A criticism of such a relationship, however, is
that the culture industry does not accurately reflect
true human needs; instead, it creates false needs—to
own certain goods in order to belong as a function-
ing member of society—as opposed to fulfilling
“true” human needs such as liberty, creativity, and
community. In other words, the culture industry
creates a commodity that it sells to society as a
“need” (often through the effects of advertising);
society purchases the commodity, which minimizes
identity and creates new, similar needs for newer,
similar goods. Along the way, the human aspect of
society’s consumption is weakened, and culture itself
becomes commodified, creating a “culture industry.”
The need and the way of belonging and having
identity in a culture industry is through ownership
and image. Anything, it seems, can be commodified:
art, music, footwear, ideas, “beauty,” human relation-
ships, even dreams and ideas. The use value of the
good becomes obscured, and the culturally manufac-
tured exchange value is what compels the consumer
to buy a Degas painting, an original pressing of The
Beatles’ White Album, copyright a new idea or way
of doing something, sell cosmetic surgeries and “fad
diets,” participate in human trafficking, and even
corrupt (or change) the American dream.
Literature has long been society’s way of tak-
ing a close look at itself, and many literary works
have taken a long, hard look at commodification
and its related process, commercialization. Per-
haps the most significant work to examine how
something immaterial and human can be changed
into a commodity—something to be purchased, or
something that has an exchange value greater than
its use value—is death oF a saLesMan by Arthur
Miller. In Death of a Salesman, the Loman family
is struggling to find its identity and place in mid-
20th-century America. This struggle, however, is
compounded by modern society’s generally uncar-
ing attitude, best exemplified by Willy Loman’s
heartless and dramatic firing by Mr. Wagner, and its
obsession with material possessions and social sta-
tus. While each character in the play is complicit in
the commodification of the American dream, none
exhibits it better than Willy Loman, who commodi-
fies his personal image, especially in his perpetual
desire to be “well liked” and his valuing of labels. For
example, he believes a punching bag to be of good
quality because “It’s got Gene Tunney’s signature on
it!” (1.1). Willy’s willing participation in the culture
industry will not allow him to separate real, human
needs from the reified, manufactured image of the
American dream—in Willy Loman’s case, to be a
successful, well-liked, and influential salesman.
In a similar vein, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s pursuit of an ideal-
ized, successful image of himself—in short, the
commodified version of the American dream—led
him to a lifelong pursuit of buying an image and a
reputation. Yes, Gatsby is a “self-made man,” part of
the American dream mythos, but he is a self-made
man who places greater exchange value on things
and ideas than he should, and conversely, he places
little value upon human friendships. The “pursuit of
happiness” in Gatsby devolves largely into a pursuit
of quick, greedy, superficial moments of happiness.
It is money, possessions, and reputation—as well as
being part of a social group (being invited to one
of Gatsby’s parties, for example) that stand in as
“needs,” not the traditional American dream ideas of
rugged individualism, human connection, or liberty.
Jay Gatsby, however, was not the only charac-
ter to buy into the commodified American dream
being produced by the early culture industry. Daisy,
in how she views herself and how she is viewed by
others, also acts as a commodity within The Great
Gatsby. Daisy, married to her husband, Tom, but in
love with Jay Gatsby, is a bright and progressive
woman. However, in the commodified world of the
Roaring Twenties, within which Gatsby is set, it is
easier for her to “buy into” the image of the woman
upon whom society has placed value: simple, fun,
and beautiful. Putting such an exchange value on
the image and role of a woman in this society has
the consequences of Daisy wishing the following
for her baby girl: “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the
best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little
fool” (Fitzgerald 12). Daisy hopes that her daughter
will be “marketable,” and valued for her successful
image within the society of Gatsby. But Daisy is not
the only character commodifying women. Daisy’s
husband, Tom, views her as a possession rather than
as a human being—as he does many women in the
novel, even having an affair, not out of love but outcommodification/commercialization 17