誰殺死了流行文化中的成年男性？
誰殺死了流行文化中的成年男性?
Sometime this spring, during the first half of the final season of “Mad Men,” the popular pastime of watching the show — recapping episodes, tripping over spoilers, trading notes on the flawless production design, quibbling about historical details and debating big themes — segued into a parlor game of reading signs of its hero’s almost universally anticipated demise. Maybe the 5 o’clock shadow of mortality was on Don Draper (fig. 1) from the start. Maybe the plummeting graphics of the opening titles implied a literal as well as a moral fall. Maybe the notable deaths in previous seasons (fictional characters like Miss Blankenship, Lane Pryce and Bert Cooper, as well as figures like Marilyn Monroe and Medgar Evers) were premonitions of Don’s own departure. In any case, fans and critics settled in for a vigil. It was not a matter of whether, but of how and when.
今年春天，《廣告狂人》(Mad Men)播出了最后一季的上半部分。 回顧劇情、無意中看到劇透、交換對無懈可擊的場景設(shè)計的看法、給歷史細(xì)節(jié)挑錯，或是討論劇中宏大的主題，這些都是觀眾們最愛消遣此劇的方式?？涩F(xiàn)在，這些逐漸被一個猜謎游戲所代替：大家試圖在劇情中找出主人公唐·德雷柏(Don Draper, 圖1)將要死亡的征兆，而這一結(jié)局是所有人都早已料到的。也許從劇一開始德雷柏就被若隱若現(xiàn)的死亡陰影所籠罩;也許片頭那個身著西裝的男子從高處墜下的畫面象征著道德的墮落;也許前幾季中一些主要人物的死亡(不僅包括片中的虛構(gòu)人物，比如布蘭肯許普小姐[Miss Blankenship]，雷恩·普萊斯[Lane Pryce]和伯特·庫伯[Bert Cooper]，還有歷史真實人物比如瑪麗蓮·夢露[Marilyn Monroe]和民權(quán)運動人物梅加·艾弗斯[Medgar Evers])是一種前兆。不管怎么樣，粉絲們和評論家們似乎開始了某種守夜活動，等待著那一刻的到來。德雷柏死期將至，這毋庸置疑，問題是何時、以何種方式。
TV characters are among the allegorical figures of our age, giving individual human shape to our collective anxieties and aspirations. The meanings of “Mad Men” are not very mysterious: The title of the final half season, which airs next spring, will be “The End of an Era.” The most obvious thing about the series’s meticulous, revisionist, present-minded depiction of the past, and for many viewers the most pleasurable, is that it shows an old order collapsing under the weight of internal contradiction and external pressure. From the start, “Mad Men” has, in addition to cataloging bygone vices and fashion choices, traced the erosion, the gradual slide toward obsolescence, of a power structure built on and in service of the prerogatives of white men. The unthinking way Don, Pete, Roger and the rest of them enjoy their position, and the ease with which they abuse it, inspires what has become a familiar kind of ambivalence among cable viewers. Weren’t those guys awful, back then? But weren’t they also kind of cool? We are invited to have our outrage and eat our nostalgia too, to applaud the show’s right-thinking critique of what we love it for glamorizing.
電視劇人物是對我們時代的某種隱喻，一個個角色體現(xiàn)著我們的集體焦慮和愿望?！稄V告狂人》的意義并不晦澀：明年春季將要播出的下半季就叫“一個時代的終結(jié)”。整個劇集對過去的描述雖然一絲不茍，卻運用了一種修正主義的現(xiàn)代視角。最明顯體現(xiàn)這一點，而同時又是觀眾最喜愛的，就是它描寫了舊秩序在內(nèi)部矛盾和外部壓力下分崩離析。從一開始，《廣告狂人》除了展示過去那個時代的陋習(xí)和時尚品味，還記錄了一種權(quán)力結(jié)構(gòu)遭到侵蝕和逐漸被淘汰的過程。這種權(quán)力結(jié)構(gòu)建立在白人男性的特權(quán)之上并為之服務(wù)。唐、皮特(Pete)、羅杰(Roger)和其他人想當(dāng)然地享用他們的職權(quán)，并毫無愧疚地濫用權(quán)位。這種態(tài)度在有線電視觀眾中激起了一種我們并不陌生的矛盾心情：當(dāng)年的這些家伙真夠可惡的，但是他們又有點酷，不是嗎?該劇同時激起了我們的憤怒和懷舊之情。我們沉醉于該劇對過去那個時代迷人魅力的渲染美化，但同時又為該劇對這種美化所持的右派批判態(tài)度而叫好。
The widespread hunch that “Mad Men” will end with its hero’s death is what you might call overdetermined. It does not arise only from the internal logic of the narrative itself, but is also a product of cultural expectations. Something profound has been happening in our television over the past decade, some end-stage reckoning. It is the era not just of mad men, but also of sad men and, above all, bad men. Don is at once the heir and precursor to Tony Soprano (fig. 2), that avatar of masculine entitlement who fended off threats to the alpha-dog status he had inherited and worked hard to maintain. Walter White, the protagonist of “Breaking Bad,” struggled, early on, with his own emasculation and then triumphantly (and sociopathically) reasserted the mastery that the world had contrived to deny him. The monstrousness of these men was inseparable from their charisma, and sometimes it was hard to tell if we were supposed to be rooting for them or recoiling in horror. We were invited to participate in their self-delusions and to see through them, to marvel at the mask of masculine competence even as we watched it slip or turn ugly. Their deaths were (and will be) a culmination and a conclusion: Tony, Walter and Don are the last of the patriarchs.
《廣告狂人》會以主人公的死亡結(jié)局，觀眾普遍都有的這一直覺可以說是多種因素造成的——這不只是敘事的內(nèi)在邏輯驅(qū)使，還是一種文化期望的產(chǎn)物。在過去的十年間，我們的電視發(fā)生了某種深刻的變化，展開了最后階段的反思。對于電視劇來說，這個時代對男性來說不但是狂人時代，還是衰人時代，更是壞人的時代。唐同時是托尼·索普拉諾(圖2)的繼承人和前輩?！逗诘兰易濉分械乃髌绽Z是男性權(quán)力的化身。 他繼承了老大地位并努力維持、擊敗化解了種種威脅?！督^命毒師》(Breaking Bad)里的主人公沃爾特·懷特(Walter White)在該劇的一開始與自己的懦弱抗?fàn)?。整個世界都好像與他作對，剝奪了他的權(quán)力，可是他后來又揚眉吐氣地(陰險變態(tài)地)奪回并施展了自己的權(quán)力。這些男性們可怖的一面同時又是他們的魅力所在。有時我們很難決定到底是應(yīng)該力挺他們還是應(yīng)該被他們嚇到。劇情讓我們進入并洞察他們自我欺騙的內(nèi)心世界。我們贊嘆他們的陽剛之力，即便我們知道那只不過是徒有其表，終將衰敗或是顯露其丑惡一面。他們的死亡是(將是)劇的終結(jié)，同時也提出一個結(jié)論：托尼，沃爾特和唐都是末代的男性家長。
In suggesting that patriarchy is dead, I am not claiming that sexism is finished, that men are obsolete or that the triumph of feminism is at hand. I may be a middle-aged white man, but I’m not an idiot. In the world of politics, work and family, misogyny is a stubborn fact of life. But in the universe of thoughts and words, there is more conviction and intelligence in the critique of male privilege than in its defense, which tends to be panicky and halfhearted when it is not obtuse and obnoxious. The supremacy of men can no longer be taken as a reflection of natural order or settled custom.
