Visible Sins, Vicarious Pleasures: Style and Vice in "Miami Vice"

Abstract

Miami Vice has attracted a great deal of attention recently, and most of that attention seems to have focused on the style of the show. Indeed, Miami Vice is arguably the most stylish show ever to have appeared on television (or, at least, on American television). But the stylishness of Miami Vice is not limited to the profusion of continental designer fashions seen in the show. From the bright colors and art deco lettering of the title, to the so-called music video sequences, to the locations, set design, lighting, and camera technique, Miami Vice displays an attention to style which, compared to the rest of TV, seems luxurious, extravagant. Some might even say criminal, feeling that such an expenditure of style must, in some way, hide an attempt to defraud, to cover some bankruptcy of substance. Such a verdict presumes a law and an economy in which the circulation of signifiers that makes up style is grounded in some real value. A style that draws attention to itself (stylishness) breaks this law by substituting itself in the place of value. Stylishness becomes, therefore, a kind of counterfeiting; it introduces an element of fraud, a possibility of deceit, into circulation. Given this presumed fraudulence, it seems only appropriate that we discuss stylishness in terms of vice, or to be more specific, in terms of Vice in Miami. In Miami Vice, the city of Miami becomes, much like the Los Angeles offilm noir, a world where appearances are deceiving. On its surface, the city is presented as a paradise, a point which is made quite evident not only in the opening and closing credits-where the signifiers of luxury, tropicality and leisure abound-'but also in explicit statements by the characters. Yet the show also trades on Miami's reputation as a center for international drug trafficking and its position as the nation's leader in violent crime. Indeed, the majority of cases on Miami Vice involve some kind of trafficking, usually either in automatic weapons or drugs (almost always cocaine). What emerges in the Miami of Miami Vice is an image of paradise corrupted, a fallen world where the trafficking of vice tends to merge with the circulation of stylishness. Cocaine, fast cars, luxury yachts, expensive clothes, and submachine guns-all become signifiers