A Study Of The Consumer Culture In Sex And The City

Consumer culture penetrates every corner of the world under the influence of globalization,making our era have the unique characteristics and problems of consumer society. The second half of the twentieth century is a crazy consumption period for many American middle-class families. The Americans’ expenditure on entertainment and leisure activities has been doubled since 1980 s, and many rich Americans have put conspicuous consumption to a new climax.However, American people during this period are not happy and they are pessimistic about the future of consumption.The story of TV series Sex and the City is based on the novel with same name written by Candace Bushess, which is a collection of her personal paper column articles. It has received accomplishment widely since 1998 when it was firstly broadcast and caused a crazy love for the show in the whole world. Many scholars both in China and abroad have done a lot of researches on it from different perspectives. This thesis aims to analyze Sex and the City from the unique perspective of consumer culture under the guidance of Jean Baudrillard’s consumer society theory. In his book Consumer Society, Baudrillard argues that everything in life can be viewed as commodity, and the meaning of consumption has been shifted from material to culture and spirit.The American consumption style in Sex and the City obviously manifests this feature. It conveys the idea that one’s success can be manifested by consumption. The characters in Sex and the City display their values and lifestyles through a lot of consume behaviors, which obviously reflects consumer culture.This thesis consists of three parts. The first part is the introduction, which presents the concept of consumer culture and consumer society, and summarizes previous studies on Sex and the City. The second part is the main body of this thesis, which includes three chapters, each chapter analyzes the consumer culture elements embodied in Sex and the City from material layer,institutional layer and ideological layer separately. The third part is the conclusion. In consumer society, consumer culture emphasizes material consumption and hopes that people can get a sense of satisfaction through the possession of materials. It completely weakens the traditional thrift moral standard. At the same time, it is also the materialization of lifestyle, which lures people toconspicuous consumption and displays their purchase ability of extravagant commodities. In the process of chasing fortune, the whole America has become a “winner takes all” world. People are addicted to the fashionable clothing, fabulous apartments, automobiles, clubs and other various conspicuous consumption.