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.
Themes
The Foundations of Black Identity
Wolfe continually looks to the roots of Black identity to present a complex portrayal of an African American culture shaped by its dark history but carrying elements that unify people across generations. While in “Cookin’ with Aunt Ethel,” Wolfe addresses this concept of identity satirically, examining the most stereotypical ideas of what Black identity entails, he goes on to address the true complexity of the African American experience.
In particular, Wolfe employs drums throughout the play to track the origins and development of this complex identity. At first, drums are something to be feared and banned as Miss Pat enforces a strict rule of “no drums” aboard the Celebrity Slaveship. While drums were an important tool on slave ships, used as a method to keep up the morale of the slaves to prevent disease and sickness, they were in banned by slave owners in the United States. This was particularly true after the Stono Rebellion of 1739, when drums were used by the slaves to send messages to one another and coordinate the rebellion. Aboard the Celebrity Slaveship, although drumming is heard from the cabin in the opening scene, the time warp and subsequent landing in the United States silences them.
The drums don’t return in the play until the appearance of Miss Roj, when they come in the form of “pounding, unrelenting” electronic music. The desperation of the plight of Miss Roj and her community seem to ignite the beat, almost resembling a demand for justice or a call to arms. However, the revolution seems just beyond her grip “’cause we traded in our drums for respectability. So now it’s just words” (17). In “Permutations,” the drums take yet on another form, the form of the heartbeat. The drums here become the heartbeat of a people, driving forward, evolving, and creating life.
Finally, in “The Party,” the drums take over and carry the audience to the end of the show. Once again, the drums are a uniting force, speaking a common language. In Topsy’s fantastic party, space and time operate independently of one another. The unifying beat of the drum allows Malcom X, Aunt Jemima, and Jimmy Hendrix to all party together and dance to one beat as the drum serves to unify generations and concepts through its sound and rhythm. To Topsy, the drum has gone through a transformation. No longer defined as an instrument of wood, skin, and string, it exists in “My speech, my walk, my hair, […] my style” (51). Through these many representations, Wolfe paints a picture of continuity in African American identity—one of connection and communication, not bound by time or history.
Reconciling Oneself with Generational Trauma
The concept of past trauma contributing to one’s personal sense of identity is central to many of the exhibits in The Colored Museum. When Miss Pat become threated by the drumming heard coming from the other cabin, she attempts to placate the passengers and avoid a rebellion by assuring them that the songs they sing and physical hardships they will endure will lead to the music of James Brown and celebrity athletes. Thus, past baggage becomes not a burden but rather a badge of honor or a springboard for success. At the end of the opening exhibit, Miss Pat states, “any baggage you don’t claim, we trash” (5). This theme of baggage or past trauma continues into Aunt Ethel’s sketch where rage congeals in her pot until it turns into jazz. The rage she speaks of is no doubt the rage against injustice, bigotry, and oppression.
In “The Photo Session,” Girl and Guy manage to find a world that exists without “yesterday’s pain,” but the resulting life leaves them with a new pain: “The kind of pain that comes from feeling no pain at all” (10). Similarly, Junie Robinson tries to avoid future pain by murdering his comrades before they can experience or inflict it. This, too, feels eerily unsatisfactory. Miss Roj attempts to disappear into a supernatural world like Junie’s, where a simple snap of the fingers delivers justice and respect and stops the pain. Unfortunately, this is just a drunken fantasy.
When the two wigs argue about which one the Woman should wear in “The Hairpiece,” Janine’s call to wear the Afro wig and promote Black is Beautiful is met with LaWanda’s call to “get over it and get on with it” (22), a call to let go of the past and create a new identity. This conflict is also echoed by the Kid in “Symbiosis,” who tells the Man, “you may put all kinds of silk ties ’round your neck and white line stuff up your nose, but the Kid is here to stay” (36). Like Miss Roj, the Man cannot hide from what is or what was.
Lala is perhaps the character most tied up in her past pain. In fact, it is such a part of her personality that she has attempted to lock it up and create a new identity for herself. Ironically, the audience becomes more interested in the door to her past than the glamourous show she attempts to perform, thus making the show itself an entertaining exposé of her past trauma.
Topsy’s final message is a hopeful statement. It represents an attempt to reconcile the trauma of the past while keeping one’s eyes fixed forward, recognizing the important role the past plays in living in the present: “[…] ’cause I’m not what I was ten years ago or ten minutes ago, I’m all of that and then some. And whereas I can’t live inside yesterday’s pain, I can’t live without it” (52).
Mimicry as a Shaper of Identity
Throughout the play, the concept of mimicry is used as a thematic element to explore a problematic pattern withing the African American experience. The first mimic the audience encounters is Miss Pat, who mimics the behavior of both the crew of slave ships and a modern air stewardess. As the crew of the slave ship, she oppresses the slaves by helping to fasten their shackles and dictate appropriate behavior. As a stewardess, she becomes a model for obedient middle-class behavior while indoctrinating the slaves to understand their value to the white owners: that the slaves exist as commodities both now as labor and in the future through their collective culture.
Once Aunt Ethel has established the ingredients that go into making the prefect “batch of Negroes” (8), Girl and Guy in “The Photo Session” represent, in essence, mimics of the perfection of the two-dimensional representation of the perfect African American commodified image. LaWanda exhibits a damaging component of mimicry. She emulates a hairstyle that the Woman tried to copy and lost her real hair as a result. In “The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play,” Mama is so caught up in her mimicry of acceptable middle-class behavior—deference to Jesus and wiping one’s feet at the door—that she is unable to connect to her son’s pain. Similarly, Medea mimics the theater traditions of the West, exhibiting classically white Western behavior. Collectively, the mimicry serves to distance the family members from one another.
The Man in “Symbiosis” is Wolfe’s most in-depth exploration of modern mimicry in the African American context. The corporate dress and the Saks Fifth Avenue bag immediately establish The Man as assuming the clothing and accessories of the white middle class. This mimicry of white culture immediately puts him at odds with himself, the Kid. Furthermore, he has begun to see himself as little more than an animal, falling into racist tropes to identify and understand himself: “King Kong would have made it to the top if only he had taken the elevator” (34).