提出男性家長已經(jīng)死亡，并不意味著我認(rèn)為男性性別至上主義已經(jīng)終結(jié)，男性正在經(jīng)歷衰落或是女性主義的勝利觸手可及。我是一個中年白人男性，但我并不愚蠢。在政治，職業(yè)和家庭領(lǐng)域，對女性的厭惡歧視還是根深蒂固。但是在思想和文字的范疇里，對男權(quán)的辯護往往愚昧無知，讓人反感;要不就是倉惶出招，無法讓人信服。與之相比，對男性特權(quán)的批判則有信念的支撐，也更加富有智慧。男性至上再也不能被看成是一種自然秩序或是既定習(xí)俗。
This slow unwinding has been the work of generations. For the most part, it has been understood — rightly in my view, and this is not really an argument I want to have right now — as a narrative of progress. A society that was exclusive and repressive is now freer and more open. But there may be other less unequivocally happy consequences. It seems that, in doing away with patriarchal authority, we have also, perhaps unwittingly, killed off all the grown-ups.
男權(quán)的式微已經(jīng)持續(xù)了很多代。大多數(shù)人都把這看做是一種進步過程(我同意這個觀點，但是在這篇文章里這并不是我的主要議題)。 較之以前的排外壓抑，我們現(xiàn)在社會更為自由開放。但是對男權(quán)的批判可能還帶來了不那么愉快的后果。在我看來，在試圖擺脫男性家長權(quán)威的同時，我們還扼殺了所有的成人，雖然這可能是出于無意。
A little over a week after the conclusion of the first half of the last “Mad Men” season, the journalist and critic Ruth Graham published a polemical essay in Slate lamenting the popularity of young-adult fiction among fully adult readers. Noting that nearly a third of Y.A. books were purchased by readers ages 30 to 44 (most of them presumably without teenage children of their own), Graham insisted that such grown-ups “should feel embarrassed about reading literature for children.” Instead, these readers were furious. The sentiment on Twitter could be summarized as “Don’t tell me what to do!” as if Graham were a bossy, uncomprehending parent warning the kids away from sugary snacks toward more nutritious, chewier stuff.
在《廣告狂人》末季上半部播完的一個多星期后，網(wǎng)絡(luò)雜志《石板》(Slate)的記者和評論家茹絲·格雷漢姆(Ruth Graham)發(fā)表了一篇反響很大的文章，批評青少年讀物在成年人中的流行。格雷漢姆指出，差不多三分之一的青少年讀物是被30到44歲之間的成年人(他們中大多數(shù)并沒有十來歲的孩子)購買 。她說這些成年人“居然看給孩子們寫的書，他們應(yīng)該為此感到害臊”。但是看到文章后，這些讀者感到卻是憤怒。他們在推特上的留言可以被總結(jié)為“我該做什么用不著你管!”就好像格雷漢姆是一個專橫、嚴(yán)厲的家長，警告孩子們甜食的壞處，好讓他們吃更有營養(yǎng)、更有嚼頭的食物 。
It was not an argument she was in a position to win, however persuasive her points. To oppose the juvenile pleasures of empowered cultural consumers is to assume, wittingly or not, the role of scold, snob or curmudgeon. Full disclosure: The shoe fits. I will admit to feeling a twinge of disapproval when I see one of my peers clutching a volume of “Harry Potter” or “The Hunger Games.” I’m not necessarily proud of this reaction. As cultural critique, it belongs in the same category as the sneer I can’t quite suppress when I see guys my age (pushing 50) riding skateboards or wearing shorts and flip-flops, or the reflexive arching of my eyebrows when I notice that a woman at the office has plastic butterfly barrettes in her hair.
格雷漢姆在這場論戰(zhàn)處于劣勢，不論她的觀點多么有說服力，她都無法獲勝。要對具有權(quán)勢地位的文化消費者們的幼稚消遣提出批評，就必然會自知或不自知地成為這么一個角色：一個喜歡責(zé)備他人的勢利小人、乖戾之士。我在這里坦誠相告：我自己就是這么一個人。 當(dāng)我看到我的某位同齡人拿著一本《哈利·波特》(Harry Potter)或是《饑餓游戲》(Hunger Games)時，我承認(rèn)我會覺得不以為然。我并不為這種反應(yīng)感到驕傲。作為一種文化批評，這種不以為然的反應(yīng)跟當(dāng)我看到我這個年紀(jì)(將近50歲)的老男人們玩滑板、或是穿短褲和夾趾涼拖時情不自禁露出的譏笑，或是看到辦公室的女同事戴著蝴蝶形狀的塑料發(fā)夾時反射性的聳眉屬于同一個級別。
God, listen to me! Or don’t. My point is not so much to defend such responses as to acknowledge how absurd, how impotent, how out of touch they will inevitably sound. In my main line of work as a film critic, I have watched over the past 15 years as the studios committed their vast financial and imaginative resources to the cultivation of franchises (some of them based on those same Y.A. novels) that advance an essentially juvenile vision of the world. Comic-book movies, family-friendly animated adventures, tales of adolescent heroism and comedies of arrested development do not only make up the commercial center of 21st-century Hollywood. They are its artistic heart.
天哪，聽我說了什么!算了，不用搭理我。說了這些，我并不是要為自己的這些反應(yīng)辯解，我承認(rèn)它們無可避免地會顯得荒唐無力，脫離現(xiàn)實。電影評論是我的主業(yè)。在過去的15年，我看到電影公司花費了大量的財力和創(chuàng)造力來制作授權(quán)衍生系列電影(有一些就是根據(jù)我剛才提到青少年小說改編的)。這些電影促成推進了一個本質(zhì)上來說以青少年為中心視角的世界。根據(jù)漫畫改編的電影，老少咸宜的動畫歷險片，少年的英雄事跡和關(guān)于成長受阻的喜劇電影不但是21世紀(jì)好萊塢的主要搖錢樹，他們更成了好萊塢的藝術(shù)之源。
Meanwhile, television has made it very clear that we are at a frontier. Not only have shows like “The Sopranos” and “Mad Men” heralded the end of male authority; we’ve also witnessed the erosion of traditional adulthood in any form, at least as it used to be portrayed in the formerly tried-and-true genres of the urban cop show, the living-room or workplace sitcom and the prime-time soap opera. Instead, we are now in the age of “Girls,” “Broad City,” “Masters of Sex” (a prehistory of the end of patriarchy), “Bob’s Burgers” (a loopy post-"Simpsons” family cartoon) and a flood of goofy, sweet, self-indulgent and obnoxious improv-based web videos.
