In the movie Barbie Nation, we can see some examples of how Karl Marx explains the fetishism of commodities. We see how workers value the product “Barbie”, even more than their own lives. At the same time, capitalists who are rulers or owners, value this product over the workers who produce the object. Capitalists by the power of the money they control societies. Actually, they control the majority of people. Karl Marx argues that, through the production process, products become powerful objects, more valuable than workers who labor in the production process. The economy dominates people’s thoughts and ideas making them believe in the magic of the produced products. In other words, people think that objects are more powerful and valuable in their own right and this leads to the fetishism of commodities, which is influenced by the production of goods. Barbie is one of the objects that have a magical power over many classes in society regardless of gender, sex, or class.
Materialism refers to a scenario where institutions, our ideas, and thoughts are controlled by the economy (goods). People become slaves to a certain object be it inanimate or a natural object. People often buy things like Barbie to make them feel good even if they do not have enough money because they are stressed. Usually, they are stressed economically; ironically, they spend money to feel better. In fact, the same people who buy these objects are working on these objects or participating somehow in producing them. Barbie is valuable for the profit it makes, and the true value behind Barbie is the workers who produce it. In other words, even though economic ruling makes people believe that Barbie has any natural value; the natural value lies in the efforts that workers put in the production of Barbie coupled with the money used in the process of producing this object. In the end, an object like “Barbie” becomes a natural value by itself, people are ready to pay for it, and this is a misconception caused by economic stresses which fit well in the theory of materialism.
When people are stressed, they try to escape their stresses by searching for an ideal object. For example, Barbie is a good and perfect ideal object for many people of different genders and ages. We have seen kids grow up with this toy and still keep it and it’s part of their own and personal memory. Many people even after they grow up, still keep it and treat it like a human being. Probably it reflects the freedom they want in their lives; freedom from economic oppression. This is how those people become fetishists by this commodity and other commodities in general. Fetishism shows the irony of what has been shown as rational characteristics of industrialized society. In addition, with time, these objects become powerful through forces of production, and without knowing people are ensnared by the obsession of the object. For instance, in the movie “Barbie Nation”, a woman tells how she always wanted to give long legs just like the Barbie and this is an obsession.
The true value behind any inanimate or natural object is the workers or human labor that produces the object. They give their whole life to the production process of this object even if they are sick. Even though they work for their families, but this object somehow consumes their life and they become connected to it. For instance, in the article “Sweatshop Barbie”, Sunanta a woman working at the Dynamics Plant suffers from irregular and heavy breathing but she has to work to keep maintain her high self-esteem. She cannot risk quitting or being fired because to her, the job comes first. The people who own the business control the people’s lives and choices. With the power of money, they want to make huge profits at the expense of workers’ well-being. They look at human labor as tools for producing natural, powerful, and valuable objects. The surplus labor, which is the source of exceedingly high profits, is the actual labor that the workers give after exceeding the recommended labor time.
In the real-life, the object owns the worker. In the movie, Barbie is only an object but workers become slaves to it; actually, two dolls are bought every two seconds across the world. Alienation from the product creates objects we don’t own and objects take a material form and enter the market where they are bought and sold. To some extent, the object owns the workers for they think that this inanimate or natural object has freedom and power and they want to become like the object; free and powerful. Unknowingly, they are prisoners of this object and live in poverty disguised as the process of making a living.
It is all about the economy in our daily life. The economy takes control over our lives, ideas, and even thoughts; a true depiction of the theory of materialism. Our reactions in our daily life are according to our economy. Rulers and owners are aware of this truth, so they come up with ideas to convince people because people want to escape their reality. We want to own things that we don’t have or maybe things that we are aware they own us. For instance, we buy things not because we want them but because of our position in society. By so doing, we think we attain a given status in the economy. People like Barbie because she is good, an icon, and an exit from reality, and in essence, she symbolizes status, value, and power. This is how Karl Marx explains why we buy things and become fetishists of commodities. Our position in this life leads us to buy things that improve our economic status and makes us feel better