Colored Television

Colored Television by Danzy Senna is a 2024 novel about Black biracial writer Jane Gibson’s struggle to reinvent herself from a struggling literary writer and college instructor into a television writer for a Black Hollywood producer. Senna is a biracial college professor who has used semi-autobiographical elements in her previous novels. Senna draws on her experiences to illustrate the difficulties protagonist Jane Gibson faces. A Good Morning America Book Club pick, Colored Television blends elements of satire and literary realism to paint a portrait of Black and biracial creatives navigating demands to commercialize their racial identities to achieve financial and critical success. It explores themes of Balancing Artistic Integrity and Financial Security, The Commodification of Racial Identity, and The Demands of Motherhood.

This guide refers to the 2024 Riverhead Books paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material discusses racism, substance abuse, and suicide. It depicts racist terms for Black and biracial people throughout, which is replicated in this guide only in direct quotes from the source material.

Plot Summary

Jane Gibson, a biracial Gen X writer whose first novel was critically well-received but not a bestseller, is growing tired of her life in Brooklyn. She aspires to marry and have children to create the life she sees in a Hanna Andersson catalog. To get advice on achieving her dream, she calls a psychic her sister recommended. The psychic tells her she will soon meet the man she is looking for. Jane goes to a party where she meets Lenny, a Black painter, but he is there with another woman. She calls the psychic, who advises her to do what she can to win him over. She does so. Jane and Lenny marry and move to Los Angeles. Soon after, they have two children, Ruby and Finn.

Eight years later, Jane and Lenny are struggling financially. As a result, they have been forced to move frequently from rented apartment to rented apartment in the Los Angeles area. They both work as college instructors in addition to their work as a writer and artist, respectively. Lenny’s paintings, while artistically gifted, do not sell, in part because he refuses to deal with Black subject matter. Jane has taken a sabbatical from her teaching position to finish her second book, a sprawling novel that covers 400 years of “mulatto” history in the United States that she has been working on for a decade. She needs to publish her second novel to earn tenure in her university position. For the year, they are staying at her friend Brett’s home in the hills above Los Angeles. Brett is a biracial television writer who is in Australia working on a set.

Jane finally finishes her manuscript and sends it to her agent. Although her agent is initially positive about the work, Jane’s publisher rejects it. Dejected, Jane contacts Brett’s television agent about a meeting. Brett had previously told Jane his idea to create a comedy about “mulattos.” Jane steals his premise and pitches it to the agent. The agent sets Jane up with a meeting with a Black television producer, Hampton Ford. Hampton seems excited about the idea and encourages Jane to brainstorm ideas for episodes.

Meanwhile, Jane has been lying to her husband about the book project and the television pitch. She tells Lenny that her literary agent wants her to make revisions, and she is meeting with Hampton as part of her “research” for the project. Simultaneously, Jane is ignoring Brett’s frequent calls and texts. Initially, the prospect of becoming a television writer buoys Jane. However, Hampton becomes increasingly critical of her and demanding of her time. He is volatile, calling her while high on drugs with unhinged ideas for plots that he later criticizes. Lenny grows increasingly suspicious and annoyed as Jane disappears for late-night meetings with Hampton.

One day, Hampton comes to Jane’s home studio. He confronts her about the poor quality of her contributions. He encourages her to keep brainstorming ideas. While there, he notices the manuscript of Jane’s novel. He asks her if he can read it so that he can give her suggestions. She agrees and hands it over. Then, she never hears from Hampton or his staff again.

Brett returns home. He is disappointed in Jane because he was calling and texting her to tell her that he was getting a divorce from his wife, Piper, and that he needed support. She apologizes and explains that her book was rejected. Brett gives the family two weeks to move out. When Brett discovers that Jane and Lenny drank his entire wine collection, they argue.

Jane grows disappointed at the prospect of moving to a rented apartment in Burbank. She dreams of living in a quaint residential neighborhood she calls “Multicultural Mayberry.” One day, she drives there and sees a property for lease. When the office manager tells her that it is a retirement community, Jane breaks down crying. The office manager relents and tells her they will make an exception for her family, and they move in. Jane returns to work and has been demoted from the tenure track because she failed to publish her novel.

A few weeks later, Jane gets a message from Brett. He asks her to pick up some things from his house they had forgotten and tells her he has something to show her. When she gets there, Brett shows her a series book for a show called Swirl by Hampton Ford. He says it reminds him of her unpublished manuscript. Jane reads the series book and realizes Hampton has stolen her ideas and transformed them into a limited television series based on her research. She is shocked. Jane calls a lawyer to see if she can sue Hampton for stealing her work, but the lawyer tells her she would likely lose a court case because she never had a contract, and there is no paper trail.

Sometime later, Jane watches Swirl in the community room of the retirement home. The retirees don’t believe her when she tells them she contributed to the show because her name isn’t in the credits. Jane realizes that the episode they are watching is a story based on her experiences as a 20-something in New York City she recreated in the unpublished novel, only it simplifies and idealizes them.

Later, Lenny achieves commercial success with a solo show in Japan. All his paintings sell after he agrees to “brand” them in such a way that it is clear that a Black artist made them, something he had previously refused to do. Jane eventually writes a new novel, which is published, and earns tenure. They save up enough money to buy a house, albeit a fixer-upper, in “Multicultural Mayberry.”