THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO AVA COLEMAN

On paper, Abbott Elementary’s Ava Coleman is a disaster. The idiosyncratic public school principal (played with almost mythic charisma by Janelle James) is outlandish, self-aggrandizing, dismissive of others’ concerns and contributions, sarcastic, and vain. She's a multipotentialite cinephile, a doomsday prepper, a clotheshorse, and a step dancer. She's selfish, rude, politically incorrect, and, intermittently, and often secretly, sensitive. Ava has no background in education; She got her job by blackmailing the superintendent over his infidelity. And she's basically a precocious child trying to do the job of a principal. She’s every HR department’s nightmare and every group project’s dead weight.

And yet: I can’t get enough of her.

Ava is a masterclass in controlled chaos—a character who gleefully defies every rule of what a “strong female” in a workplace comedy is supposed to look like. She’s not quietly competent, not humbly overachieving. She's not even pretending to try and “have it all.” She's messy. She's unserious. She's fabulous. And she’s maybe, just maybe, exactly the kind of role model we didn't know we needed. Hear me out.

*MILD SPOILERS FOR ABBOT ELEMENTARY FROM THIS POINT

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The pilot for Abbot Elementary establishes Ava’s core characteristics from the start, including her rivalry with A+ teacher Janine (played by series creator Quinta Brunson) and her wide array of interests, most of which are incorporated into episodic subplots: Her apocalypse planning in season one lands her on the cover of Doomsday Preppers magazine in season two; the green screen installed in her office aids in her influencer aspirations; and her rivalry with her sorority sisters inspires her to approve an accelerated curriculum so she can “be like Charles Xavier with legs.”

Although Abbott is noticeably struggling—faulty lighting, not enough supplies, lack of funding for technology, arts education, and field trips—Ava’s own spaces communicate her expensive taste and egomania. To signal her flexibility with the budget (as long as it benefits herself ), the principal’s office harbors the “newest and brightest,” an executive-style wooden desk and hutch, a glass-front sideboard, upholstered chairs, and a personal coffee machine and minibar (Girl, who are you drinking with?). The omnipresent candy speaks to Ava’s immaturity, and the headgear hanging on the wall represents the many hats Ava wears as both principal, social media guru, and professional scammer.

Whereas past TV principals were stern disciplinarians (a la Boy Meets World’s Mr. Feeny or Saved by the Bell’s Mr. Belding), Ava is posting thirst traps, calling herself a “visionary,” and openly thirsting over Gregory Eddie in ways that would have HR departments in real life drafting emails in all caps. She's absurd and wildly unprofessional—and that’s the point.

Ava Coleman joins a growing lineage of female characters who are allowed to be messy without moral punishment: think Michaela Pratt in How to Get Away With Murder, Shiv Roy in Succession, or even Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek. But Ava brings something new to the table: she’s neither elite, nor tragic, nor particularly strategic. She’s just vibing—and doing so in the context of a failing institution (public education), in a major city (Philly), with basically no support.

And still, she thrives.

She's a woman who may be failing upward but refuses to be embarrassed about it. She’s a meme, a menace, a middle-finger to respectability—and one of the funniest characters on TV.

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None of this, of course, works without 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 expertly 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 dark comedy 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.

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 the 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 a new form of storytelling.

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There’s another layer here, one that feels quietly radical: Ava is a Black woman in a position of authority who is unapologetic about who she is and what she does (or doesn't) stand for.

For decades, Black women characters were often written as moral compasses, caretakers, or overachievers. They were expected to uphold respectability politics, to embody strength, and sacrifice. Even in comedy, they were rarely allowed to be messy in ways that weren’t demonized.

Ava, instead, represents a refusal of “Black excellence”. She doesn’t have to be "twice as good" a la Olivia Pope. She gets to be loud, lazy, and lovable on her own terms.

This isn’t the quirky, white-girl disarray of New Girl or the self-sabotage of Fleabag. Ava’s mess is rooted in a distinct kind of Black womanhood and it's unapologetically visible.

As the high-glam, low-performing principal of Abbott Elementary, Ava is chaos incarnate: a woman in power with no filter, no credentials, and no intention of conforming. Her hot mess-ness isn’t seasoning. It's her philosophy. In an age of burnout, Ava’s energy is almost aspirational. Her priorities are misaligned with the mission of the institution she works for, yes, but they are perfectly aligned with herself.

And here’s the twist: it works.

Because the real story here is that Ava is a woman in power who refuses to perform virtue. She’s not sacrificing herself for the greater good. She’s not living to serve. She’s living to shine. Yet, it doesn't mean she's incapable of doing good.

In the beginning of the series, Ava comes off as uncaring and is constantly causing problems for the Abbott Elementary teachers who liked to do things by the book. As the show has gone on, however, Ava has learned to use her more selfish traits for the greater good. Outside of being one of the most quotable characters on the show, her power of speech and devious planning have actually been a benefit to both the staff and students. There’s always been more to Ava than meets the eye, and by Season 4, she truly proves herself as an advocate...even if her methods are supes unorthodox.

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What separates Ava from her hotmess predecessors is that she’s not embarrassed about any of it. Not her professional incompetence, not her thirst trap-heavy Instagram presence, not her lack of a five-year plan (unless “be rich and go viral” counts).

She’s not self-deprecating. She’s self-inflating. And in a culture where women—especially Black women—are expected to over-perform, Ava’s refusal to try harder is quietly revolutionary.

Ava’s life philosophy? Look good, stay booked, and don’t let anyone make you feel bad for wanting more with less effort. And that's a philosophy I think I could get behind. Can't you?