By Stephanie Mo
In a world where capitalism and consumerism reign, literature based on speculative fiction often incorporates the influence of these factors on human identity and behavior. These works critique the nature of consumer capitalism, which is commonly defined as “acquiring a lot and barely enjoying it… letting an endless series of e-commerce purchases hit the front door” (Blackbird Spyplane). Real Women Have Bodies by Carmen Maria Machado and Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah are examples of literary works that explore the grim reality of consumerist culture, albeit in different ways: Machado depicts the “fading women” to show how people lose themselves in the cycle of consumerism, allowing themselves to be replaced by commodities, while Adjei-Brenyah exaggerates the animalistic nature of Black Friday consumerism to show how the culture centers around capitalist greed and dehumanizes people in the process. Together, they highlight the pervasive dangers of consumer capitalism and its capacity to distort humanity.
In Real Women Have Bodies, women are mysteriously fading away, eventually losing their entire physical form. The fading women in this story represent how personal identities become consumed through endless wanting and buying. However, the nature of these fading women still remains a mystery, as “no one knows what causes it…At first everyone blamed the fashion industry, then the millennials, and, finally, the water…[but] it doesn’t do the fashion industry good to have women fading away. You can’t put clothes on air. Not that they haven’t tried” (Machado 128). The phrase “not that they haven’t tried” is a critique of the fashion industry, explaining how it’s willing to do anything to gain profit. Even though people are literally fading and disappearing right before their eyes, the industry is still desperate to chase capitalist pursuits. The need for profits is so powerful and overwhelming that the industry will go to extreme lengths to fuel capitalism, even to the point of impossibility. However, consumers are used as objects in this process, and they begin to lose themselves as a result. The mysterious circumstances surrounding the fading women illustrate how consumerism leads to a loss of personal identity, as people are, in the literal sense, losing their physical form to consumerist culture—consumerism is a highly destructive force that devours people until there’s nothing left of them.
The fading women are described as beings that aren’t fully alive, but also aren’t fully dead; they’re no longer completely human, but they haven’t yet reached the point of complete nothingness. Instead, they’re almost transparent beings with lifeless-like expressions and movements. One of these fading women is described “with a hard and sorrowful face…she moves toward the garment slung over the dress form—butter yellow, the skirt gathered in small places like a theater curtain. She presses herself into it, and there is no resistance, only a sense of an ice cube melting in the summer air” (Machado 134). The description of her “hard and sorrowful” expression with “no resistance” to the garment shows that she’s lost all hope. Knowing that she cannot do anything about her fading existence, the only thing she can do is accept her fate and give into her transparency. These women fading into clothing mirrors how consumers and commodities become synonymous as a result of consumerism—personal identity is erased and consumers become absorbed by consumer capitalism. Just like how this woman blends into the garment, individuals become blurred together and they lose their unique identities in the homogenizing force of consumerism.
Friday Black depicts a dystopian consumer frenzy during a Black Friday sale. In this narrative, shoppers are described as animalistic and murderous, where their aggressive behavior leads to violent extremes, highlighting the nature of consumer excess. Describing the store’s environment, the narrator asks “Have you ever seen people run from a fire or gunshots? It’s like that, with less fear and more hunger” (Adjei-Brenyah 106). The shoppers are compared to victims of dangerous and life-threatening situations, where in usual circumstances, these reactions would be driven by fear and the instinct for self-preservation. However, the driving force is hunger rather than fear, indicating that the shoppers’ insatiable cravings are for consumption, not survival. Their deep cravings for consumption and buying showcase the intensity of consumerist behavior, with their animalistic drive to gain more goods. There’s a heavy emphasis on the intensity of consumerist behavior, where it leads to irrational behavior driven by capitalist greed, and it transforms basic human survival instincts into consumer “hunger”.
During the Black Friday sale, the scene mirrors that of a battleground rather than a shopping mall—dead bodies are everywhere, and ravenous shoppers are violently fighting to get the new PoleFace items. New dead bodies are constantly being added to the already existing piles of bodies, and shoppers are attempting to kill the salespeople to get what they want. The shoppers are “clawing and screaming” and getting “pinned against the wall,” while a salesperson “is rolling a teen toward the body pile” (Adjei-Brenyah 113). This scene of chaos demonstrates dystopian imagery where mass death is normalized due to the dehumanization fostered by consumerist greed. This normalization reflects the depth of consumerism’s control over society, where extreme behaviors become part of the norm, which are to be expected during these types of sales events. The consumers’ need and desire for goods overtakes them, resulting in their animalistic behavior. The war-like environment suggests that casualties are to be expected, and this terminology further emphasizes the reality of the grotesque effect of consumer culture on human behavior and morality. The culture can alter basic human responses, degrading and dehumanizing individuals.
While both works critique consumer capitalism’s dehumanizing effects, they do so through different approaches. Machado focuses on the gradual erasure of individuality, emphasizing the often unnoticed consequences of consumerism and warning of the creeping loss of self. In contrast, Adjei-Brenyah dramatizes the immediate, violent effects of consumer greed on humanity, exposing the destructive potential of unchecked consumerism. Overall, both authors critique the damaging effects of consumer capitalism, providing a bold warning against the growth of consumerist tendencies. The narratives resonate deeply in a contemporary context where consumer culture increasingly dominates societal values. Their message is clear: consumer culture has the power to distort reality and human values. It leads to a materialistic mindset, where personal worth is measured through the possession of material goods instead of through intrinsic values and rewards. Their works are a reflection of a society where capitalism is all-consuming, and if we’re not careful, it can soon become our reality.
WORKS CITED
Adjei-Brenyah, Nana Kwame. Friday Black, HarperCollins, New York, New York, 2018, pp. 104–114.
“Do We Really Need More Clothes in the World?” Blackbird Spyplane, Blackbird Spyplane, 19 Dec. 2023, www.blackbirdspyplane.com/p/do-we-need-more-clothes-in-the-world-yes-we-do.
Machado, Carmen Maria. “Real Women Have Bodies.” Her Body & Other Parties, Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2017, pp. 125–148.
