Understanding the sphere of Consumption (with particular reference to the commodity fetish)

(photo courtesy of contemporarycondition.blogspot.com)

The sphere of consumption is the most vibrant sphere of any economy. Consumption  is the sphere of expenditure or the marketplace where the several buyers interact with the vendors. The sphere of consumption represents the outcome of the production process. For the purposes of this small piece I am focusing on the outcome of the production process in capitalism. Capitalist production revolves around the few that control the means of production including the wages/paid labour time handed to the working class majority that produces surplus value/unpaid labour in the production of various commodities. Surplus value becomes the basis to measure levels of productivity/output within a particular space/ time and profit for the capitalist class. An increase in the rate of surplus value means that productivity levels are high because with the aid of raw materials and machinery the working class can produce a particular commodity in a shorter time than was previously socially acceptable. The profit generated is on the basis that the capitalist claims some of the workers product when it is sold for a particular price in the sphere of consumption. Many factors can influence price such as monopoly over a particular product, increased competition, unheralded disasters that reduce output and events that allow for a season of plenty, high demand or low demand, high levels of supply or low levels of supply etc.  Price is also affected by where things are produced and so if it takes a longer time to be produced in a particular area and a longer time to get it to market than in a more fertile/productive area and a place closer to the market, then the price will be higher in the former. Price is important because it affects the sphere of consumption or how goods are consumed or how capital is realized. Consumption has a twofold function: elements can be consumed productively or they can be consumed in a perishable manner i.e. once it’s consumed it can no longer be reclaimed. When you consume productively you utilize elements, such as the elements of nature or raw materials to create new products. In the capitalist sphere there is the utilization of semi finished products or machinery in the production process. All of the elements are consumed to produce a particular commodity for even the machinery depreciates once it is in  use which means it is being used up.  Economies that are growing focus on consuming productively whereas poorer countries or those enjoying small to negative growth focus on perishable consumption without the  significant balancing element of the other side, consuming productively. 

              

  Consumption is a necessary element of our daily lives. A lot of us have dual functions in this sphere where we consume productively as workers in the production process, or in delivering on services that facilitate the production process, in some form or the other, and in perishable consumption where we engage, with our wages, with the various vendors in the marketplace. From the perishable side we consume  as a means of sustenance so that we can stay alive and secure our bodily functions or we can consume excessively in order to promote a certain lifestyle. Excess consumption beyond what you normally earn is known as debt. You buy things you do not necessarily need. Excess consumption generates the commodity fetish for when someone’s income begins to rise it no longer corresponds with the necessary daily needs. Those individuals move from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. Commodities assume a place in our minds as natural extensions of ourselves although the commodity itself is just an ordinary thing. We come to view commodities in the sphere of consumption as a reflection of our social relations. For instance if a man can  afford to buy ten quality cars  as opposed to the man that can buy one it is clear that the former must have some more social standing in the capitalist system as opposed to the latter. Women will, generally, tend to prefer the man with 10 cars because of the security provided by his livelihood whereas the man with one car may have just enough to get by and he will find a good wife to settle down, peaceably, with especially as she too can buy a car for herself. They may settle down in a house and start a family and that will be the end of his story as his money becomes tied up in that particular family. He will, however, be unable to manage several women if he chooses to play the field or to date the high income celebrity type female, career type and business woman type that have a high standard of living. Some women will tell you that as long as he loves  and treats her well she has no care for the material because love is all she needs. She starts to sing a different tune when the man cannot even provide for himself. The reality eventually sobers her up.

