Ideology of consumption and imageries of women in US series: a semiotic analysis of Desperate Housewives, Sex & the city, Gossip Girls and The Carrie Diaries
Résumé
What messages do these TV series transmit about consumption? How do prominent characters in these popular television series behave as consumers? And what does their consumption behavior signify regarding the outcomes they encounter and the roles they portray? These questions that E. Hirschman has been asked 25 years ago are still relevant. In this research, we intend to answer them in a contemporary context. Four US series have been chosen: Sex & the City and Desperate Housewifes, Gossip Girls and The Carrie Diaries. The interpretative approach employed to decode the consumption ideology embedded within these series is a structural semiotics framework. The representations of women in the purchasing process, far from been as subversives as the producers of theses series may promote, are still polarized between the shopping craze and the binding domestic activity.