與此同時，電視毫不含糊地宣告我們正處于時代前沿。不但有《黑道家族》(The Sopranos)和《廣告狂人》這樣的電視劇預(yù)示了男性權(quán)威的終結(jié)，在所有類別的電視劇里，我們還看到了傳統(tǒng)意義上的成年狀態(tài)正在被侵蝕。從前那些經(jīng)久不衰的類別片，比如都市警匪片，客廳或辦公室情景喜劇和黃金時段的肥皂劇都對這種成年狀態(tài)有所描畫。可是現(xiàn)在，充斥我們電視屏幕的是《都市女郎》 (Girls)、《寬鎮(zhèn)日?！?Broad City)、《性愛大師》(Masters of Sex，講述男性家長制終結(jié)之前的歷史)、《開心漢堡店》(Bob’s Burgers, 一部瘋瘋癲癲，后《辛普森》[Simpsons]時代的家庭卡通片)和一大批傻乎乎、甜膩膩、放縱自我和令人反感的網(wǎng)絡(luò)即興視頻。
What all of these shows grasp at, in one way or another, is that nobody knows how to be a grown-up anymore. Adulthood as we have known it has become conceptually untenable. It isn’t only that patriarchy in the strict, old-school Don Draper sense has fallen apart. It’s that it may never really have existed in the first place, at least in the way its avatars imagined. Which raises the question: Should we mourn the departed or dance on its grave?
所有這些節(jié)目都以這樣或那樣的方式試圖表達這一點：沒有人再知道如何做一個成年人了。我們之前所理解的成人狀態(tài)在觀念的層面上變得無法維持。這并不單單是說那種嚴(yán)格意義上的，老派的唐·德雷柏式的父權(quán)已經(jīng)崩潰，而是意味著父權(quán)——至少是父權(quán)的具體化身們所構(gòu)想的這個概念——可能壓根就沒有真正存在過。這就有了一個問題：我們應(yīng)該哀悼父權(quán)的死亡，或是應(yīng)該在它的墳?zāi)股掀鹞钁c祝?
Before we answer that, an inquest may be in order. Who or what killed adulthood? Was the death slow or sudden? Natural or violent? The work of one culprit or many? Justifiable homicide or coldblooded murder?
在回答這個問題之前，可能先要進行一場調(diào)查：誰或是什么殺死了成年人?死亡來得緩慢還是突然?是自然死亡還是死于暴力?兇手是一人還是多人?是情有可原的命案還是冷血謀殺?
We Americans have never been all that comfortable with patriarchy in the strict sense of the word. The men who established our political independence — guys who, for the most part, would be considered late adolescents by today’s standards (including Benjamin Franklin (fig. 3), in some ways the most boyish of the bunch) — did so partly in revolt against the authority of King George III, a corrupt, unreasonable and abusive father figure. It was not until more than a century later that those rebellious sons became paternal symbols in their own right. They weren’t widely referred to as Founding Fathers until Warren Harding, then a senator, used the phrase around the time of World War I.
嚴(yán)格字義上的父權(quán)向來讓我們美國人覺得不那么舒服。以現(xiàn)今的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)看，那些創(chuàng)建美國政治獨立的男性們大多處于青春期后期。(包括本杰明·富蘭克林 [Benjamin Franklin, 圖3]，從某些角度看，他可能是這幫人里最孩子氣的了)。他們鬧獨立的一部分原因是要反抗英王喬治三世(King George III)的權(quán)威。而喬治三世代表了一個腐朽的、無法理喻的、暴虐的父親形象。直到一個多世紀(jì)后，這些叛逆的兒子們才由于自身的建樹被看成父權(quán)的象征。在 “一戰(zhàn)”的時候，由當(dāng)時的一位參議員沃倫·哈丁(Warren Harding)提出，“建國之父”這一稱呼才變得家喻戶曉。
From the start, American culture was notably resistant to the claims of parental authority and the imperatives of adulthood. Surveying the canon of American literature in his magisterial “Love and Death in the American Novel,” Leslie A. Fiedler suggested, more than half a century before Ruth Graham, that “the great works of American fiction are notoriously at home in the children’s section of the library.” Musing on the legacy of Rip Van Winkle and Huckleberry Finn (fig. 4), he broadened this observation into a sweeping (and still very much relevant) diagnosis of the national personality: “The typical male protagonist of our fiction has been a man on the run, harried into the forest and out to sea, down the river or into combat — anywhere to avoid ‘civilization,’ which is to say the confrontation of a man and woman which leads to the fall to sex, marriage and responsibility. One of the factors that determine theme and form in our great books is this strategy of evasion, this retreat to nature and childhood which makes our literature (and life!) so charmingly and infuriatingly ‘boyish.’ ”
從一開始，美國文化就明顯地對父權(quán)和成年人的要求主張的有所抵觸。在他的權(quán)威之作《美國小說的愛與死》(Love and Death in the American Novel)中，萊斯利·A·費德勒(Leslie A. Fiedler)分析了美國文學(xué)的經(jīng)典之作。在早于茹絲·格雷漢姆半個世紀(jì)他就指出，“美國的經(jīng)典小說有一點名聲遠(yuǎn)揚，那就是把它們擺在圖書館的兒童書籍區(qū)也不會出格。”費德勒探討了瑞普·凡·溫克爾(Rip Van Winkle)和哈克貝利·芬(Huckleberry Fin, 圖4)對美國文學(xué)的影響。他把他的觀點加以擴大引申，做出了一個對美國國民特性的統(tǒng)括總結(jié)(這一總結(jié)直到現(xiàn)在還站得住腳)：“美國小說里典型的男性主人公是一個不停奔波的角色，他不是被追趕入林中就是被驅(qū)逐到海上河上，或是加入戰(zhàn)爭。他想方設(shè)法逃避‘文明’。而‘文明’意味著兩性相遇而水到渠成的性愛，婚姻和責(zé)任。我們偉大的作品里決定主題和形式的因素之一就是這種逃避策略。這種向自然和童年的回歸給了我們的文學(xué)(和生活)一種既讓人著迷，又讓人惱火的男孩子氣。 ”
Huck Finn is for Fiedler the greatest archetype of this impulse, and he concludes “Love and Death” with a tour de force reading of Twain’s masterpiece. What Fiedler notes, and what most readers of “Huckleberry Finn” will recognize, is Twain’s continual juxtaposition of Huck’s innocence and instinctual decency with the corruption and hypocrisy of the adult world.
