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.
Chapters 18-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary
Hampton comes to see Jane at Brett’s home studio. She puts out her manuscript so that it looks like a place where a real writer works. Hampton, who is under the impression the house is hers, asks why she has Brett’s wedding photo on her desk. Jane lies and says Brett is her cousin. Hampton sees Lenny in the kitchen and asks about his background. Jane tells Hampton that Lenny comes from a bourgeois family, works as an abstract painter, and went to Oberlin College. Hampton says Jane is like him and kneads her shoulder.
Hampton launches into a soliloquy about how the white teachers at his public school had tried to “break him,” but he had succeeded anyway. Then, he changes his tone and gives Jane a lecture about how he was disappointed in the ideas she had come up with for the show so far. He says he should have hired Crystal Bookman, who is “mixed too, though she never mentioned it to anyone until it seemed like she could get some advantage from it” (215). He tells Jane she has to “represent.” He advises her to take a break and think about the premise of the show.
Hampton sees Jane’s manuscript and offers to read it and give her feedback. When he leaves, she notices that Topher and Layla are waiting in his Porsche.
Chapter 19 Summary
Jane throws herself into mothering. She takes Ruby to buy another American Girl doll. Ruby picks out an Indian American doll named Kavi Sharma. While she waits for feedback on her manuscript, she follows Hampton’s activities on Instagram. She texts Layla and receives only a series of emojis in response. Then she texts Hampton and receives no response.
One night, while Lenny is out at his Japanese class, Finn tells Jane that there is a naked man in the studio. Jane puts the kids in a closet and goes out to confront the man. It is Brett. He has returned from Australia. He is upset because he was trying to tell Jane that he was getting a divorce from his wife, Piper, and wanted support. Jane explains she was in a bad place because her novel had been rejected. Brett tells her that the family has to find a new place to live in two weeks. He has decided not to pursue the “mulatto comedy” idea he had told her about because he didn’t want to be “pigeon-holed.” He isn’t upset that Jane contacted his agent. Then, Brett realizes Jane and Lenny drank all the wine in his wine cellar, and they argue.
Jane breaks the news to Lenny when he returns from his class. Lenny confronts Jane about the show she is writing; he knows about it because she left her notebooks around the house. She tells him the truth, and he storms out.
Chapter 20 Summary
Late the next morning, Lenny returns. He tells her he spent the night driving and thinking. Jane wonders if he slept with someone. Meanwhile, Brett’s new girlfriend, Lucinda, who he met on the set of the television show in Australia, has arrived. Jane notices that Lucinda looks like a younger version of Brett’s ex-wife, Piper. Jane imagines that Piper, a wealthy white woman, is probably fine with the divorce, but Jane knows that if she and Lenny split up, it would be financially difficult for her. Jane and Lenny pack up their things and prepare to move.
Lenny finds an apartment in Burbank. Jane argues that the schools in Burbank are not as good as the ones in “Multicultural Mayberry.” Lenny opens a bottle of Brett’s wine and tells Jane he prefers Burbank to “Multicultural Mayberry.” Jane says he only feels that way because he grew up with money. They argue. Jane asks him where he went the night he stormed out, and he doesn’t answer.
The next morning, Jane drives to “Multicultural Mayberry.” She notices a for lease sign outside an apartment complex. She goes in and asks if they have a room available for their family. The woman in the office explains it’s a retirement community. Jane breaks down crying and tells the woman her whole story. The woman says they can make an exception for them.
Jane drives home and watches her family in the house from the car. She thinks about how much television meant to her and her sister when they were growing up.
Chapter 21 Summary
Jane receives her class schedule. Because she had not succeeded in publishing her novel, she has been taken off the tenure track and will have to teach four classes a semester, which is a heavy teaching load. Her colleague, Kay, comforts her. Despite this, Jane feels positive about their new situation. Ruby has a nice new school to attend and is hopeful about finally making a best friend. Finn has received a diagnosis as neurodivergent and will be attending a special program. Lenny and Jane’s relationship is still tense, but the family has adapted well to living in the retirement home.
Jane checks in on Hampton on Instagram from time to time. He never contacted her again. One day, Brett texts her. He asks her to come pick up some things she had left and says he has something to show her. Jane goes over to his house the next day. They apologize to one another. Brett tells her he was calling to say he loved her. Jane is surprised and unsure how to take that news. Then, Brett shows her a series document for a show that reminds him of her manuscript. It’s a new show by Hampton Ford called Swirl about “four hundred years of mulattos in America” (255). It is based on Jane’s work but more mawkish and sentimental. Jane feels ashamed and shocked. Jane goes home and gives the document to Lenny. She tells him it’s “bad.”
Jane goes for a walk and thinks about her father, who had been the only Black newspaper columnist at his job. After a conflict with an Irish American colleague, he was fired after they decided he was “violent” because of a rubber band ball on his desk that they claimed could be used as a weapon. He had fallen into a depression. One day, Jane told him she had gotten a minority scholarship to go to a good university. He told her, “Remember they’re lying when they tell you you’re special […] Just like they’ll be lying later when they tell you you’re a piece of shit” (259).
