Gabriel Rodrigues dos Santos | Photography and Commodity Culture | PHT020N204S

With reference to specific examples, and at least two course texts, analyse the
relationship between photography, commodity fetishism and advertising.

List of figures:
Figure 1. BBH Agency. Axe: Fireworks (2012). Found at adsoftheworld.com on
25/03/2014.
Figure 2. BBH Agency. Lynx (Axe): Snow angel car. Found at adsoftheworld.com on
25/03/2014.

This essay will cover some aspects of photography in its relation with
advertising and commodity fetishism. This is a very important topic especially for
photographers who wants to work with some kind of commercial photography,
because it brings up a lot of ethic-related questions. Another reason that makes this
discussion so important is that today we live in a society where people see
consumption as a way of life, more than any other time before. We can see this
ideology in this quote by Victor Lebow, an american economist, in the Journal of
Retailing in 1955:
Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of
life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual
satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social
acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very
meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. (1955)

But what is Commodity Fetishism? Commodity Fetishism is a concept

presented by Karl Marx in the first chapter of his book Capital: Critique of Political
Economy and it talks about the relationship of people with goods and services
(commodities). In his theory, Marx explains why people look at commodities as if they
were more that what they actually are, and how we perceive all the subjective aspects
that were associated with this particular commodity as if they were objective aspects.
Marx uses the word fetishism with a religious connotation, relating to the act of
adding supernatural meanings to physical objects, present in many religions.
In order, therefore, to find an analogy we must take flight into the misty realm of
religion. There the products of the human brain appear as autonomous figures endowed
with a life of their own, which enter into relations both with each other and with the
human race. (Karl Marx, 1867)

The role that photography and advertising play in this theory is very clear. It is
a well known fact that advertising has been strongly connected to photography and
vice-versa every since the advent of photography in large-scale reproduction.
Advertising has always made use of photography as the main medium of expression.
The reason for that is because of the ability that photography has to reproduce with a
great deal of fidelity the textures and tones of the tangible world. John Berger explains
this while making a relation to the tradition of oil painting in his book Ways of Seeing:
A technical development made it easy to translate the language of the oil painting into
publicity clichs. This was the invention, about fifteen years ago, of cheap colour
photography. Such photography can reproduce the colour and texture and tangibility of
objects as only oil painting had been able to do it before. Colour photography is to the
spectator-buyer what oil paint was to the spectator-owner. Both media use similar,
highly tactile means to play upon the spectators sense of acquiring the real thing which
the image shows. In both cases his feeling that he can almost touch what is in the image
reminds him how he might or possess the real thing. (1980)

If we relate this with Marxs theory, we can assume that advertising makes use
of the realism that photography can produce to add meanings to the commodities that
they advertise, and with this increase the product sales.
To illustrate Marxs concept of Commodity Fetishism, there are two examples
below, both deodorant advertisements:

Figure 1

Figure 2

In both examples we can see that what is being presented has very little (in
some cases even none) connection with the actual function of the product itself. What
is being shown is a lifestyle, a dream. Both pictures are trying to tell us that if we use
that particular deodorant we will become a more desirable and more attractive person
to other people. According to Berger The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator
marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life and that advertising suggests that
if he buys what it is offering, his life will become better. It offers an improved way of
life.
What happens with this is that publicity help to mask the means of production,
which is Marxs main critic in the commodity fetishism theory. And this distance
between the consumer and the producer creates a cycle of alienation in our society.
But the implications of this disconnection between commodities and its means
of productions goes beyond just alienation. If we think about commodities simply in
terms of money and market value, we ignore the fact that these products are made of
natural resources, and we live in planet with limited natural resources. And even now,
with all the efforts on raising awareness about the natural resources depletion, people
still ignore it.
Todays society can be seen as a victim of a culture of consumption which had
its first symptoms presented long ago. Products are no longer just what they are meant
to be, they are not a tool or object anymore, they became symbols of desirability,
status and lifestyle. And of course, all this concepts around products are created and
sold to people through advertising.
To conclude, it is vital to have in mind that although commercial photography
and its are one of the areas of most interest in photography, we have to remember
that just like in any other field, our daily activities can be connected to much bigger
issues. And everything we do can end up contributing to perpetuate big flaws in our
society.

Bibliography
Marx, Karl, and C. J. Arthur. Marx's Capital: A Student Edition. London: Electric Book, 2001.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 2008.
Lebow, Victor. The Real Meaning of Consumer Demand (1955)
(avaliable at http://ablemesh.co.uk/PDFs/journal-of-retailing1955.pdf)