Huck’s “Pap” is a thorough travesty of paternal authority, a wretched, mean and dishonest drunk whose death is among the least mourned in literature. When Huck drifts south from Missouri, he finds a dysfunctional patriarchal order whose notions of honor and decorum mask the ultimate cruelty of slavery. Huck’s hometown represents “the world of belongingness and security, of school and home and church, presided over by the mothers.” But this matriarchal bosom is as stifling to Huck as the land of Southern fathers is alienating. He finds authenticity and freedom only on the river, in the company of Jim, the runaway slave, a friend who is by turns Huck’s protector and his ward.
哈克的“老爸”這一形象是對父權(quán)的徹底嘲諷。他是個卑劣、刻薄、狡詐的酒鬼。文學(xué)作品中一些人物的過世絲毫引不起人們的哀悼之心，哈克父親就是其中一位。哈克從密蘇里流浪到南方。在那里，他看到的是一個有缺陷的父權(quán)秩序。這種秩序企圖用榮譽和禮節(jié)來掩蓋奴隸制的極端殘酷。哈克的故鄉(xiāng)代表了一個“提供歸屬感和安全感的世界。生活圍繞著由母親們統(tǒng)領(lǐng)主持的學(xué)校，家庭和教會。”南方的父親們使哈克感到疏離，而母系的溫柔鄉(xiāng)卻又使他感到窒息。只有在河上，與逃跑的奴隸朋友吉姆(Jim)一起，他才找到了真實和自由。吉姆是哈克的保護者，而有時哈克還扮演了他的監(jiān)護人的角色。
The love between this pair repeats a pattern Fiedler discerned in the bonds between Ishmael and Queequeg in “Moby-Dick” and Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking novels (which Twain famously detested). What struck Fiedler about these apparently sexless but intensely homoerotic connections was their cross-cultural nature and their defiance of heterosexual expectation. At sea or in the wilderness, these friends managed to escape both from the institutions of patriarchy and from the intimate authority of women, the mothers and wives who represent a check on male freedom.
費德勒注意到，哈克與吉姆之間的友愛在美國文學(xué)中成了一個模式。這種友情還存在于《白鯨》(Moby-Dick)中的以實瑪利(Ishmael)和魁魁格(Queequeg)、詹姆斯·費尼莫爾·庫柏(James Fenimore Cooper)的《皮襪子》(Leatherstocking)系列小說(盡人皆知這部作品遭到吐溫的憎惡)中的納提·邦波(Natty Bumppo)和欽卡奇可(Chingachgook)之間。這些人物之間并無性愛發(fā)生，但是他們的關(guān)系卻展示了一種強烈的同性之愛。讓費德勒印象深刻的是這種關(guān)系跨越文化，并挑戰(zhàn)了異性戀愛觀。 這些朋友們漂泊在大海上，荒野中，他們不但成功逃脫了父權(quán)制度，還擺脫了女人們通過親密關(guān)系樹立的權(quán)威——在他們看來，母親們和妻子們象征著對男人自由的約束。
Fiedler saw American literature as sophomoric. He lamented the absence of books that tackled marriage and courtship — for him the great grown-up themes of the novel in its mature, canonical form. Instead, notwithstanding a few outliers like Henry James and Edith Wharton, we have a literature of boys’ adventures and female sentimentality. Or, to put it another way, all American fiction is young-adult fiction.
費德勒認(rèn)為美國文學(xué)幼稚不更事。他哀嘆美國文學(xué)少有關(guān)于婚姻和戀愛的作品 。對他來說，只有涉及這些宏大的成人主題的小說才能成為成熟的經(jīng)典之作。可是，除了像亨利·詹姆斯(Henry James)和伊迪斯·沃爾頓(Edith Wharton)這樣的少數(shù)例外，美國文學(xué)要么是男孩子們的歷險經(jīng)歷，要么就是關(guān)于女性的多愁善感。換句話說，所有的美國小說都是青少年文學(xué)。
The elevation of the wild, uncivilized boy into a hero of the age remained a constant even as American society itself evolved, convulsed and transformed. While Fiedler was sitting at his desk in Missoula, Mont., writing his monomaniacal tome, a youthful rebellion was asserting itself in every corner of the culture. The bad boys of rock ‘n’ roll and the pouting screen rebels played by James Dean and Marlon Brando proved Fiedler’s point even as he was making it. So did Holden Caulfield, Dean Moriarty, Augie March and Rabbit Angstrom — a new crop of semi-antiheroes in flight from convention, propriety, authority and what Huck would call the whole “sivilized” world.
把野蠻的、未開化的男孩子提升到時代英雄的地位， 這是美國文化中的常事。即使當(dāng)美國社會自身經(jīng)歷發(fā)展，動蕩和變革時，也還是如此。當(dāng)費德勒坐在他位于蒙大拿州密蘇拉的書桌前撰寫他那偏執(zhí)的著作時，一場年輕氣盛的叛逆運動正如火如荼的開展，滲透了文化生活的各個角落。搖滾樂隊的壞男孩們、詹姆斯·迪恩(James Dean)和馬龍·白蘭度(Marlon Brando)在銀幕上塑造的郁郁寡歡的叛逆形象都證實了費德勒此時正在梳理闡述的觀點。同樣證明了他的觀點還有霍爾頓·考爾菲德 (Holden Caulfield，《麥田里的守望者》里的主人公——譯注)，迪恩· 莫里亞蒂(Dean Moriarty，杰克·凱魯亞克《在路上》 的主人公——譯注)，奧吉·瑪琪(Augie March，索爾·貝婁《奧吉·瑪琪歷險記》中的主人公——譯注)和哈利·安斯特羅姆(Rabbit Angstrom， 約翰·厄普代克《兔子四部曲》中的主人公——譯注) 。這些角色逃離習(xí)俗、禮儀、權(quán)威和哈克所說的“瘟明”(sivilized)世界，是新涌現(xiàn)的一批并不完全徹底的反英雄人物。
From there it is but a quick ride on the Pineapple Express to Apatow. The Updikean and Rothian heroes of the 1960s and 1970s chafed against the demands of marriage, career and bureaucratic conformity and played the games of seduction and abandonment, of adultery and divorce, for high existential stakes, only to return a generation later as the protagonists of bro comedies. We devolve from Lenny Bruce to Adam Sandler, from “Catch-22” to “The Hangover,” from “Goodbye, Columbus” to “The Forty-Year-Old Virgin.”
