bobbityhobbity-blog:

“Wow, you sure have a thing for your wand,” said Draco, a strand of crunchy, gelled hair slipping down over his pinched, smug face. “Guess you have a real commodity fetishism thing going on there.”



Hermione just stared back at him, trying to figure out if this was an awkward sexual come-on or just him being Flat Wrong. “Do you…” she said, hesitatingly, “Do you even know what commodity fetishism is?”



“Of course, I do. I’ve read Das Kapital.” This was a lie. Draco had once overhead two Muggle grad students talking about Das Kapital. “It’s when you, like, really love commodities, and…”



“Yeah no,” said Hermione, interrupting him midstream. “Commodity fetishism describes one of the forms of alienation that capitalism produces, wherein, in the eyes of the public, products become detached from the circumstances of their production. Commodity fetishism is saying that food comes from the supermarket.”



“What’s a super…”



“Ok, it’s like saying Eye of Newt comes from Diagon Alley, when in truth, newt’s eyes are harvested by hand by workers but then taken away and sold at a store (at a higher price than many of those workers can afford). Fetishism suppresses that production history so that you don’t have to think about the workers.”



“Wait, but what does that have to do with sex?” Draco said this softly, almost as if he hadn’t intended to say it at all.



“Sex?” Hermione overpronounced the word and watched his face turn pink. “It has nothing to do with sex.”



“But…”



“The word ‘fetish’ refers to the attribution of mystical qualities to an inanimate object, such that the object acquires symbolic meaning that is totally separate from its original intended use. ‘Fetish’ often refers to items that are given religious meaning, but Freud also used the term to describe the direction of sexual desire toward inanimate objects and non-genital body parts.”



Draco looked blank.

“Part of the reason why what you said is so wrong is because wands are hand made by Ollivander himself and, incidentally, are not commodities. And based on J.K. Rowling’s work, as far as we know, wands are not subject to any kind of market. Each wand is magically paired to a wizard and is never really subject to re-sale. Rowling doesn’t tell us how they are priced, but we have to assume that the price of each wand is the same or that cost is not a factor in how a wizard chooses their wand. Wands belong to a traditional, pre-capitalist (not to mention magical) mode of production, and they are not subject to market forces like supply and demand.”



“Who is ‘Rowling.’”



“Rowling is the creator of the universe in which this fanfiction is written.”



“Fa…fan…”



“Fan-fiction is an interesting case because it is, essentially, the creation of non-marketable works on the back of a commodified story (although sometimes these works do get sold and become commodities themselves). Whether or not fetishism applies in this case is kind of tough to answer. Honestly, I’d have to go do some digging on JSTOR to see if someone has made this argument before, but Hogwarts doesn’t have a subscription to the database. Or internet access for that matter.”



Draco’s head started to hurt, as if it Hagrid had just split it open with the blunt side of an axe. He turned to Goyle and just kind of waved toward the Slytherin common room. Hermione watched them go, counting the days til she could get back to London and run to the University library to look up Marxist analyses of fan culture. But then again, she really needed to get back to studying for her Potions exam.