The Arts in New York City

When I first received this assignment, the first places I thought of going to were the classic Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Modern Museum of Art. However, at the end I decided to try to do something different and more fun in my perspective. I traveled to 42^nd Street – Times Square and embarked on my journey through the wicked Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. This was my first time ever stepping in to the place even though I’ve lived in New York City all my life. The first room that I visited was filled with the traditional A-list superstar celebrities. There were actors such as Morgan Freeman and singers such as Bono. Britney Spears was also there in action with the other wax figures. What contributed to the atmosphere of celebrities in the room was the environment and scenery that encompassed the room. The ceiling was fashioned to resemble a night starry sky. The place where all these celebrities were was glamorous, matching their statuses. There were Roman pillars in the room along with a fountain in the center of it all. It was uncanny how real these wax figures looked. If I didn’t know beforehand that this was a wax museum, I would have been fooled by these figures.

The next room was the Presidential room where there were wax replicas of presidents and other famous thinkers and people such as George Bush and Napoleon. However the next room about the French Revolution, was the most frightening of all the rooms. The entire room was dark and there was an audio playing sound in the background of shrill screaming, glass breaking, and cannons firing. You could see around the room people’s heads on pikes and blood on the walls. The floor was also covered with cobblestone to add to the effect. I personally did not spend too much time dawdling in this room since it was quite chilling to me so I quickly moved into the next room.

In the next room, there was a completely different ambiance. The music didn’t contain screams and cannons, but instead had more of a funk and soul type of music. The wax figures in this room were mainly of people who were big in the later years such as the Beatles. Plastered on the wall were different advertisements, similar to a collage. The wavy structure of the area and designs contributed to the retro feeling of the room. There was a small station set up imitating the television show “American Idol.” Here you could pick what songs you wanted to belt out on the karaoke machine. I think that my experience spent at the wax museum was one to remember. It was amazing to see how artists can completely duplicate a person’s appearance. Every attribute of the real celebrity was perfected in the wax figure. A huge amount of effort and studying must have been put into every single wax figure in order to make sure that it is so flawless that one could almost not tell the difference between the figure and the person. If you haven’t visited Madame Tussaud’s yet, I would encourage you to do so, but once is enough. How many times can you visit the same wax figures and how many poses can you do with the wax figures before it becomes a little redundant? After this trip, I think I’m ready to hit up the Met or MoMA.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 5:18 am and is filed under Joanna Yau, WRITING ASSIGNMENTS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.