從這些小說這里，美國文化順理成章地發(fā)展到了賈得·阿帕圖(Judd Apatow)的電影，快得就好像搭上了菠蘿快車(阿帕圖制片的一部電影叫Pineapple Express——譯注)。厄普代克和菲利普·羅斯寫于60和70年代作品里的主人公們反抗婚姻，職業(yè)對他們提出的要求，拒絕遵循官僚體制。他們以自己的存在為賭注，玩著引誘和拋棄，通奸和離婚的游戲。一代之后，他們又出現(xiàn)在我們的文化中，成了哥們兒喜劇電影中的主人公。美國文化一路退化，萊尼·布魯斯 (Lenny Bruce)退化成了亞當(dāng)·桑德勒(Adam Sandler)，《第22條軍規(guī)》(Catch-22)成了《宿醉》(The Hangover)，《再見哥倫布》(Goodbye, Columbus)成了《四十歲的老處男》(The Forty-Year-Old Virgin)。
But the antics of the comic man-boys were not merely repetitive; in their couch-bound humor we can detect the glimmers of something new, something that helped speed adulthood to its terminal crisis. Unlike the antiheroes of eras past, whose rebellion still accepted the fact of adulthood as its premise, the man-boys simply refused to grow up, and did so proudly. Their importation of adolescent and preadolescent attitudes into the fields of adult endeavor (see “Billy Madison,” “Knocked Up,” “Step Brothers,” “Dodgeball”) delivered a bracing jolt of subversion, at least on first viewing. Why should they listen to uptight bosses, stuck-up rich guys and other readily available symbols of settled male authority?
但是這些男人孩們的荒唐滑稽之舉并不只是對過去的重演。從他們賴在沙發(fā)上說的玩笑話里，我們能覺察到一些新東西，一些加速成人狀態(tài)走向最后危機的東西。過去的反英雄人物們雖然叛逆，但是接受成人狀態(tài)這個事實是他們叛逆的前提。而如今的這些男人孩們就是拒絕長大，并且以此為傲。他們用著青少年的態(tài)度干著成人的事(參見《阿呆闖學(xué)堂》[Billy Madison)、《一夜大肚》[Knocked Up]、《爛兄爛弟》[Step Brothers]和《瘋狂閃避球》[Dodgeball])，體現(xiàn)了一種讓人為之一振的叛逆感，至少在看第一遍這些電影時我們是這么想的。就是啊，他們?yōu)槭裁匆爮木兄?jǐn)?shù)纳纤尽⒆砸詾槭堑挠绣X人和其他一些濫俗的代表根深蒂固的男性權(quán)威的角色?
That was only half the story, though. As before, the rebellious animus of the disaffected man-child was directed not just against male authority but also against women. In Sandler’s early, funny movies, and in many others released under Apatow’s imprimatur, women are confined to narrowly archetypal roles. Nice mommies and patient wives are idealized; it’s a relief to get away from them and a comfort to know that they’ll take care of you when you return. Mean mommies and controlling wives are ridiculed and humiliated. Sexually assertive women are in need of being shamed and tamed. True contentment is only found with your friends, who are into porn and “Star Wars” and weed and video games and all the stuff that girls and parents just don’t understand.
但是，這只是故事的一半。就像之前文學(xué)作品中的人物一樣，不服氣的男人孩們(man-child)的叛逆敵意針對的不單單是男性權(quán)威，還有女性。在桑德勒早期的搞笑電影和他的許多由阿帕圖制片的電影中，女性被限制于一些典型角色。親切的母親和耐心的妻子被理想化。離開她們是一種解脫，但是知道當(dāng)你浪子回頭時，她們會照顧你，這同時又是一種欣慰?？瘫〉哪赣H和有控制欲的妻子在這些電影中遭到嘲笑和羞辱，而對性有明確要求的女性則需要被馴服并讓她們知道羞恥。真正的滿足感只能是和朋友們在一起時才能產(chǎn)生。男人孩和他的朋友們都喜愛色情電影、《星球大戰(zhàn)》、大麻、電子游戲以及所有女人們和父母們不能理解的東西。
The bro comedy has been, at its worst, a cesspool of nervous homophobia and lazy racial stereotyping. Its postures of revolt tend to exemplify the reactionary habit of pretending that those with the most social power are really beleaguered and oppressed. But their refusal of maturity also invites some critical reflection about just what adulthood is supposed to mean. In the old, classic comedies of the studio era — the screwbally roller coasters of marriage and remarriage, with their dizzying verbiage and sly innuendo — adulthood was a fact. It was inconvertible and burdensome but also full of opportunity. You could drink, smoke, flirt and spend money. The trick was to balance the fulfillment of your wants with the carrying out of your duties.
在最糟糕的情況下，哥們兒喜劇片是同性戀憎惡恐懼癥和絲毫沒有創(chuàng)意的種族定型的骯臟雜燴。它的反叛立場是保守勢力的一種慣用手段—這些最有社會權(quán)勢的人卻假裝是被圍困，被欺壓的群體。但是這些電影對成長的抗拒又讓觀眾對成人狀態(tài)到底是什么產(chǎn)生了批判思考。在過去制品廠時代的經(jīng)典喜劇電影里，那像瘋狂過山車似的結(jié)婚、復(fù)婚，讓人暈頭轉(zhuǎn)向的冗詞贅語和心照不宣的暗示都說明了成年人狀態(tài)是一個事實。這狀態(tài)不可逆，職責(zé)繁重，但也提供了許多機會。成年人可以喝酒、抽煙、打情罵俏，還有錢可花。訣竅就是在滿足欲求和履行職責(zé)之間找到平衡。
The desire of the modern comic protagonist, meanwhile, is to wallow in his own immaturity, plumbing its depths and reveling in its pleasures. Sometimes, as in the recent Seth Rogen movie “Neighbors,” he is able to do that within the context of marriage. At other, darker times, say in Adelle Waldman’s literary comedy of manners, “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.,” he will remain unattached and promiscuous, though somewhat more guiltily than in his Rothian heyday, with more of a sense of the obligation to be decent. It should be noted that the modern man-boy’s predecessors tended to be a lot meaner than he allows himself to be.
