《慾望城市》的流行政治與超現實紐約

The Politics of Fashion and a Hyperreal New York in Sex and the City

美國紐約在影集《慾望城市》裡代表著時尚與浪漫，而本論文旨在發掘暗藏於時尚浪漫面紗下的階級競爭與超現實紐約。筆者根據韋伯倫、齊美爾、及布爾迪厄的消費理論，探討流行政治裡的權力流動，認為時尚為一種權力運作，區分上下階層，製造身份差異，同時也成為認同的標記。《慾望城市》中的流行時尚雖然引人入勝但絕不單純，反而是中產階級菁英白人異性戀未婚女性身份認同的標示，也是排除階級他者、性向他者、民族他者的工具。而穿上時尚的紐約也非真實的紐約，而是代表休閒階級價值體系的虛擬幻象；更弔詭的是，這個以中產階級為中心的超現實紐約與現實不合，甚至可能透過媒體強勢而凌駕真實的紐約並代表之。

New York in Sex and the City on HBO represents fashion, pleasure, and romance; however this essay intends to uncover the veil of the happy New York and to discover class struggles and a hyperreal New York under the mask of fashion. According to the theoretical discourses by Veblen, Simmel, and Bourdieu, fashion is by no means neutral but contains powers to distinguish the rich from the poor, the tasteful from the tasteless. Fashion is politics that demarcates classes, groups, and identities. In Sex and the City, fashion marks the bourgeois-heterosexual-unmarried-white-female elites and simultaneously excludes classed, gendered, and ethnic others. The New York on fashion hence is not the real New York in reality but a hyperreal New York that seemingly replaces the reality by powers of mass media.