58 pages • 1 hour read
Leah JohnsonYou Should See Me in a Crown
Leah JohnsonFiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Performative Activism vs. Genuine Allyship
Campbell County and its high school are microcosms of the world at large. Through an analysis of this particular town and this specific school, Johnson is able to level searing critiques at problems in society. One such problem that Johnson addresses through a recurring theme in the novel is the difference between performative activism and genuine allyship. Performative activism is supporting causes with the distinct purpose of improving one’s image, not for creating genuine change. It privileges the experiences of the person who is doing good over those who stand to benefit. It is phony and hollow.
Johnson primarily addresses the issues around performative activism through the character of Rachel. After Rachel tackles Liz and hurts her in the scrimmage, she becomes desperate to stay at the top of the prom polls. She does this by hijacking different activist and charity movements in order to make herself look better. Rachel forces her friends to help her hand out “hot-pink miniature footballs that say CONSENT IS SEXY as people walk into school” (106). By using the popular tagline, Rachel appears to support an important movement. However, Rachel does not appear to facilitate any actual conversation about consent; instead, she simply uses the movement to prop up her own image.
Later, Rachel also drops off collection boxes “for a canned food drive she made up called: (Non)Perishables for Prom” (106). In quick succession, Rachel’s family then donates “a thousand dollars to the ASPCA'' and posts a banner in the Commons of herself “holding three tiny dachshund puppies. Puppies! With no caption!” (106). Liz’s dismay at the lack of substance behind this action reflects Johnson’s own critique those who perform activism in order to look a certain way. Rachel does these seemingly good deeds so that she can be seen doing them, so that she can flaunt her wealth and be admired for her charitable nature. They are empty gestures.
Rachel’s commitment to making herself look good through acts of performative activism mirror the community service events that the prom candidates are forced to attend. Instead of helping out institutions that really need it, Liz and the other prom candidates are often relegated to the job of stacking chairs for school events. Liz notes, “The only aspect of the campaign that makes any sense to me at all is the community service, honestly. But it feels empty to give back in a town like Campbell, a town that already has all the resources it needs. If I’m going to do this, I want to serve in a place that actually needs our help” (79). In this particular moment, Liz identifies the emptiness of helping a place that does not need it as a show of charity.
Liz’s time volunteering at Bryant House is the opposite of such empty performative activism. It is an act of genuine allyship, wherein she volunteers to help those who need it without expecting anything in return. Amanda’s frequent defense of Liz is yet another example of genuine allyship. Before knowing Liz, Amanda stands up to Rachel and calls out her racism without a second thought. At the risk of hurting her own chances of making new friends, Amanda speaks out against the blatant racist bullying that she witnesses. Later, when she and Liz are dating, she also puts her own feelings aside about keeping their relationship secret so that she can keep Liz safe. The differences in these two different types of activism and allyship is clear; Johnson makes it evident that performative activism only benefits the self, while genuine allyship often occurs at one’s expense.
Making Space for Oneself
The theme of learning to make space for oneself is pivotal to the novel. It is, perhaps, one of the main lessons that Johnson has the reader and Liz learn from the entire experience. This theme is a through line as Liz begins to navigate the prejudicial obstacles of prom. At the beginning of the novel, Liz is desperate to be an unseen character, dressing in dark colors and afraid to answer questions in class, Liz wants to be invisible. As the events of the novel come to pass, Liz slowly begins to understand her own worth. She thinks, “This whole race is set up to mimic some twisted fairy tale. The queen is supposed to be the best among us: the smartest, the most beautiful, the worthiest. But the people who win are rarely the people who deserve it. Like with any monarchy, they’re just the closest to the top. You don’t earn queen; you inherit it” (109). In this passage, Liz begins to reckon with the larger discriminatory practices at play. She sees that it is not a flaw within her that somehow makes her less worthy of being queen. Amanda’s fierce declaration that, “We deserve good things too. No matter how we have to get them” is a key moment that awakens Liz’s desire to fight against Campbell’s antiquated prejudices (114). Liz has started to believe that she is worthy of good things too and wants to fight for them.
This turn in the novel sees Liz begin to actively stand up and make space for herself. She writes a post on Campbell Confidential, saying simply, “Campbell County has built a system that benefits the privileged. Prom court shouldn’t be for the same kind of people every year” (139). In posting this, Liz deliberately takes the institution to task and makes space for herself as a genuine and legitimate candidate in the race. She is now running in order to overthrow that system of privilege, rather than in an attempt to maintain it. Johnson writes about Liz’s moment of clarity, saying, “And I know then what I’ve always known: Campbell is never going to make a space for me to fit. I’m going to have to demand it” (141). In a drastic shift from the beginning of the novel, Liz now refuses to exist in the margins, invisible to everyone. She wants and deserves a seat at the table. By the end of the novel, Liz is secure in her worth. On the day of the prom, Liz admires a picture of her mother, “confident, secure in the fact that she deserved to take up space in Campbell. Deserved to take up space anywhere” (180). Now that Liz has gained the confidence and the fervor with which to continuously make space for herself, she will be prepared to do so beyond the boundaries of the high school as well.
Intersectionality
The theme of intersectionality is threaded throughout the text. Amanda directly references it when she speaks with Liz about keeping their relationship secret. Amanda says, “And I bet it’s even harder for you because you’re not only queer but you’re also black, and I’ve been reading a lot of Kimberlé Crenshaw, so, like, intersectionality and all that definitely makes it harder” (96). Johnson references Crenshaw here as the scholar and activist is responsible for coining the term intersectionality. Intersectionality refers to a person’s position and layered identities of race, gender, class, sexuality, and disability. Liz introduces herself as “tall, black, broke Liz Lighty,” already intertwining her race and class at the beginning of the novel (9). Later, Liz’s queerness and her struggle with anxiety only further add to her layered identity. Any of these identities may result in a person encountering discrimination or prejudice, however, when they are layered together, they render the individual more vulnerable to oppressive institutions. Johnson makes it clear that Liz has been a forgotten student of sorts, struggling with covering the cost of tuition for college. Her high school is more concerned with putting on an elaborate prom than in ensuring its more vulnerable students have the resources to go to school.
Resources aside, the treatment by such institutions vary widely when one sits at the intersection of such identities. For example, Amanda has a pride flag displayed in her locker, but does not at any point get reprimanded by the authorities or disqualified from the prom queen competition. When Liz is forcibly outed by Rachel, on the other hand, there are immediate talks for her to be kicked out of the race. In addition, the Jennings, for example, who are wealthy and popular, do not experience the same prejudice that Liz does. Johnson writes, “The very abuse that the Jennings men have avoided by being athletes, by providing some type of entertainment to the people of Campbell, people like me or even Amanda experience full force” (154). Through these moments in the text, Johnson displays how important the consideration of intersectionality is, and how layered identities can result in vastly different circumstances from individual to individual.
Yet, Liz does have some privileges. As a cisgender student, she does not have to struggle with feeling that the prom court positions others expect her to run for does not align with her gender identity. Johnson writes of Campbell, “Girls will run for queen, and boys will run for king—there’s definitely no accounting for people who might not identify as either…if your gender identity doesn’t explicitly align with the one you were assigned at birth, you can’t come dressed the way you might want. Girls wear dresses, and boys wear tuxes. And that’s the end of it” (27). Any trans students in the school would be struggling with issues and prejudices that Liz does not face.
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