世界真的需要“超級(jí)英雄”嗎?

Super-Dreams of an Alternate World Order

世界真的需要“超級(jí)英雄”嗎?

EVILDOERS, beware! You cannot hide from the modern-day superhero! And neither can anyone else heading to the movies this summer. “Marvel’s The Avengers” which opened on May 4, reached $300 million in domestic ticket revenue faster than any other movie in history and tied the record for fastest $1 billion worldwide gross. On Tuesday, Sony will unleash the newest version of another venerable Marvel property, “The Amazing Spider-Man,” followed later in the month by “The Dark Knight Rises,” a Warner Brothers release and the third (and possibly the last) of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies. The summer of 2012 is hardly unusual. The current superhero boom dates to the dawn of the century — Bryan Singer’s “X-Men” came out in 2000, Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” in 2002 — and shows no sign of abating. The New York Times’s chief movie critics, A. O. Scott and Manohla Dargis, ponder the meaning of an apparently invincible genre.

壞蛋們，你們要小心了!你們躲不開(kāi)當(dāng)今時(shí)代的超級(jí)英雄。當(dāng)然，這個(gè)夏天去看電影的人們也一樣。5月4日上映的Marvel出版公司作品《復(fù)仇者聯(lián)盟》(The Avengers)，已經(jīng)成為電影史上本土票房最快達(dá)到3億美元的電影，也追平了全球總收入最快達(dá)到10億美元的紀(jì)錄。7月3日，索尼出品了另一部 Marvel經(jīng)典作品最新版本——《超凡蜘蛛俠》(The Amazing Spider-Man);6月稍晚時(shí)候，華納兄弟也推出了第三部(也可能是最后一部)由克里斯托弗·諾蘭(Christopher Nolan)執(zhí)導(dǎo)的蝙蝠俠電影《黑暗騎士崛起》(The Dark Knight Rises)。并不是說(shuō)2012年的夏天有什么特殊。當(dāng)今的超級(jí)英雄電影潮流從本世紀(jì)初就已經(jīng)開(kāi)始：布萊恩·辛格(Bryan Singer)的《X戰(zhàn)警》(X-Men)在2000年就上映了;薩姆·雷米(Sam Raimi)的《蜘蛛俠》(Spider-Man)出現(xiàn)在2002年。目前，這股潮流還絲毫沒(méi)有減弱的跡象。下面，《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》的兩位首席影評(píng)人A.O. 斯科特(A.O. Scott)和曼諾拉·達(dá)吉斯(Manohla Dargis)就一起來(lái)探討，這種看似不敗的電影類型到底意味著什么。

A O. SCOTT Our superheroes have been around for a very long time — Superman and Batman were born in the ’30s; Spidey and many of his Marvel brethren are children of the ’60s — but they appear to be more powerful than ever. That is partly the result of corporate strategy and canny marketing, but it’s also clear that these serial narratives about regular folks gifted (or cursed) with extraordinary abilities and menaced by diabolical enemies exercise a powerful hold on the popular imagination. Some of the movie world’s most talented actors, directors and writers have succumbed in the past decade to the pulpy, allegorical allure of comic books. Critics have too.

A.O.斯科特 我們這些“超級(jí)英雄”由來(lái)已久。超人和蝙蝠俠是在20世紀(jì)30年代誕生的;蜘蛛俠和很多其他Marvel漫畫的英雄則是60年代的產(chǎn)物。但如今他們似乎比以往任何時(shí)候都更有影響力。一部分原因是電影公司的整體策略和精明的市場(chǎng)運(yùn)作，不過(guò)還有另外一點(diǎn)非常清楚，這些關(guān)于普通人幸運(yùn)(或不幸)地?fù)碛辛顺芰?，然后與邪惡敵人斗法的故事，牢牢地占據(jù)了公眾的幻想空間。在過(guò)去10年里，電影界里一些最有天賦的演員、導(dǎo)演和編劇都被漫畫書(shū)里面俗套的寓言故事所吸引，影評(píng)人也不例外。

MANOHLA DARGIS On one level the allure of comic book movies is obvious, because, among other attractions, they tap into deeply rooted national myths, including that of American Eden (Superman’s Smallville); the Western hero (who’s separate from the world and also its savior); and American exceptionalism (that this country is different from all others because of its mission to make “the world safe for democracy,” as Woodrow Wilson and, I believe, Iron Man, both put it). Both Depression babies, Superman and Batman, were initially hard-boiled types, and it’s worth remembering that the DC in DC Comics was for Detective Comics. Since then the suits have largely remained the same even as the figures wearing them have changed with their times. Every age has the superhero it wants, needs or deserves.