  The commodity fetish is a term developed by Karl Marx. According to him the commodity fetish

‘ is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things [which are the products of labour]. 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. So it is in the world of commodities with the product of men’s hands. I call this the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour as soon as they are produced as commodities, and is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.’ (Marx capital vol. 1, 165)

The capitalists produce commodities and for them to continue to be capitalists, that accumulate this high level of savings in the form of profit for the purpose of reinvestment or for expenditure, there must be consumers. Every commodity must have a use value or be perceived to have a use value. If not it cannot be exchanged in the market for money. This is how capital realizes itself. The capitalists bombard you with advertizing and propaganda materials so that you will buy their product. They hijack the media to promote their product. The developed capitalist firms almost try to make it seem as if they are an intrinsic part of your very being. This is where the celebrities or the petty bourgeois lap dogs are so important. We identify with them on the basis that they inspire us on a social level and so the capitalists utilize these figures to convince you to buy a particular product. As the perishable consumer you convince yourself to buy it on the basis that this celebrity endorses the product particularly as this celebrity is one of your favourites. On this basis the commodity assumes some measure of mysticism in your mind although it has no intrinsic use value for your being. The endorsement deals for these celebrities are enormous in some cases. It eventually becomes an even harder sell to those without the means to buy the product and so they focus on the commodity as a socially acceptable product.

When a product becomes socially acceptable individuals feel they must acquire it at any cost because this would mean that you are conforming to the demands of society. If you do not acquire this particular product you are seen as a social outcast in some spheres. You are convinced to conform because the model phone you had, for instance, is said to be no good or outdated and that the new model enhances your experience 10 fold in comparison. In your mind you believe that you should give up on this model and move on even if this new commodity is twice the cost. The amount of commodities that the petty bourgeois and billionaire class acquire (the house, the cars, the fancy clothing, fancy gadgets which are all high quality) becomes inspiration to the average working class man or average peasant to climb the ranks in society because in his or her mind the more quality products you can consume is a sign that you will become a major player in society. This, therefore, has many political implications. In the average mind the petty bourgeois and billionaire class that consume all these commodities must have done something to acquire them and it must mean that they were very successful in a particular sphere. This success would have made them a celebrity or put them in a position  to have command over a portion of the working class in the production process which produces all these commodities for sale in the market. It boils down to wealth being generated in the production process for whatever you produce will determine how much commodities you can consume. Even famous athletes and artistes, who are the embodiment of excess consumption because of their petty bourgeois status, have to perform some significant feat in the social sphere that will attract sufficient attention. If a particular athlete or artiste has a significant impact in the social sphere it is due to their high level of skill and dominance in the field. This would obviously make them significant individuals in that sphere and so the capitalists will be eager to latch on so that these individuals can convince members in the market place to buy a particular product. The higher the skill in these fields the more you can command in terms of earnings.

I cannot get into a discussion on the qualitative aspect of goods vs. mere quantity. I will say that when something is produced in abundance it is good for the consumptive sphere because it encourages the more rapid realization of capital. When the goods are too pricey it means only a few can afford them and these few are the ones that command some high level of income although in the long run capital would like to drive down the costs of production in order to reach almost every consumer in the market.

               

  The political implications of the commodity fetish has several negatives. It produces a particular type of so called criminal class that seek to acquire goods by theft. It is acknowledged by these individuals that these commodities can be exchanged for money or be utilized for a particular purpose. People start to engage in services or activities that are considered illegal. The prostitutes market themselves as sex providers (they are commoditized as a result) there is the production of contraband for sale etc. No matter how illegal once there are people willing to consume  there will be people willing to produce.  There are other negative instances.When you step on a man’s shoes, for instance, and soil it or cause great damage he will be very upset and in some cases will want to return the favour by causing you great bodily harm. In Jamaica there was a case where a man killed a boy in a taxi because the taxi driver bumped his BMW x6. It goes like this: After the taxi driver bumped him ( i mean the car) the savage took out his firearm and fired several shots at the taxi killing the schoolboy who was a mere passenger. A savage event like this could have only occurred because of the commodity fetish where the man saw the vehicle as an extension of himself although it is just a car. A quality car, well made, but still a car.