而現(xiàn)代喜劇主人公的心愿卻是沉迷深陷于自己的不成熟，并以此為樂。有時，比如在賽斯·羅根(Seth Rogen)的新片《鄰居》(Neighbors)中，他雖然已經(jīng)成家，卻也能如此照做 。另一些作品則要黑暗一些。比如在阿黛爾·沃德曼(Adelle Waldman)的小說《內(nèi)森尼爾的情事》(The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.)中，他直到結(jié)尾還是孤身一人， 并沒有擺脫濫交的生活方式，雖然與羅斯全盛期小說中的主人公相比，他更加感到了內(nèi)疚，更加覺得自己有責(zé)任做一個正派的人。需要指出的是，現(xiàn)代男人孩的不堪還是有自己的底限的。而他的前輩們比他還要不堪的多。
But they also, at least some of the time, had something to fight for, a moral or political impulse underlying their postures of revolt. The founding brothers in Philadelphia cut loose a king; Huck Finn exposed the dehumanizing lies of America slavery; Lenny Bruce battled censorship. When Marlon Brando’s Wild One was asked what he was rebelling against, his thrilling, nihilistic response was “Whaddaya got?” The modern equivalent would be “. . .”
但前輩們卻有奮斗的目標(biāo)——至少這是他們生活的一部分。他們的反叛立場基于道德或是政治觀念。費城的獨立戰(zhàn)友們趕走了一位國王;哈克·芬揭穿了美國奴隸制度沒有人道的謊言;萊尼·布魯斯挑戰(zhàn)審查制度。當(dāng)有人問馬龍·白蘭度飾演的飛車黨大佬為什么叛逆時，他的虛無主義的回答激動人心：“你究竟有什么?”而讓現(xiàn)代男人孩回答這個問題，答案可能會是：“…...”。
Maybe nobody grows up anymore, but everyone gets older. What happens to the boy rebels when the dream of perpetual childhood fades and the traditional prerogatives of manhood are unavailable? There are two options: They become irrelevant or they turn into Louis C. K. (fig. 5). Every white American male under the age of 50 is some version of the character he plays on “Louie,” a show almost entirely devoted to the absurdity of being a pale, doughy heterosexual man with children in a post-patriarchal age. Or, if you prefer, a loser.
可能不再有人長大，可是所有人都要變老。當(dāng)永遠(yuǎn)童年的夢想消逝，而傳統(tǒng)意義上男性特權(quán)又不可及時，男孩叛逆者們該怎么辦呢?他們有兩條出路：他們要不然被時代遺忘，要不就變成喜劇藝人路易斯·C·K(Louis C. K., 圖5)。每個50歲以下的美國男性白種人都能在他《路易不容易》(Louie)里面的角色身上找到自己的影子。這整部劇差不多都是講在后父權(quán)時代， 做一個蒼白虛弱、有孩子的異性戀男人是多么的愚蠢荒誕 。如果你喜歡簡單的概括，那這就是關(guān)于一個衰人的劇。
The humor and pathos of “Louie” come not only from the occasional funny feelings that he has about his privileges — which include walking through the city in relative safety and the expectation of sleeping with women who are much better looking than he is — but also, more profoundly, from his knowledge that the conceptual and imaginative foundations of those privileges have crumbled beneath him. He is the center of attention, but he’s not entirely comfortable with that. He suspects that there might be other, more interesting stories around him, funnier jokes, more dramatic identity crises, and he knows that he can’t claim them as his own. He is above all aware of a force in his life, in his world, that by turns bedevils him and gives him hope, even though it isn’t really about him at all. It’s called feminism.
《路易不容易》的幽默和傷感不但來自于路易有時對于自己所擁有特權(quán)的滑稽感受——包括能在城市里相對安全地穿行以及可以指望能和相貌遠(yuǎn)在自己之上的女人上床——還來自于他自知這些特權(quán)的概念和想象基礎(chǔ)已經(jīng)瓦解。他是大家的注意力中心，但是對于這一點他卻不是十分自在。他懷疑在他周圍還有別的更有趣的故事、更幽默的笑話、更戲劇化的身份危機，而這些他都無法據(jù)為己有。最重要的是，他意識到在他的生活和世界里有一股力量，時而折磨著他，又時而給他希望，盡管這力量實際上根本就沒把他放在眼里。這就是女性主義。
Who is the most visible self-avowed feminist in the world right now? If your answer is anyone other than Beyoncé (fig. 6), you might be trying a little too hard to be contrarian. Did you see her at the V.M.A.'s, in her bejeweled leotard, with the word “feminist” in enormous illuminated capital letters looming on the stage behind her? A lot of things were going on there, but irony was not one of them. The word was meant, with a perfectly Beyoncé-esque mixture of poise and provocation, to encompass every other aspect of her complicated and protean identity. It explains who she is as a pop star, a sex symbol, the mother of a daughter and a partner in the most prominent African-American power couple not currently resident in the White House.
誰是現(xiàn)在世界上最受矚目的自封女性主義者?如果你的答案不是碧昂斯(Beyoncé, 圖6)，那你太費勁想要獨樹一幟了。你看到她在MTV音樂錄音帶大獎典禮上的表演了嗎?她穿著一件點綴著珠寶的緊身連身衣，在她身后的舞臺上浮現(xiàn)出來“女性主義者”這幾個碩大的、 閃閃發(fā)光的大寫字母。碧昂斯想要表達的東西很多，但是在這里她絕對沒有任何諷刺意味。 “女性主義者”完美體現(xiàn)了碧昂斯一貫的自信和挑釁，這個詞涵蓋了她復(fù)雜多變身份的方方面面——她是流行巨星、性感符號、一個女兒的母親、一位妻子——她和她的丈夫是白宮之外最有勢力的美國黑人夫妻。
And while Queen Bey may be the biggest, most self-contradicting, most multitude-containing force in popular music at the moment, she is hardly alone. Taylor Swift recently described how, under the influence of her friend Lena Dunham, she realized that “I’ve been taking a feminist stance without saying so,” which only confirmed what anyone who had been listening to her smart-girl power ballads already knew. And while there will continue to be hand-wringing about the ways female singers are sexualized — cue the pro and con think pieces about Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Iggy Azalea, Lady Gaga, Kesha and, of course, Madonna, the mother of them all — it is hard to argue with their assertions of power and independence. Take note of the extent and diversity of that list and feel free to add names to it. The dominant voices in pop music now, with the possible exception of rock, which is dad music anyway, belong to women. The conversations rippling under the surfaces of their songs are as often as not with other women — friends, fans, rivals and influences.
