Marx’s idea of commodity fetishism is that the commodity and its money-making potential become more important than the labor behind it and those exploited in the monetary pursuit which in this case is black Americans. Marx states “But for the very reason that personal dependence forms the ground-work of society, there is no necessity for labour and its products to assume a fantastic form different from their reality” (Marx 668), that there is no reason to ascribe traits to the physical products of labor outside of their intended use. The fetish lies in people transforming a product with its specific physical uses into a commodity which encompasses not only its uses but its ascribed cash-value. Cash-value gives the product an appeal that goes beyond its intended function, an appeal that never existed until people granted it that power. The slave-trade exists as a real life example. Slave auctions occurred where people would bid over slaves. The physical composition of a human being cannot literally function as a means to produce money yet the auctioneers ascribe cash value to slaves. In a literal, material sense the slave’s physical being is able to do work such as housecleaning or cotton-picking but with the fetishism over the slave’s muscles, stamina, and other traits, the slave’s physical being transcends its intended function by becoming a symbol of power, status, and control in the eyes of the auctioneers. A slave’s physique does not literally have the power to conjure money but in the eyes of the auctioneers it is common sense that toned muscles or sexual attractiveness does indeed conjure money. Black people were literally entrapped by this commoditization process as well as by slavery itself directly in the episode “The Story of Catcher Freeman.”
(this is where a clip would go but youtube really cracked down on Boondocks stuff)
The episode features a stereotypical Uncle Tom house slave named Catcher Freeman that intended to earn his freedom by creating the very first screenplay in hopes that his master would overlook Catcher’s forbidden literacy due to the script’s marketability and entertainment value. As Catcher planned, the master is pleased with the script and says, “If you are selling, I am buying, you are going to be a very rich man, son (winks)” finally taking ownership over his illegitimate child, and thusly shocking Catcher with the revelation. At the core of this exchange lies the commoditization of a major historical black success, the creation of the very first screenplay. Originally the script exists as sheets of paper functioning merely as a medium to transcribe words however it changed by being commoditized. Catcher originally fetishized those pages into a symbol of his potential freedom as well his potential death should the master decide to slay him for the crime of literacy. The script in the master’s eyes clearly assumed the “fantastic form” of money and fame which is indicated by his joy upon reading it as well as his superficial adopting of his son well over twenty years after his birth. Master committed a blatant act of commodity fetishism by placing more importance in the script’s money-making potential than in actual love for his son. Catcher is effectively reduced to a product while his script is upgraded to the human status of being the master’s son, indicating that black success in America has traditionally been a costly matter in which monetary success is paid by becoming even more vulnerable to the distortion of one’s own identity.
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