               

  One notable feature of the consumption sphere under capital is it’s reflection of the increased valorization of capital. Capitalism is the most productive mode of economic production in history. No other system has been able to produce at such a high level. There are some poor developing capitalist countries, today, that are probably as rich as the Roman Empire. Well maybe not as rich as the whole empire but Rome would not have been able to subdue even Jamaica with its military might. The wealth of a nation is the amount of commodities produced in its borders. Rome would have to bow down to the US who could have scooped it up  as its fiefdom no matter how grand its place in history. This is the extent that capitalism has produced where even mighty empires of the past look poor and destitute. For capitalism to produce at such high levels there must be consumers in the market to match this. You can see the development of the consumption sphere alongside capitalist production in the significant  amount of obese people in the West; you see it in the sewage waste  after people offload on the toilets; you see it in garbage disposal and the rise of the great dumps. These great dumps could only have taken place under the system of capitalism. You also see it with the proliferation of motor vehicles on the roads, the amount of technological gadgets, the amount of people addicted to drugs (legal and illegal), the craze that comes with holidays such as christmas and thanksgiving in America, the great supermarkets, shopping malls and retail and wholesale chains (the great distributors) where a lot of people do their shopping. All these elements are testament not only to the increased rate of base, perishable consumption but the extent of production.  Like I said before one function of consumption is productive consumption. So when you see some of these people walking around with their technological gadgets they could actually be using them to improve their productive output. We saw this with the rise of Blackberry however when these smartphones enter into the base consumption sphere a lot of people walking around with Blackberries, iphones and Samsung phones are using it to send casual messages/make calls to friends on their various social networks or they are browsing the internet in search of gossip or they are playing games.  It does not increase output from a productive sense but increases the rate of perishable consumption. Capitalism has therefore created a group of individuals that know how to consume at a high level which does not affect output. These people become spoiled with their riches and they become dissolute characters. In the old days excess consumption would only be limited to royalty, nobility or the  chiefs that appropriated most of the surplus product however under capital most people are able to engage in excess consumption. It is no longer a privilege and the so called criminals will tell you. The members of the brutalized section of the working class must consume simply to stay alive; it is a matter of survival and it only becomes distorted when you go up the social ladder to people that are earning way beyond what is necessary to keep them alive.

There is also the wonder of debt that induces the false consciousness associated with the commodity fetish.  Credit/debt is one of the great levers in the sphere of consumption and allows individuals or corporations to consume things they would not be able to pay for on an immediate basis. When credit is used for productive consumption in capitalism then it allows for the various industries to continue production unhindered by delays that would naturally occur if immediate payment was necessary. The Lords of capital, the bankers and the great investors have access to this form of credit. The various stock exchanges in the West and in Japan are a testament to this issuance of credit which helps to fuel production. On an individual level the issuance of credit is now encouraged. In the past the working class had to save in order to be guaranteed  any form of expenditure whereas now they can get loans in order to fuel their consumption habits. Loans are offered to students, to people who wish to pay for cars and houses, and for the purpose of advances on any form of expenditure. The important thing is that you have to be a producer and so you should be working or be engaged in some activity that generates an income for you to be considered. In another instance you can mortgage your house, which is a significant asset, in order to fuel consumption.  There is nothing wrong unless you can pay it back. The interest is merely profit for the money lender. The negative aspect is when you cannot afford to pay it back and it becomes evident that you were walking on water. This leads to a great collapse for both individuals and companies because their level of production was not in line with what they were borrowing. The fall of  Eike Batista from Brazil is one glaring example where his fortune plummeted to US$200 million  from a high of US$35 billion. In the 2008/9 recession people were forced to foreclose on their houses or abandon them outright as they were scooped up by the Banks that began the mess in the first place. What drove the individuals in 2008 was the allure created by the banks who promised them easy money/mortgages in order to pay for their houses. This fuelled the commodity fetish and real estate prices soared while, in reality, incomes remained at the same level. Eike Batisita is not alone for throughout history the most spectacular falls from grace were due to excessive consumption and not enough income. Individuals become so mired in debt that they have to file for bankruptcy as they watch their fortunes plummet. In the old days bad debt could land you in jail. Eike batisita is not alone for we see this among the aristocratic classes that used to live like hogs on debt yet their estates did not produce sufficiently to cover the principal and interest.  The West India interest in England, during the growth of the African slave trade and the development of Caribbean slave societies, lived lavishly on debt on the basis of the income from their estates in the British Caribbean. There are a lot of examples of such excessive consumption that leads to the downfall of men and nations ( the reparations to be paid by Weimar Germany following World War 1).

