Fetishism

A fetish (derived from the French fétiche; which comes from the Portuguese feitiço; and this in turn from Latin facticius, "artificial" and facere, "to make") is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a man-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the emic attribution of inherent value or powers to an object.

Historiography

The term "fetish" has evolved from an idiom used to describe a type of objects created in the interaction between European travelers and Africans in the early modern period to an analytical term that played a central role in the perception and study of non-Western art in general and African art in particular.

William Pietz, who conducted an extensive ethno-historical study of the fetish, argues that the term originated in the coast of West Africa during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pietz distinguishes between, on the one hand, actual African objects that may be called fetishes in Europe, together with the indigenous theories of them, and on the other hand, "fetish," an idea, and an idea of a kind of object, to which the term above applies.

Fetishes (film)

Fetishes is a 1996 documentary by Nick Broomfield filmed at Pandora's Box, one of New York City's most luxurious SM/fetish parlours. The film contains interviews with professional dominatrices and their clients including the New York filmmaker Maria Beatty.

The documentary opens with black and white footage from an Irving Klaw film depicting models, including Bettie Page, wearing fetish attire. Nick Broomfield and his film crew then arrive at Pandora's Box on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and are given a tour of the facility by Mistress Raven, including the dungeon and the medical room. The rest of the documentary consists of the following eight chapters:

The film was produced in the United Kingdom and was originally made for HBO. It was released in the United States on DVD, (runtime 84 minutes, in colour), and more recently as part of Nick Broomfield's 'Documenting Icons' box set. A full, uncut version with additional archive material is also available in the UK.