The Commodity of the Spectacle

In order to define spectacle in Guy Debord’s chapter two Commodity of the Spectacle, all you would have to do is look at the world around you. What was once a culture of work, trade, and barter has been decommissioned to a life of inanimate objects and lifestyles to define quality of life. In Debord’s intro, he describes the commodity as the universal category of society as a whole. The evolution he speaks of is the ideal that labor is no longer exchanged for goods, but the main premonition of men’s subconscious is rationalized by lack of will to work for what he needs rather than what he desires. The explanation of the spectacle is what we see in media; the constant reiteration of products and delusions of sustenance that don’t exist but somehow can be achieved. “The spectacle is defined by the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life. Not only is the relation to the commodity visible, but it is all one sees: the world one sees is its world” (Debord 41). The impact of the spectacle according to Debord is societal war; which aims to make people identify goods with satisfaction and survival.

The impact of the commodity on society as described by Debord, is essential for survival in a society that is driven by a hunger for things of value. The spectacle provides a visual of a state of being that can’t always be fulfilled. “This is the principle of commodity fetishism, the domination of society by tangible and intangible as well as tangible things; which reaches its absolute fulfillment in the spectacle, where the tangible is replaced by a selection of images which exist above it, and which simultaneously impose themselves as the tangible par excellence.” (Debord 36). As his essay goes on, the theme of commodity as described by Debord in this chapter specifically is the premise that the commodity which society examines in the spectacle as reality skews the unconscious mind and supersedes the basis of normal human needs. “ In a society where the concrete commodity is rare or unusual, money, apparently dominant, presents itself as an emissary armed with full powers who speaks in the name of an unknown force.” (Debord 41).

The commodity of the spectacle described by Debord is the “perfected denial of man” which has taken charge of the totality of human existences. (Debord 43). Corporations provide what we see, and the impact of society is to consume. “Corporations and even individuals within corporate media still exert greater power than any individual consumer or even the aggregate of consumers. And some consumers have greater abilities to participate in this emerging culture than others”. (Jenkins pg. 3) An example of this is with Apple products. Not only are they selling an IPod, but an IPhone and MacBook on the premise that life will be easier if you converge and have all three. With features like ICloud and ITunes, the consumer is convinced that by having all three life would be more adept and purposeful. The idea of the commodity of an Apple product is the technological influence to expand on more than one media platform. “Activities that use to be separate or cumbersome are now easier and folded into the media experience. These alter how we react with our media.” (Pavlik, McIntosh pg.9)