Fetishizing Blackness: The Relationship Between Consumer Culture and Black Identity as Portrayed on BET
Open Access
Author:
Sims, Ashley
Graduate Program:
Media Studies
Degree:
Master of Arts
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
April 27, 2009
Committee Members:
Matthew Mc Allister, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor Matthew Paul Mcallister, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Keywords:
consumer culture Black identity commodity fetishism BET television
Abstract:
This study examines three Black Entertainment Television (BET) shows – The Black Carpet, The Boot and Baldwin Hills – assessing their popularly mediated economic and consumptive representations of Black America in the context of socioeconomic realities being lived in Black America. Using a critical textual analysis of these programs the thesis explores the extent to which consumers are being sold a mediated version of the American dream and Black identity through commodity fetishism, and argues that this symbolic construction has a hegemonic function by deterring the Black consumer’s attention from real to imaginary economic lifestyles. This study finds that, although the three programs differ on their levels of ideological intensity and specific characteristics, on BET as a whole blackness is a fetishized commodity, conflating cultural and consumer identities, while at the same time concealing the significant inequalities that many members of their audience may be experiencing.