2014巴西世界盃臺灣平面媒體的女性再現與性別意涵

The representations of women and gender implications of 2014 FIFA World Cup in Taiwanese print media

世界盃作為全球化時代重要的媒體景觀，2014年，距離巴西遙遠的「足球沙漠」臺灣社會也在全球化的浪潮中被捲入四年一次的熱潮。依據2015年國際足總世界排名 (FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking) ，臺灣名列第179名，臺灣與足球的關係，存在著一個集體的「足球沙漠」自我認同形式，四年一次的「世界盃」是瞭解臺灣足球的重要場景。足球在現代運動的發展過程中是男性保留的場域；足球迷的文化是一種「小伙子文化」。然而，近10年西方運動社會學的研究者逐漸開始重視女性足球迷的迷群經驗與認同。作為一個初探性的研究，本文聚焦2014年巴西世界盃足球賽期間，臺灣平面媒體對於女性、女性足球迷的媒體再現，試圖探究其中之性別意涵。透過批判性文本分析發現，世界盃為臺灣社會帶來慶典式的足球迷與足球崇拜。平面媒體報導的主要新聞來源為外國媒體、通訊社，蘊含深刻的西方中心，再現出一個異性戀男性宰制的球迷實踐與認同形式。西方女性 (足球迷) 在此過程中被再現為「大嫂團」或「妓女」；臺灣女性則被再現為不識越位規則，足球比賽的「門外漢」、「菜鳥」、瘋狂購買球衣的消費者或「窺淫」地觀賞男性足球員身體的觀眾，反挫其「真」足球迷的正當性。整體而言，儘管臺灣的足球主流球迷實踐往往是四年一次、暫時且脆弱，但男性仍然依其生理性別被再現為「真正」的足球迷，女性在足球迷群的想像與再現中面臨邊緣化、性化、瑣碎化的困境。

Taiwan, the 179th-place nation on the FIFA World Ranking (as of May, 2015), was a ‘desert of football’, a common mockery among its fans and press. FIFA World Cup was the synonym of football for most Taiwanese. Most Taiwanese watch and care football only once every four years. Thus, for the Taiwanese football fans who believed that they were the ‘true’ fans in the football desert, the fandom was the combination of anxiety and sometimes humiliations. Football is a male preserve and its fans are assumed to be male. Football fandom is the representation of ‘lad culture’. However, in the past decade, more and more studies focused on the experiences and identities of female football fans. This essay focused on the press representations of Taiwanese female football fans of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. According to the critical text analysis of the four major newspapers’ coverage during the tournament, this essay argues that the football discourses were predominantly western and heterosexually male-centered, on the other hand, women in general were merely ‘WAGs’ and prostitutes. Taiwanese female football fans, in particular, were represented as audiences who only enjoyed the voyeuristic pleasures of watching male athletes’ bodies but could not understand the essence of the game, as the ignorance of the off-side rule was the common mockery from their male peers. Even for female football fans, women who actively look at male athletes in desiring ways risk jeopardizing their status as ‘legitimate’ football fans. There were productions and reproductions of discourses that women were layman of football (although most Taiwanese were the same). Taiwanese women who watch the game were portrayed as rookies or some crazy consumer shop football kit till drop. In sum, Taiwanese male football fans, as fringe and quadrennial as they are, were still assumed to be the ‘true’ football fans.