碧昂斯女王可能是現(xiàn)在流行音樂界最強大、最自相矛盾、最包容眾生的一股力量。但是她并不是孤身一人。泰勒·斯威夫特(Taylor Swift)最近提到過在她的好友莉娜·杜漢姆(Lena Dunham)的影響下，她意識到“我一直就站在女性主義的立場上，盡管我沒有明說”。她的民謠標(biāo)榜讓聰明女孩從中汲取力量，她的這番話只不過印證了聽她歌的人早就知道的一件事。雖然大家對女性歌手被性感化會一直感到痛心疾首——這從贊揚或貶損妮琪·米娜(Nicki Minaj)、凱蒂·佩里(Katy Perry)、麥莉·賽勒斯(Miley Cyrus)、伊基·阿塞莉婭(Iggy Azalea)、Lady Gaga、凱莎(Kesha ) 和所有這些人的老祖宗麥當(dāng)娜(Madonna)的評論文章中可見一斑——但是很難否認(rèn)這些女性藝人對權(quán)力和獨立的主張。剛才的名單可謂包羅萬象，但是還可以再加進去很多名字?，F(xiàn)今的流行音樂的主導(dǎo)聲音屬于女性。搖滾可能是個例外，但搖滾本來就是老男人的音樂。流動在她們音樂旋律之下的往往是跟別的女性的對話——和朋友、粉絲、對手和影響自己的人。
Similar conversations are taking place in the other arts: in literature, in stand-up comedy and even in film, which lags far behind the others in making room for the creativity of women. But television, the monument valley of the dying patriarchs, may be where the new cultural feminism is making its most decisive stand. There is now more and better television than there ever was before, so much so that “television,” with its connotations of living-room furniture and fixed viewing schedules, is hardly an adequate word for it anymore. When you look beyond the gloomy-man, angry-man, antihero dramas that too many critics reflexively identify as quality television — “House of Cards,” “Game of Thrones,” “True Detective,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “The Newsroom” — you find genre-twisting shows about women and girls in all kinds of places and circumstances, from Brooklyn to prison to the White House. The creative forces behind these programs are often women who have built up the muscle and the résumés to do what they want.
同樣的對話也發(fā)生在別的藝術(shù)形式中：文學(xué)、單人脫口秀，甚至在電影中——而在包容女性創(chuàng)作方面，電影一直大大落后于其它形式。但是新的文化女性主義卻是在電視這一垂死的男性家長的紀(jì)念谷里宣告了自己的鮮明立場。較之以前，現(xiàn)在的電視節(jié)目種類繁多，制作精良，以至于“電視”這個詞再也不只是意味著客廳家具和固定節(jié)目表。許多評論家條件反射般的把關(guān)于抑郁的男人、憤怒的男人和反英雄角色的劇集奉為上佳之作，比如《紙牌屋》(House of Cards)、《權(quán)力的游戲》(Game of Thrones)、《真探》(True Detective)、《大西洋帝國》(Boardwalk Empire)和《新聞編輯室》(The Newsroom)。但是除了這些，還有很多以女性為主角的電視劇，講述了從布魯克林到監(jiān)獄到白宮等各種地點狀態(tài)下的女人和女孩們的故事 。這些節(jié)目幕后的創(chuàng)作人員往往是女性，她們積攢了實力和資歷，可以不受牽制，依照自己的想法行事。
Many people forget that the era of the difficult TV men, of Tony and Don and Heisenberg, was also the age of the difficult TV mom, of shows like “Weeds,” “United States of Tara,” “The Big C” and “Nurse Jackie,” which did not inspire the same level of critical rapture partly because they could be tricky to classify. Most of them occupied the half-hour rather than the hourlong format, and they were happy to swerve between pathos and absurdity. Were they sitcoms or soap operas? This ambiguity, and the stubborn critical habit of refusing to take funny shows and family shows as seriously as cop and lawyer sagas, combined to keep them from getting the attention they deserved. But it also proved tremendously fertile.
許多人忘了這一點：托尼、唐和海森堡(Heisenberg,《絕命毒師》里主人公的別稱——譯注)這些電視里麻煩男人的時代同時也是電視里麻煩母親的時代。像《單身毒媽》(Weeds)、《倒錯人生》(United States of Tara)、《如果還有明天》(The Big C)和《護士當(dāng)家》(Nurse Jackie)這樣的劇沒有讓劇評家們同樣欣喜若狂。這其中一部分原因是這些劇很難被劃分到某個類別。它們不同于一小時劇集的模式，大多數(shù)一集只有半個小時。它們樂于在悲愴和荒唐兩級之間游走 。它們究竟是情景喜劇還是肥皂劇?這種模棱兩可，加上評論家們的固執(zhí)——他們拒絕像看待警匪片和律政片那樣嚴(yán)肅看待滑稽節(jié)目和家庭節(jié)目，使這些劇沒有受到應(yīng)有的重視。但同時，這些劇的模棱兩可又給了它們巨大的發(fā)展空間。
The cable half-hour, which allows for both the concision of the network sitcom and the freedom to talk dirty and show skin, was also home to “Sex and the City,” in retrospect the most influential television series of the early 21st century. “Sex and the City” put female friendship — sisterhood, to give it an old political inflection — at the center of the action, making it the primary source of humor, feeling and narrative complication. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and its spinoffs did this in the 1970s. But Carrie (fig. 7) and her girlfriends could be franker and freer than their precursors, and this made “Sex and the City” the immediate progenitor of “Girls” and “Broad City,” which follow a younger generation of women pursuing romance, money, solidarity and fun in the city.
有線電視的半小時模式使節(jié)目可以像公共臺情景喜劇那樣簡潔，同時又有講臟話和裸露的自由?！队际小?Sex and the City)就是這樣?；叵肫饋恚队际小肥?1世紀(jì)早期最有影響力的電視劇了。這部劇以女性之間的友誼——“姐妹之情”聽上去更有一種舊時代的政治意味——為劇情中心。這種友誼是劇中幽默、情感和敘事曲折的主要源泉。在70年代，瑪麗·泰勒·摩爾秀(The Mary Tyler Moore Show)和它的一系列衍生節(jié)目也做到了這一點。但是凱莉(Carrie, 圖7)和她的女友們比她們的前輩們更直率、更無所顧忌。這使得《欲望都市》成為《都市女郎》(Girls)和《寬鎮(zhèn)日?！防硭?dāng)然的前輩。這兩部新劇講述了年輕一代的女性們?nèi)绾卧诙际欣飳ふ覑矍?、財富、友情和樂趣?/p>
Those series are, unambiguously, comedies, though “Broad City” works in a more improvisational and anarchic vein than “Girls.” Their more inhibited broadcast siblings include “The Mindy Project” and “New Girl.” The “can women be funny?” pseudo-debate of a few years ago, ridiculous at the time, has been settled so decisively it’s as if it never happened. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Amy Schumer, Aubrey Plaza, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes: Case closed. The real issue, in any case, was never the ability of women to get a laugh but rather their right to be as honest as men.
