Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Animation, 14 (1), 2019, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2019 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Animation page: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/anm on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Rocko’s Magic Capitalism
T2 - Commodity Fetishism in the Magical Realism of Rocko’s Modern Life
AU - Golding, David
N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Animation, 14 (1), 2019, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2019 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Animation page: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/anm on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/
PY - 2019/3/1
Y1 - 2019/3/1
N2 - This article presents a textual analysis of the Nickelodeon animated series Rocko’s Modern Life. Drawing from the theories of Guy Debord and Imamura Taihei, the series is posited as a revelatory lens into the spiritual crisis of late capitalism. The author then argues that the series employs magical realism to depict an animist capitalism in which the fetishization of commodities literally brings them to life. The show’s characters experience the alienation of labour as the draining of their spirit, haunting their workplaces as dead labour reanimated through the necromancy of commodity fetishism. As consumers, the characters attempt to recapture the enervated agency of their alienated selves by populating their lives with commodities. Ultimately, they are unable to find meaningful agency and spiritual fulfilment amidst the distributed agency of animated commodities. Despite its often problematic engagement with both indigeneity and animism, this close analysis of Rocko’s Modern Life supports Imamura’s theory that Western animation appropriates elements of indigenous animism to bring dead labour back to life in the form of fetishized commodities. It also suggests further research into the interconnection and contestation between capitalist animism and indigenous animism within animation.
AB - This article presents a textual analysis of the Nickelodeon animated series Rocko’s Modern Life. Drawing from the theories of Guy Debord and Imamura Taihei, the series is posited as a revelatory lens into the spiritual crisis of late capitalism. The author then argues that the series employs magical realism to depict an animist capitalism in which the fetishization of commodities literally brings them to life. The show’s characters experience the alienation of labour as the draining of their spirit, haunting their workplaces as dead labour reanimated through the necromancy of commodity fetishism. As consumers, the characters attempt to recapture the enervated agency of their alienated selves by populating their lives with commodities. Ultimately, they are unable to find meaningful agency and spiritual fulfilment amidst the distributed agency of animated commodities. Despite its often problematic engagement with both indigeneity and animism, this close analysis of Rocko’s Modern Life supports Imamura’s theory that Western animation appropriates elements of indigenous animism to bring dead labour back to life in the form of fetishized commodities. It also suggests further research into the interconnection and contestation between capitalist animism and indigenous animism within animation.
KW - animation
KW - animism
KW - anthropomorphism
KW - commodity fetishism
KW - Nickelodeon
KW - Rocko’s Modern Life
U2 - 10.1177/1746847719831365
DO - 10.1177/1746847719831365
M3 - Journal article
VL - 14
SP - 52
EP - 67
JO - animation: an interdisciplinary journal
JF - animation: an interdisciplinary journal
IS - 1
ER -