What Not to Wear to Madame Tussauds

By Jane Marie May 15, 2012

Have you ever been to a wax museum? It is kind of terrifying! Here’s what happens at the one in Hollywood: There are three floors of exhibitions. They tell you it’s okay to touch the wax people (!!!) but please, not their hair or faces. Take as many photos as you want. The only wax person in the lobby is Joan Rivers and that’s fine; you hardly have to look at her because she’s behind you as you wait for the elevator. She doesn’t shut up, though, which makes you feel bad for the attendant who stands next to her all day taking tickets. Anyway, then you ride up however many floors and the doors open and there are people everywhere, like any museum.

The first person you see is pointing a camera right at you as you exit the elevator and you think to yourself, “Tourists are so weird. Hey now, don’t be a hypocrite. But they said we could take pictures of the wax people, so why isn’t he pointing his camer — OH MY GOD HE IS A WAX PAPARAZZO! OH NO! THEY ARE ALL MADE OF WAX! Wait, except for that family over there… right? Wait, no. Wait, yes, right, they are real people. But they aren’t moving. Which celebrity family are they? Oh, the kid moved! Okay, okay. Okay.”

Then you get all dizzy and almost fall down from the freakiness of being in a room full of people who aren’t dead or alive but are still standing or sitting around like no big deal. But they’re not breathing or talking or blinking. It feels like being in a house of mirrors. You’re used to people kind of getting out of each other’s way when you’re walking around a museum together, but here you keep almost bumping into one another because only half the people move. Half of the half that don’t move are regular living humans of the oblivious/jerk persuasion. And all the wax people are facing in different directions so you can’t necessarily tell they aren’t humans until you’re on the other side of them.

Things are still feeling bendy so you try to find a seat but the only one is next to George Clooney and no way, José. They don’t even provide a chair for you to pretend to have brunch with Holly Golightly, so you have to half-kneel and hope you don’t knock the table, or her, over. It takes walking through almost the entire exhibit to find a suitable place to sit down and pull yourself together.