Lastly, in this brief discussion, there must be some mention of the role of money in the sphere of consumption. Money has two primary functions under capital. Firstly it is a means of exchange, being the universal equivalent of every commodity produced, nationally and internationally. Every commodity must be exchanged for money unless you can develop a modern system of barter where there are relative values that can be exchanged according to their relation with each other. 2 lbs sugar=3 lbs of rice etc. This should only happen in poorer countries without a developed capitalist base. Secondly, money is utilized as capital. Because money is the universal form of exchange it represents the starting point for the capitalist process of production. In order to enter business you need money capital to invest in commodities as raw materials, machinery and infrastructure, and lastly wages for the workforce. I am not interested where the money comes from at this point because that is for another discussion. It can be acquired illegally, it can be acquired by loans from the banks or other forms of money lending, it can be acquired by saving what you have earned from existing profits or wages. I am sure there are other ways which I will not touch on here. When you invest the money in raw materials, machinery etc you expect to emerge from the other side with a profit after your goods are sold in the market. The workers hand you surplus value/unpaid labour time and so you immediately have claims to the amount of commodities produced. This surplus value becomes the basis for your profit. Anyways your money is returned to you in the form of the investment you put in as well as the profit or extra dollars. It is on the basis of surplus value handed to you by the workers because, as a capitalist, you do not engage in the actual production process you merely set it in motion.

This massive surplus accumulated by the production sphere finds itself in the money form stored away at the banks, on the stock exchange, government debt, taxes  etc in order to increase production. Your capital must be realized in the sphere of consumption so that it will turnover and so the distributors in the form of the wholesale and retail trade confront the buyers with goods that are exchanged for money. Money becomes important in the consumptive sphere because it is the universal equivalent and people eventually realize that  money can be exchanged for anything as long as it is commoditized. It is the drive to attain money that fuels the consumptive sphere as much as it fuels production. The sphere of base consumption and productive consumption seek to acquire money at any costs when capital realizes itself continuously. This is also apparent when the commodity fetish sinks in where you feel you must buy all these products even the ones that are not necessary. Capital in its quest for profit  tends to overproduce to the point where goods remain unsold and some capitalist firms are unable to realize their capital in the form of sale and purchase. This is why  some supermarkets  give you an offer where you buy three and get one free. This is a clear sign that a particular capitalist firm has over produced and the sphere of consumption cannot realize its value through a purchase. This results in a devaluation of capital hence why you get one free if you buy three. It is a sign that things are slowing down or have  stagnated. Money becomes a burden when the demand for a product is so high that the price increases dramatically because the supply is inadequate or because the conditions of production are not favourable for the equilibrium for sale and purchase which constitutes the realization of capital. The price becomes too high so that people are unable to spend and a devaluation sets in. Everyday you hear them quote the price of oil on the mercantile exchange and that should give you a clue. It is a good thing for capital when the price is high and it seems so bad when the price drops. This is the sphere of consumption at work although there are other issues that have to be factored in such as the cartels that deliberately increase the price in order to be assured of a certain profit. The oil price is significant because of the costs of production in the consumptive sphere. If the cost to produce is high then the price must be correspondingly high although in a pure form of capital the price of oil should go down as productive processes improve hence why you have shale  etc. The high price of raw materials becomes a burden on the two classes of consumers (Inflation) and this is not conditioned primarily by supply and demand but the conditions under which goods are produced. If a price gets too high it is a sign that some aspect of capital is exhausting itself and a new mode of production is inevitable or there will be a collapse of the old system. This is why Japan, the US and the EU have brought China before  the WTO so that they can trade more of their raw materials that are used in the creation of smartphones, tablets etc.

