49 pages • 1 hour read
George C. WolfeThe Colored Museum
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Sketch 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Sketch 3 Summary: “The Photo Session”
The scene opens with bright, colorful light illuminating a “glamourous, gorgeous” Black man and woman, Guy and Girl, posing while disco music plays. As they pose, their pictures are projected onto the walls of the museum. The music quiets, and the images fade away as they speak to the audience.
They say that they could not “resolve the contradictions of our existence” or “resolve yesterday’s pain” (9). As a result, they chose to live their lives exclusively inside Ebony Magazine. They describe their life inside the magazine as one where everyone is beautiful and only wears fabulous clothes. There, no one says anything profound, meaningful, or contradictory. They describe how they now simply pose as part of advertisements.
They then list the drawbacks of this fabulous life: constant smiling, no social life, no sex. They describe feeling suffocated, not human anymore, and that everything is simply rehearsed. They describe a new kind of pain that “comes from feeling no pain at all” (10).
Then, they snap back into a positive energy, encouraging the audience to join them in this life of no contradictions. They speak together mechanically, “[…] smile/click smile/click. No pain” (10). The adopt a final pose as the music fades.
Sketch 3 Analysis
Here Wolfe takes the perfect model of Blackness that Aunt Ethel has created and subverts it, returning to the theme of contradiction. Both Miss Pat and Aunt Ethel have asserted that pain and trauma are central to the celebration of African American identity. Miss Pat asserts that trauma helped, over time, to create the wonderful celebrities we worship. Aunt Ethel considers it a key ingredient to the collective identity.
Guy and Girl, however, have decided to abandon this part of their identity, instead choosing to live inside the pages of Ebony Magazine. Ebony Magazine is a glossy monthly publication whose audience is the African American community. In this satirical representation of the magazine, “everyone is beautiful, and wears fabulous clothes” (9).
While initially this life may seem appealing, Guy and Girl soon reveal its drawbacks: constant smiling, no social life, and no sex. This life thus creates a new pain, “the pain that comes from feeling no pain at all” (10). Here, it becomes clear that Wolfe sees pain and trauma as central to the African American experience. To deny that fact is senseless. To Wolfe, a life without ugliness and pain is no life at all. The contradiction of needing pain to live is simply part of the experience. Again, the theme of contradiction emerges: How can one enjoy life, yet still endure the pain of the past? Wolfe also seems to be taking aim at Ebony Magazine itself, arguing that rather than actively seeking to improve the lives of its readership, the magazine promotes a vapid consumerism.
