critics and viewers. Helmed by Quinta Brunson and some of the minds behind Parks and Recreation and The Office, Abbott Elementary has already found itself being compared to the two popular, long-running programs. Abbott Elementary feels like the natural evolution of the mockumentary format rather than something repackaged, but it’s still rare to see a show like this receive almost universal praise. Even before it debuted, an early pilot of Parks and Recreation highlighted audiences’ issues with seeing anything akin to a “female Michael Scott,” particularly when it came to public-service jobs. Michael Schur says Leslie had to be “retooled” over the course of the show’s first season until the best version of her nerdy optimism was brought to life.
Minority TV characters often face the burden of representing the entire group they depict. If Leslie was as bad at her job as Michael Scott, was Parks and Recreation trying to say something about women in government? Even if that wasn’t the show’s intent, it was still a characteristic used in bad faith against the show. It’s also an unfair burden to minorities in comedy, placing respectability politics above realistic depictions of what can be funny for minority characters. Characters across the spectrum should be allowed to have bad traits; being terrible crosses boundaries of race, gender, and anything else. It’s also rarely as simple as one character being only good or evil.
If there’s any evidence that audiences have widely begun to realize this, it’s in Ava Coleman, Abbott Elementary’s principal. Played by Janelle James, Coleman is selfish, rude, and politically incorrect. The character is a standout—the subject of online odes. It had seemed like Abbott Elementary had done the impossible with Coleman: bringing the female Michael Scott to life. While there were some early whispers on Twitter about Coleman being “bad representation” for Black educators, the character quickly became a fan favorite. As the season progressed, the character became more like Ron Swanson, with Coleman taking on responsibility. Episode nine, “Step Class,” shows Ava dealing with the difficulty of an ailing relative. It’s almost a complete reveal of the caring, soft person deep inside Ava.
That is, until it’s not. In the end, Ava remains Ava; she still hits on Gregory, continues to steal resources, and would still most certainly push a child out of the way to get through a fire exit first. The show’s writers have brought fully formed Black characters into the mockumentary age. The script allows them access to a range of human experiences. A character like Ava Coleman is in her own lane. She isn’t a female Michael Scott or Ron Swanson because the performance is something entirely different and thoroughly driven by Janelle James.
James handles Ava at every turn, setting the character’s pace. She makes Coleman the ringmaster, the jester, and the villain all at once. The realities of the public school system can be dark, but James pulls off jokes on topics such as the school-to-prison pipeline and limited resources. Ava forces viewers, and the rest of Abbott Elementary’s tired teachers, to laugh to keep from crying. It isn’t a surprise that James, a veteran of dark comedy, has found a new tempo for Black female characters in prime time. She wrote and starred in Black Monday, a joke-driven machine satirizing the worst of the 1980s. She also appeared briefly in Corporate, Comedy Central’s dark, short-lived (and far too ignored) take on The Office.
Her 2017 debut comedy album, Black and Mild, is, however, the best evidence of James’s ability to jump from politics to family to drugs with a sardonic tone. Her delivery can convince you to laugh at nearly any idea, no matter how strange or off-putting. In “Thirties,” she talks about being a lifelong pervert, starting from when she discovered the joy of masturbation at a young age. When one audience member finally breaks into the album’s loudest laugh, James riffs, “Nobody ever talks about that shit, and it makes women feel alone! You probably thought you were alone, but everybody was slippin’ and slidin’ on the couch!” She isn’t afraid to defy expectations often placed on Black women in her comedy. There is no concern for how the material might be understood by white audiences. Like her Abbott Elementary character, she’s able to flip jokes on the audience, herself, and whatever other target she likes. What helps sell nearly every punch line, though, is James’s pure joy over the jokes she’s telling.
Beyond sincerity, there’s a sense that James, like Ava, knows she has a special ability to walk into any room with the confidence to remain herself. There’s also the sense that she knows it’s ridiculous that a Black woman would need that ability to be herself at work, on stage, or anywhere else. It’s this trait that James brings to life in Ava, giving the character range and a sense of depth that opens Abbott Elementary to new forms of storytelling. Ava Coleman reminds me of another unlikely star of broadcast television: Gene Belcher from Bob’s Burgers. If that connection seems odd, that’s absolutely fair. Gene, however, is a character who has to thrive on being both thoroughly annoying and hilarious.
But, more important, Gene is voiced by Eugene Mirman. Many might not connect Janelle James’s stand-up with someone who is considered the definition of an “alternative” comedian (and white), but Black female comedians who can play to both Black and white audiences are usually considered “alt” comics anyway. To those familiar with the New York City comedy scene, it wasn’t odd to find the two on the same show. Similar to James, Mirman also has his own blend of “sincere and ironic” comedy, showcased in the festival he founded in 2008. The Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival was as much for fans as it was a celebration of people who just love making people laugh. It Started as a Joke, a 2019 documentary, looks at the festival’s farewell year and why it was such a special event for comedians.
The year prior, Mirman announced he was passing the festival on to James. And in 2018, the Janelle James Comedy Festival debuted. While the timing couldn’t have been worse, to run a festival with Covid-19, the festival’s hiatus and quarantine gave her time to give Abbott Elementary a shot. Ava is a culmination of the philosophy James uses at the center of her stand-up: No one is just one thing. Ava’s breakout success is the result of a comedian who has honed an incredible voice over her career. Having seen James perform in packed theaters and near-empty bar shows, I’ve seen her win over nearly every kind of audience firsthand. If anyone could bring to life a Black female character in prime time who needed to be both a villain and likable, James was always the person who could pull it off.
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What Makes Principal Ava So Funny on Abbott Elementary?
Source: Filipino Journal Articles
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