This ends my brief discussion on the sphere of consumption. I welcome any comment and criticisms. WALL-E is a good film on this subject

12 Years a Slave (2013) 5/5: Great film about slavery and a very interesting thematic and dramatic work

 

If Django Unchained was pure entertainment with doses of savagery then 12 years a Slave represents the reality or day to day grind of life in a slave society. This is probably the best film, from a historical viewpoint, about slavery in the US. I can’t recall any films tackling this subject head on apart from Django Unchained which was fiction. It does lack certain embellishments that would give it an aura for those not prepared for the daily grind but in its own way it allows a light to shine through by letting things unfold without any forced intervention by the screenwriters. There are no grand dramatic moments here and no razzle dazzle but like they say hope lies within. My favourite element in this film was witnessing the historical materialist dialectic at work. 

The story is about a free black man, living in the northern section of the United States during the slave era, called Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Eliojor). He is a petty bourgeois that plays the violin and endears himself to white society. He is however tricked and sold into slavery in the 1840s by the same people he thought were his equals. The film reveals how he was engaged in a false consciousness for during a tortuous journey on two plantations he discovers the truth about the state that the people of his race lives in. The reality knocks him down. He was never the equal of any white man. He however emerges as a fervent abolitionist in the struggle against the brutalization that existed in an American slave society that was operated by white savages.

Positives

The main element of the film that grabbed me was the transformation of Solomon. We first see him as a petty bourgeois who gallantly plays the violin and entertains the whites at their entertainment functions. We then see him sold unwittingly into slavery. At first, when he wakes up in chains, we see a man who still has faith in the system because he had a lot of white friends and he believed that he had some measure of social standing. The truth becomes revealed to him gradually. Even when he ends up on a plantation he still exhibits naivete because his first ‘master’ Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) is seemingly benevolent.  Solomon believes that this man will help because he perceives that Solomon is not a normal slave. When he is on Ford’s plantation he encounters a female (can’t recall her name) who is always crying because she and her children were sold separately. When he gets fed up and asks her why she keeps crying she tells him to let her cry and that he must be really naïve to believe that his master will help. This becomes apparent when he has a fight with the overseer and then is later strung up in a botched reprisal by the overseer and his friends who were attempting to lynch him. That telling scene, where he is left stranded for the rest of the day with his feet barely touching the ground, is one of the many that will slowly make Solomon come to the realization of his true status in life as a black man in the United States. As a petty bourgeois in the North, as he romped gaily with his white brethren , he never came to grips even in one telling scene where a slave  follows Solomon and his family into a store but is immediately recalled by his master.  The slave thought that he could follow this freed black man into the store. This flashback occurs midway during the film as Solomon reminisces and it is more effective because he must have been wondering how it never occurred to him that his people were being brutalized while he enjoyed a life reinforced by a sense of false consciousness. He had an idyllic home, a loving wife and two (three according to the book) children and mirrored the mannerisms of his nominal white masters. This would explain why he felt that he could, initially, have much faith in them.

                When he leaves Ford he is sold to a brutal plantation owner, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). His experience on this cotton plantation also drove home the point further about the extent that slavery has  dismembered the black race in America. It reaches such a low point that Northup gives up on his former life and we even see scenes where he engages in the  so called ‘negro spiritual’. He has been won over by the brutality of a system enacted by white savages.  He is even forced to whip Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o), his fellow slave and love like interest, by the savage Epps. We know that when he is eventually freed he will not be the same. He will never look on life, as he lived it, in the same light. While it is sad that a man had to endure 12 years of slavery it was a necessary evil for the truth to be revealed to him. A truth he would take with him to his dying days. We all know that when the truth is revealed you become exposed and you see things in a way that no longer impresses or moves you or beats you down unknowingly. Your level of consciousness reaches a stage where you become truly alive. It must be a good feeling when you can no longer be fooled or be lured to engage in illusory escapades that only produce a false consciousness. Those who live in a world dominated by a false consciousness are the true sources of the pain we experience in society. With the truth you can sink into despair or rise up to face the challenge in order to effect real change. This dialectic movement from a free black man in the North enamored with a petty bourgeois lifestyle who is then  enslaved and  again is freed but with a totally new perspective on life is a stunning achievement for this film. One could say this is a cliché: ‘ I was blind but now I see’ however it is all in the telling or the process. The road to the truth is not a yellow brick road it is littered with thorns and potholes.

