The Group

To better understand the scope of the campus queen genre, we also contend with Queen Question #4: Who authorizes this transaction and what can be gleaned from understanding the group’s role in enacting royalty ceremonies? The fourth chapter aims to unpack how and why the group creates the queen only to, often immediately, consume her. “The Group” catalogs the ways in which the student body exerts their force, namely by “Creating and Consuming Her,” “Discrediting and Discarding Her,” and “Devouring and Dismembering Her.” If the prom queen invariably represents a manifestation of the collective’s hegemonic efforts, she becomes the forum through which the dominating peer group advertises societal norms of any given place and time. Therefore, the group usually unravels her just as readily as they craft her, unabashedly interested in the rise and fall of their elected queen—in the making, breaking, and taking of her—and in the overall spectacle of the crowning ritual itself. More specifically, the fourth chapter closes with a consideration of the group gaze, the idea that the student body not only creates her but is always watching, gazing upon their said creation.