這兩部劇毫無疑問都是喜劇，雖然《寬鎮(zhèn)日?！繁取抖际信伞犯咏o人一種即興、沒有章法的感覺。類似它們但更拘謹(jǐn)一點的電視節(jié)目還有《明迪煩事多》 (The Mindy Project)和《俏妞報到》(New Girl)。“女人能幽默嗎?”這個幾年前的偽命題討論在當(dāng)時就顯得很荒謬， 現(xiàn)在這討論已經(jīng)蓋棺定論，好像從來就沒發(fā)生過。 蒂娜·菲(Tina Fey)、艾米·波勒(Amy Poehler)、艾米·舒摩爾(Amy Schumer)、奧布瑞·普拉扎(Aubrey Plaza)、薩拉·西爾弗曼(Sarah Silverman)和旺達·塞克斯(Wanda Sykes )——這些都是上面那個問題的答案。其實，真正的問題從來不是女人們能否博人一笑，而是她們有沒有權(quán)利像男人們一樣坦誠。
And also to be as rebellious, as obnoxious and as childish. Why should boys be the only ones with the right to revolt? Not that the new girls are exactly Thelma and Louise. Just as the men passed through the stage of sincere rebellion to arrive at a stage of infantile refusal, so, too, have the women progressed by means of regression. After all, traditional adulthood was always the rawest deal for them.
除了坦誠，她們也能像男人一樣叛逆、令人討厭和幼稚嗎?誰說只有男孩們才能反叛?我并不是說新一代女孩就是《末路狂花》一模一樣的翻版。就像男人們從真心實意的叛逆退化到幼稚的不接受現(xiàn)實，女人們的進化其實也是一個退化過程。畢竟，傳統(tǒng)意義上的成年人狀態(tài)對她們來說太不公平 。
Which is not to say that the newer styles of women’s humor are simple mirror images of what men have been doing. On the contrary. “Broad City,” with the irrepressible friendship of the characters played by Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson at its center, functions simultaneously as an extension and a critique of the slacker-doofus bro-posse comedy refined (by which I mean exactly the opposite) by “Workaholics” or the long-running web-based mini-sitcom “Jake and Amir.” The freedom of Abbi and Ilana, as of Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna and Jessa on “Girls” — a freedom to be idiotic, selfish and immature as well as sexually adventurous and emotionally reckless — is less an imitation of male rebellion than a rebellion against the roles it has prescribed. In Fiedler’s stunted American mythos, where fathers were tyrants or drunkards, the civilizing, disciplining work of being a grown-up fell to the women: good girls like Becky Thatcher, who kept Huck’s pal Tom Sawyer from going too far astray; smothering maternal figures like the kind but repressive Widow Douglas; paragons of sensible judgment like Mark Twain’s wife, Livy, of whom he said he would “quit wearing socks if she thought them immoral.”
這并不是說女人們新的幽默風(fēng)格是對男性的簡單模仿。相反，在《寬鎮(zhèn)日?！防?，由伊拉娜·格雷澤(Ilana Glazer)和艾比·雅各布森(Abbi Jacobson)飾演的兩位角色之間的深厚友情是全劇的中心。這友情同時延展并批判了懶鬼蠢漢扎堆的哥兒們喜劇?！豆ぷ骺瘛?Workaholics) 和在網(wǎng)絡(luò)上一直播出的迷你情景喜劇《杰克和阿米爾》(Jake and Amir)正在把哥兒們喜劇發(fā)揚光大(我是在說反話)。伊拉娜和艾比的自由，還有《都市女郎》里的漢娜(Hannah)、瑪尼(Marnie)、芍珊娜 (Shoshanna)和杰薩(Jessa)的自由，是可以自由地愚蠢、自私、不成熟;自由地探索兩性關(guān)系，自由地愛恨。她們的叛逆不是對男性叛逆的模仿，而是對她們所被指定的社會角色的叛逆。費德勒認(rèn)為成長受阻是美國文學(xué)的一大主題。在美國文學(xué)作品中，父親是暴君和酒鬼，作為一個成年人維持文明秩序的任務(wù)則落到了女性身上。在美國文學(xué)中有像貝琪·撒切爾(Becky Thatcher)這樣的好姑娘，她牽制住哈克的朋友湯姆·索亞(Tom Sawyer)，防止他誤入歧途得太遠(yuǎn);還有像道格拉斯寡婦(Widow Douglas)那樣善良但卻管得太多，讓人透不過氣來的母親形象;還有像馬克·吐溫的妻子麗薇(Livy)那樣通曉事理的典范—關(guān)于他的妻子，吐溫說過這么一句話：“如果她說穿襪子是不道德的行為，那我就會再也不穿。”
Looking at those figures and their descendants in more recent times — and at the vulnerable patriarchs lumbering across the screens to die — we can see that to be an American adult has always been to be a symbolic figure in someone else’s coming-of-age story. And that’s no way to live. It is a kind of moral death in a culture that claims youthful self-invention as the greatest value. We can now avoid this fate. The elevation of every individual’s inarguable likes and dislikes over formal critical discourse, the unassailable ascendancy of the fan, has made children of us all. We have our favorite toys, books, movies, video games, songs, and we are as apt to turn to them for comfort as for challenge or enlightenment.
通過這些女性人物和她們的近代后輩們，還有電視上那些不堪一擊、窮途末路的男性家長們，我們可以看出，做為一個美國成年人，意味著總是淪為別人成長故事中的符號性人物。這可不是生活之道。在一個把人生第二春視為最大價值的文化中，這無異于一種道德死亡。而現(xiàn)在我們能避免這一命運。粉絲勢力的穩(wěn)固壯大，以及個人不容爭辯的喜好憎惡蓋過正式的評論話語， 讓我們每一個人都成了孩子。我們有最喜愛的玩具、書籍、電影、電玩和歌曲。我們需要慰藉時會想到這些娛樂，在需要挑戰(zhàn)和啟迪時也同樣如此。
Y.A. fiction is the least of it. It is now possible to conceive of adulthood as the state of being forever young. Childhood, once a condition of limited autonomy and deferred pleasure (“wait until you’re older”), is now a zone of perpetual freedom and delight. Grown people feel no compulsion to put away childish things: We can live with our parents, go to summer camp, play dodge ball, collect dolls and action figures and watch cartoons to our hearts’ content. These symptoms of arrested development will also be signs that we are freer, more honest and happier than the uptight fools who let go of such pastimes.
青少年文學(xué)只不過是最小的一方面?，F(xiàn)在我們有可能把成年人狀態(tài)想象成一種永遠(yuǎn)青春的狀態(tài)。童年曾經(jīng)是一種有限自主和推遲享樂(“等到你長大了。”)的階段，現(xiàn)在是永遠(yuǎn)的自由和快樂。成人們不用放棄孩童之事：我們住在父母家，去夏令營，玩閃避球，收集娃娃和動作人偶，隨心所欲地看卡通片。這些成長受阻的癥狀也是我們比那些放棄這些消遣的古板傻瓜們更自由、更誠實、更幸福的標(biāo)志。