           

     A lot has been made of Fassbender’s performance as the savage Edwin Epps and I agree that it is good for one reason: the duel with his wife over his relationship with Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o). I say this because when he acts like the typical white savage who beats blacks and sees them as animals etc that is nothing new and that element of his performance never impressed me. What impressed me were the moments of pretense towards some measure of civility assumed in the presence of his wife. His wife demonstrates why women are the most reactionary element of any system particularly in a patriarchal system. They embody its values like no other. The wife is supposed to act as a civilizing force for Edwin that engages with Patsey sexually. His sexual engagements with Patsey is a sign of his downfall, according to his wife, and this would explain why she openly attacks Patsey in Edwin’s presence, when the opportunity presents itself, in order to make clear her disgust. Edwin’s love for Patsey is obviously a contradictory element that most white savages never came to grips with during slavery. They treated the slaves like livestock but had to engage with them on a human level. The scene where Patsey pleads with the savage Epps to spare her punishment because she  briefly left the plantation for a bar of soap is a telling one. He has her brutally whipped nonetheless but it reveals that a lot of slave owners had to come to grips with how they treated slaves for initially he did not want to do the whipping and told Solomon to do it. This would explain the directions some would take. Some would be benevolent like Ford or engage in savagery like Epps. When you acted like a savage you could see them as animals or mere beasts of burden and when you became benevolent their humanity would shine through. We see that in his relationship with Patsey Epps is forced to come to grips with the two and his only response is rage whenever he encounters this contradiction. This is another great element of Fassbender’s performance.

              

  Oh beautiful black woman what struggles have beset you in the West for in their eyes you are not beautiful and so you paid the price. Lupita’s performance as Patsey will surely land her a nomination at the Oscars. Well not surely but quality is quality regardless of awards. She typifies the struggle of black women since they arrived in the West from West Africa. One feature of her great performance is the scene where she is raped by the savage Epps. Look at those lifeless eyes. If I was having sex with a woman and saw those eyes I would shrivel up in an instant. Patsey has a relationship with Solomon  and we only see its effects when he is freed from the Epps plantation. When they hugged I was moved  and I  never saw it coming. This was due to the struggle Patsey faced and still faced as Solomon returned to the North. When she asks Solomon to kill her it makes sense for who would want to live in such a savage  system. The apologists and caretakers would say that there is always a way out and that you are defeatist when you say such things. The apologists never had to endure such brutalization hence why they can make good rhetoric. One can imagine the brutalization she would have continued to  endure under the savage Epps. Her struggle is not just one of sexual domination but the surplus product in the cotton fields. She picks the most cotton and we know this when they do  tallies for the work done during the days. If you did not pick a sufficient amount you would be whipped. This highlights that although slaves were treated like chattel they did provide surplus value for the savage white plantation owners.  The slaves were denied basic necessities at times and so when Patsey went to get a meager  bar of soap off the plantation and was still whipped brutally for it, although she picks the most cotton, you begin to understand why even after slavery was abolished blacks were considered the wretched of the earth. Blacks were still the poorest of the poor immediately after slavery. Their wretched poverty began under this savage system and it has influenced how blacks are treated in the work places because initially work done by blacks was usually of the more menial kind and never in the top positions. Black people are hired in some cases to drive down the wage bill and in some cases blacks are not paid equally as whites. Look at the limited status enjoyed by blacks in corporate America. I hardly see any top black executives in the news. Black people normally have to act outrageous in order to get attention in white America.

              We see all the necessary elements related to slave society: an auction, we see the savage Epps hire out his slaves to a judge after his cotton crop is ruined for one season, we see how Christianity was used to justify slavery, we see general savagery on the part of the whites when they lynch blacks and it is good when you are able to see the historical justification for lynching that still occurred even after the end of slavery in the South.  The scene with an aspiring white overseer and Solomon  is very informative because initially we see this man working in the field alongside slaves. Like he said it was temporary until he could assume a more authoritative position which is the only position of respect for white men in a slave society where a majority of the slaves are black.  
              

