49 pages • 1 hour read
Danzy SennaColored Television
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Danzy Senna
Danzy Senna is an award-winning novelist and essayist. Her work, including Colored Television, often incorporates autobiographical explorations of themes around race, gender, class, and politics. Senna was born to a white mother and a Black Mexican father in Boston in 1970, only a few years after the 1967 Supreme Court ruling Loving v. Virginia overturned laws banning marriage between people of different races. Her award-winning debut novel, Caucasia (1998), is a bildungsroman about two biracial sisters growing up in 1970s Boston. Danzy Senna is married to the award-winning Black writer Percival Everett, best known for his novel Erasure (2001).
Elements of Colored Television likewise draw from Senna’s autobiography. Like Senna, Jane Gibson is a light-skinned biracial woman with a white mother and a Black father who divorced when she was young. They are both Gen X writers. Jane is married to a Black artist whose physical description mirrors Percival Everett. Senna also reincorporates elements from Caucasia in Colored Television, as when Jane describes how Black students at her school growing up called her “Puerto Rican” due to her light skin.
The use of the word “mulatto,” which Senna uses throughout the text to describe people who have one Black and one white parent, is controversial. The word is widely considered antiquated and offensive, in part because it derives from the Spanish word for “mule,” the offspring of a horse and a donkey. However, Senna has been consistent in identifying with the word “mulatto” for decades, arguing that its reclamation is a form of pride and that it is a more specific term than the more general “multiracial.” She made this argument in a 1998 Salon article entitled “Mulatto Millenium,” and she reprises it almost word-for-word in Colored Television.
Geographical Context: Los Angeles Neighborhoods
Colored Television is set entirely in Los Angeles. In the text, Jane Gibson, a transplant from the East Coast, reckons with her love for her adopted city despite its flaws. She uses the neighborhoods of the city as a shorthand for class and cultural divides. Jane and her family’s peregrinations throughout Los Angeles are symbolic of Jane’s search for a place to belong, given her in-between and complicated identity.
Before moving into her friend Brett’s house somewhere in “the hills” above Los Angeles, Jane and the family live in a series of terrible rented apartments in trendy neighborhoods known for their artistic communities, namely Venice Beach and Silver Lake. This shows how Jane and her husband’s identities as artists define their lifestyle. Jane is desperate not to move to Burbank, an area of Los Angeles County where many entertainment companies are headquartered. Jane worries about the quality of Burbank’s schools and makes up a xenophobic excuse about not being able to speak to the parents of the other students to set up playdates because they won’t speak English. Additionally, she is concerned that Burbank does not have the charm of where Jane aspires to live, “Multicultural Mayberry.” She never names this neighborhood directly, but it is easily identifiable as South Pasadena, as she mentions it is where Halloween was filmed (Blake, Lindsay. “Go on Location: Iconic Horror Movie Locations in Los Angeles.” Discover Los Angeles, 2023). South Pasadena is a small suburban town located near the city of Los Angeles and represents Jane’s desire to be a homeowner and live a middle-class suburban American dream. The Hollywood television producer that Jane works with, Hampton Ford, lives in a large mansion on Amalfi Drive, which is in Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood along the Pacific Coast that is known for its wealthy residents. Jane becomes obsessed with looking at his home and the material success it represents.
Cultural Context: Television Writers and Income-Earning Potential
Throughout Colored Television, Jane aspires for increased financial security. After her novel is rejected, she believes television writing will be her ticket to upward mobility. She pursues this work singularly, believing that securing a contract for a television series will improve her monetary situation. However, the financial position of television writers is increasingly precious—particularly at a time when streaming platforms have rapidly proliferated and altered the television market. According to the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the average pay for a television writer is only $14,000 an episode (“Losing Ground.” WGA East). For streaming services, the pay can be even lower for episode writers. For instance, Alex O’Keefe, writer of the first season of the hit Hulu series The Bear, was only paid $43,000 for the season and receives no streaming residuals. Despite the show’s success, O’Keefe highlighted that, much like “98 percent of staff writers,” he worked for the minimum and, between gigs, barely survives (Bergeson, Samantha. “‘The Bear’ Writer Claims ‘Evil’ Streamers Want Writers to Be ‘Homeless’ Amid WGA Strike.” IndieWire, 2023).
While some television writers do become wealthy, it is far from usual. Even if Jane had signed a contract with Hampton, it would likely not guarantee increased income. This is because the dominant business of selling television shows utilizes a practice called “if come,” whereby production companies and studios agree to pay writers for a project only if the idea sells. If it sells, they receive a script fee, typically in the low six figures, but this earning potential is not a guarantee. To prepare for pitches, writers must invest ample time and unpaid labor to create development material to present their series. Following the WGA strike, writers are increasingly calling for earning a fee for this necessary yet uncompensated development work; smaller production companies and independent studios have been early adopters of paying writers a development fee, but major studios have been less receptive (Andreeva, Nellie. “Development Fees For Writers On The Rise Amid Depressed TV Buying: ‘We Call It Schmuck Insurance.’” Deadline, 2024).
