Beyond just the music played by the titular band, The Commitments also shows the variety of other ways in which the group adopts black identity, which can lead to issues of appropriation and misinterpretation of African-American culture. In Joey the Lips’ insistence that the female back-up singers wear black when they perform, this literal costume shows both the band’s donning of the cultural facade of African-American identity and culture and hints towards Joey’s deep desire to possess and fetishize black bodies. He constantly attempts to take leadership of the band because of the persona he creates for himself as a session player for countless blues and soul acts. His sort of artificial blackness which he uses to gain the position of de facto leader is later revealed as a possible sham, touring with a dead musician in America. His seduction of the Commitmentettes despte their considerable age difference shows what lengths he will go to posses the image of blackness, both sexually and in his knowledge of soul music.
His criticism of Charlie Parker also shows Joey’s deep envy of “blackness,” feeling that Parker wastes his race and identity creating jazz music, whichb Joey feels is inauthentic to black culture and art because it is not simple enough. This effectively exposes Joey’s love for “blackness” as superficial, without much concern for the artists themselves and only focusing upon how he can take what they have created and make it his own. This performance acts as a kind of microcosm of Doyle’s subtext of the novel, in which these Irish characters can find connections to African-American art and expression but soon their wish to possess it more fully and place their own troubles upon the same level as that of African-American leads to failure, seen in the band’s quick ascent and later dissolution.
When Jimmy first starts working with the Commitmentettes, he also shows desire to put on an authentic portrayal of soul music, even to the extent that he strips the girls of their distinct Irishness. As he insists “An’ yis shouldn’t be usin’ your ordin’y accents either. It’s Walking in the Rain, not Walkin’ In De Rayen,” this push for artistic authenticity poses threats to both the band’s Irish background and also the African-American songs which they perform. By consciously switching their voices in order to fit the appropriate form for the song, they strop themselves of their Irish background for the sake of adopting another culture for their own. Likewise, their goal to repurpose these songs for their own artistic performance suggests that black identity is something that can merely be switched on or off if you practice and learn it, which also severely undercuts the racial burdens of African-Americans. Despite the clear love and admiration Doyle has for this culture, he shows in The Commitments that trying to quickly and effectively adapt a foreign identity and experiences has many problems, approaching the territory of appropriation.
Even though Doyle approaches this comparison from an economic and political lens, as African-Americans and Irish both suffer from broad societal issues of poverty and oppression, his use of the band’s efforts to bridge this transatlantic gap show that despite the great connections brought about the exchange of ideas, commodities, and identities, it opens up even more room for differences and inappropriate comparisons.