                Negatives

                The only issue I had with this film was that there were few embellishments which would have made the film palatable. When I say palatable I mean people would not be focused primarily on the horrors of slavery but slave society in general . After a botched revolt on the ship that transported Solomon to the ship we hardly get any meaningful interactions between the slaves in general. Yes there is Patsey but she is the emotive element. I am speaking about his interaction with the other slaves on the plantation where he toiled. How was he perceived by them and so on? We do get the perception of a female slave from another plantation who speaks about how she has the master on lock down etc however it is mostly silence and looks which enhance the dramatic effect in a subtle manner. I am sure there was more dynamism from the slaves on the plantation apart from the ‘negro spiritual’. I am pretty sure Solomon interacted with them or had some insights about the system itself. Apart from his pain we do not get much out of him in terms of his own thinking particularly when he is on the plantations. Steve Mcqueen (the director) focuses primarily on the expressive nature of the white males where we get several perceptions about life on the plantation. Fassbender’s performance will gain more traction than Chiwetel  Eliojor as Solomon as a result. He exists on the basis of his interactions with these whites. When they bury a slave who expired in the cotton fields in service to the white savages, the only comment between Solomon and the slaves is where one male wishes to say something about the man who committed his whole life as a beast of burden to the savage Epps. Like I said this activity among male slaves is there but not on the plantations only when they are on the boat. They focus primarily on the females that give the story some dramatic heft. I wanted to know more about the other slaves on the two plantations the females and males on the periphery. We would then get a story that is not only dramatic but diffused. The dramatic elements would still be there between Solomon and Patsey but at least we would understand the other characters that lived there as well. Well I suppose if you include those elements you get an epic and not a purely dramatic piece of work.  The production team seem to narrow in on whatever heinous treatment is offered but not society on the plantation in general. It seems image based in a way. I would have liked to know more about Solomon in the North and what he thought of the life he was living particularly as he would have been writing from a different perspective. We can guess of course but the movie is based on his words.  I am sure he went through a transition similar to Malcolm X. At the end, for instance, they say he took the men who sentenced him to bondage to court. I cannot recall in the film a scene where he came to the realization that they were the captors because, initially, he believed that they would rescue him because he thought there was a mistake. He never once openly acknowledged their treachery until later. I would not see anything wrong with the narrative route with the help of a voiceover. We would then be able to understand slave society better, particularly as he saw it. 

Those were the embellishments I am talking about. When something is very dramatic you hear that it is tough to sit through etc but even when it is tough to sit through slave society itself would become more evident and you understand that this is the world they lived in for quite a while. In the Caribbean slave society lasted much longer than in the US and some slaves took it as a matter of fact. Their whole psyche was conditioned by the system. If Mcqueen and co. were able to highlight this then this is what I mean by embellishment. This is why the  character is important. Patsey was one slave were there other characters that would inform of us of some line of descent?  Gone with the Wind gave us the abominable Prissy whose type exists even today and the Mammie type and the Big Sam type.  This film, because it had the historical material to work with, could have gone even further by highlighting the various characters. It would then become more informative as a piece of history than a tool for purely dramatic emphasis.  I do get that before they come to the plantation where you see the type that just wants to survive but I am sure there are other types. What about the runaways, the potential rebels etc. All of that is missing. The only time we see runaways is when they are being lynched. Their  absence is even more striking and says something about the slaves on that plantation. Like I said there are the females that act as emotive vehicles for the film but what was happening on the ground apart from Solomon’s interaction with the various white men on the plantations. Well if Solomon himself does not mention this dynamism in his memoirs then I cannot complain but it would have made the film more fulsome while sticking to its dramatic core.

Still a great film and I am sure it will receive several nominations at the Academy awards including Best film. It must be a main contender.