Leigh Bardugo

I want to be really clear about something: I think we kind of fetishize the creative life. We have the vision of what it means to be an author, where you sit in your garret or looking out at your view and you give everything to your art and you commit fully to it. But the reality is that most of us have bills to pay.

Israeli Author

David Shields

I think the core of fans' relationship is one that vacillates schizophrenically and mercurially from reverence to resentment. Fans fetishize the players' athletic genius and both deify it and demonize it; witness the way awe turns into anger whenever a player holds out or flips off the offensive coordinator.

American Author

Sarah Gadon

I look at scripts, and sometimes I apply theory to them. For 'Antiviral,' for example, I was reading Laura Mulvey's 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,' and it was all about the psychological process by which we fetishize the female image. It's all about scopophilia.

Canadian Actress

Neel Mukherjee

Writing a book is as difficult or as easy as any other job. Everyone's job is difficult. So to fetishize difficulties in writing as something extra-difficult or something very privileged - I don't buy that at all.

Indian Writer

Tony Kushner

You have a strange relationship with calamity when you're a writer: you write about it; as an artist, you objectify and fetishize it. You render life into material, and that's a creepy thing to do.

American Playwright

Phil Klay

If we fetishize trauma as incommunicable, then survivors are trapped - unable to feel truly known by their nonmilitary friends and family.

American Writer

Tina Fey

I think people fetishize glasses in general. You could put glasses on a rotting pumpkin and people would think it was sexy.

American Comedian

Jessica Stockholder

American Artist

Used to express the idea that someone is giving too much attention to something that doesn’t deserve it.

Excessive Importance

Can be used to critique a society's priorities, such as how it may overemphasize certain ideas or objects.

Cultural Critique

Usually has a negative tone, implying that the obsessive focus isn't healthy or balanced.

Negative Connotation

Refers distinctly to a strong sexual fascination with particular objects or body parts.

Specific Attraction

It's a personal and often private topic, so be cautious and respectful when discussing such preferences.

Sensitive Topic

Understanding and respecting various cultural contexts is important since the concept of fetish can vary widely.

Context Matters

 Historically speaking, the public appreciation of visual art in terms other than traditional, religious or social function is a relatively new concept. Today, we fetishize the fetish, so to speak. We go to museums to see art from the ages, but our experience of it there is drastically removed from the context

A brief history of...

 Alright, just to zoom out. What do I make of this? Well, I think there's something in here that's a clue, a way forward. As journalists, we love difference. We love to fetishize difference. But increasingly, in this confusing world, we need to be the bridge between those differences.

Fetishize