When she gets home, Jane tells Lenny she is going to sue Hampton for stealing her ideas. A few days later, Jane talks to a lawyer who advises against suing because Hampton has many expensive lawyers. The lawyer tells her she does not have a paper trail to prove her case because she gave him a paper manuscript and kept all her notes in notepads. She would probably lose a legal action.
The chapter ends with a summary of the sociologist Cavendish’s conclusions about mulattos. He thinks they will either be swallowed by Black or white culture and ultimately “cease to exist” (264).
Chapter 22 Summary
Jane writes Lenny a letter explaining that she won’t be able to sue, and they will not be able to get financial security. She ends the letter with a list she has been keeping of everything they both hate. Then, she drives to Hampton’s house. She sees him inside with Topher, Layla, Crystal Bookman (the writer), and Bruce Borland (the network executive). Hampton watches while the others dance.
Jane returns to the retirement home and sees Ruby asleep in bed with her Black American Girl doll. Lenny comforts Jane while he falls asleep.
One day, Jane watches Swirl in the common room of the retirement home. The episode is about a biracial girl named Zyzzyva who breaks up with her white boyfriend and ends up locked in a Restoration Hardware. Jane tells the women watching that the show was “based on [her] book” (273), but the women don’t believe her because her name isn’t in the credits. In the show, Zyzzyva meets a psychic in the park who tells her that her future is bright.
Swirl wins an Emmy for “Outstanding New Series.” In the acceptance speech, Hampton talks about “the power of representation” (274). Jane sees in the paper that he got a divorce from his wife. Lenny and Jane adopt a Labradoodle. Jane writes another book, gets it published, gets a promotion, and begins to enjoy teaching again. Lenny’s solo show is a success, and he sells all his paintings, in part because he drew “a tiny Black man’s face, mouth open, screaming, in the corner of each of them” (276). They buy a ramshackle Craftsman house in “Multicultural Mayberry” and plan to fix it up together.
Chapters 18-22 Analysis
Although Jane initially has a good feeling about Hampton Ford, by the end of the novel, his manipulative, bullying, and duplicitous character and singular focus on The Commodification of Racial Identity is fully evident. Earlier in the novel, Senna foreshadowed that he might not be a good person. For instance, Jane noticed that his assistant, Layla, might have been crying, and he was physically aggressive with his office worker, Topher. Hampton is dismissive of their ideas without contributing any constructive criticism or giving any direction. Jane noticed from the outset that he was two-faced. In Jane’s final meeting with Hampton, she crystallizes this understanding of him, thinking, “Hampton’s face had the two sides, the hilarity and the tragedy, but beneath both expressions was hunger” (211). During this meeting, Hampton is inappropriately physically intimate, and she wonders if “he wasn’t about to make an old-fashioned pass [at her]” (211). He gives her notes that dismiss her idea of making a show about characters that happen to be biracial without it being the focus of the show. He presses her for not commodifying the idea more clearly, arguing it “was a pitiful weird little show that wasn’t even really very biracial” (214). Jane concedes to all his points. By this point in the novel, she has abandoned all her artistic values in the hopes of achieving financial security—even if it means commodifying racial identity.
Jane’s actions in this meeting further develop the theme of Balancing Artistic Integrity and Financial Security and her naïveté, a characterization that Senna fully crystallizes by the end of the novel. Throughout, Jane has evinced a false belief about the financial security television writing promises. After the rejection of her novel, she pursues it wholeheartedly and without second consideration, believing it is the ticket to success. However, she does not secure a contract that would ensure this. Even if she had signed a contract with Hampton, an “if come” contract is no guarantee of income: it only pays out if the television contract is picked up for distribution, and television pilots often go nowhere. Ultimately, Jane’s naïveté becomes clear when she realizes Hampton has conned her. She thought all along that she was the con artist reinventing herself when, in fact, Hampton was taking advantage of her for his material gain.
In Chapter 20, Lenny and Jane have a revealing argument that further underscores Jane’s sense of entitlement. Lenny shows her an apartment in Burbank that she rejects as “hideous.” She follows this by stating that she doesn’t have a problem with the immigrant population of Burbank but believes they will outperform their children in school. Her racist rebuttal highlights that she wants to distinguish herself as better than working-class immigrant families. She is so determined to have her television-perfect life that she exhibits casual xenophobia and classism toward others.
In the final chapter, Jane writes Lenny a long letter explaining herself that includes a list of things they both hate. At the end of that list is “redemptive endings.” Senna again uses a “lampshading” technique to make explicit her decision to end the novel in a way that eschews a redemptive ending for its characters. Hampton Ford, for instance, wins an Emmy for his stolen series instead of getting any kind of comeuppance for his immoral behavior. Similarly, Jane eventually gets everything she wants: a new novel published, a promotion at work, and a Craftsman house in “Multicultural Mayberry.” Lenny even goes along with her idea to commodify his racial identity in his paintings to sell them. Jane experiences no long-term consequences from her unethical decisions and does not reflect on her immoral behavior. In a story with a more redemptive ending, Jane would win legal action against Hampton and become wealthy, and Lenny would be able to continue making his paintings with his artistic integrity intact. The ending of Colored Television, however, presents a much bleaker vision of artistic production, financial stability, and ethics. In the end, the main characters are rewarded for commodifying their racial identities and compromising artistic integrity for financial gain.