曼諾拉·達(dá)吉斯 在某個(gè)層面上，漫畫的魅力是顯而易見(jiàn)的。它們挖掘的是一些在國(guó)民心目中根深蒂固的神話，比如關(guān)于美國(guó)伊甸園(《超人前傳》)，關(guān)于西部英雄(那些與世隔絕卻又能拯救世界的人們)，還有關(guān)于美國(guó)優(yōu)越主義(就是伍德羅·威爾遜[Woodrow Wilson]說(shuō)過(guò)的，而且我相信《鋼鐵俠》想說(shuō)的也一樣，這個(gè)國(guó)家與其他國(guó)家都不一樣，因?yàn)樗袚?dān)著“為民主而捍衛(wèi)世界”的使命)。超人和蝙蝠俠都誕生于大蕭條時(shí)期，一開(kāi)始就是那種堅(jiān)硬、沒(méi)有感情的角色類型。有一點(diǎn)值得說(shuō)說(shuō)，所謂的“DC漫畫”(DC Comics)中的“DC”指的是“偵探漫畫”(Detective Comics)。從那時(shí)開(kāi)始，飾演這些角色的人會(huì)隨著時(shí)代而改變，但他們的制服一直保持著原樣。每個(gè)時(shí)代都有它所渴望的、需要的和值得擁有的英雄。

Comic book movies are also fun (except when they’re not) and often easy viewing (except when they make your head hurt). They’re also blunt: A guy in a unitard pummels another guy — pow! — and saves the day, the girl and the studio. I like some comic-book movies very much, dislike others. But as a film lover I am frustrated by how the current system of flooding theaters with the same handful of titles limits my choices. (According to boxofficemojo.com “The Avengers” opened on 4,349 screens in the United States and Canada, close to 1 in 10.) The success of these movies also shores up a false market rationale that’s used to justify blockbusters in general: that is, these movies make money, therefore people like them; people like them, therefore these movies are made.

漫畫改編電影通常很有娛樂(lè)性(有些也可能沒(méi)有)，并且常常通俗易懂(也有些會(huì)讓你頭疼)。而且它們往往很直白：一個(gè)人穿著緊身衣，暴打另外一個(gè)人 ——啪!——然后立馬挽救了危機(jī)，救回了女孩，也拯救了電影公司。有些漫畫電影我很喜歡，有些則不喜歡。不過(guò)作為影迷，現(xiàn)狀令我很沮喪，電影院里來(lái)來(lái)去去滿是那幾個(gè)系列，選擇范圍很有限。(根據(jù)boxofficemojo.com所示，《復(fù)仇者聯(lián)盟》開(kāi)映時(shí)占據(jù)美國(guó)和加拿大的4349塊銀幕，接近總數(shù)的一成。)這些電影的成功也為一種錯(cuò)誤的市場(chǎng)邏輯提供了依據(jù)，人們以此來(lái)為更廣義的重磅大片開(kāi)脫：因?yàn)檫@些電影能賺錢，于是人們也喜歡它;人們喜歡這些電影，于是它們才會(huì)被拍出來(lái)。

SCOTT And yet these stories do have some appeal, beyond the familiarity of the characters and the relentlessness of the marketing campaigns. As you suggest, they strike mythic, archetypal chords, and cater to a persistent hunger for large-scale, accessible narratives of good and evil.

A.O.斯科特 不過(guò)這些電影確實(shí)有一些吸引人的地方，不僅是因?yàn)槎炷茉數(shù)慕巧湍切┛褶Z濫炸的市場(chǎng)推廣。就像你說(shuō)的，它們借一些有原型的虛構(gòu)事物來(lái)觸動(dòng)觀眾，用大場(chǎng)面和簡(jiǎn)單的正邪對(duì)立故事來(lái)迎合觀眾持續(xù)的需求。

It’s telling that Hollywood placed a big bet on superheroes at a time when two of its traditional heroic genres — the western and the war movie — were in eclipse, partly because they seemed ideologically out of kilter with the times. The studios turned to fantasy, science fiction and a kind of filmmaking that was at once technologically advanced and charmingly old-fashioned. Along with “Star Wars” and Indiana Jones there was Superman, played, starting in 1978, by the square-jawed, relatively unknown Christopher Reeve.

當(dāng)初，由于在意識(shí)形態(tài)上與時(shí)代漸漸脫節(jié)，好萊塢兩種傳統(tǒng)的英雄片類型——西部片和戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)片——已經(jīng)日漸式微，好萊塢選在此時(shí)將大賭注押在了超級(jí)英雄片上，這很能說(shuō)明問(wèn)題。各大電影公司轉(zhuǎn)向奇幻片和科幻題材，這樣的電影制作既在技術(shù)上領(lǐng)先，又具有懷舊的魅力。1978年開(kāi)始，與“星球大戰(zhàn)”(Star Wars)和“印尼安納·瓊斯”(Indiana Jones)系列同時(shí)代出現(xiàn)的“超人”系列，由長(zhǎng)著一張國(guó)字臉、當(dāng)時(shí)名不見(jiàn)經(jīng)傳的克里斯托弗·里夫(Christopher Reeve)主演。

The four “Superman” movies with Reeve vary in quality, but I still have a soft spot for their blend of sincere romanticism, swashbuckling action and unabashed silliness. The Batman series that began in 1989 and continued (or rather rapidly declined) into the ’90s was campier, kinkier and more self-conscious, but both of those franchises were playful in a way that seems to have gone out of fashion lately. The Joker’s mocking question from “The Dark Knight” — why so serious? — echoes through the past 10 years, when, with a few exceptions, there has been very little that is comic in comic book movies. Instead these movies have mostly been angry, anxious and obsessed with the idea of revenge.

由里夫主演的四部“超人”系列電影在質(zhì)量上參差不齊，但它真摯的浪漫、裝腔作勢(shì)的動(dòng)作和毫不害羞的傻氣，仍然能夠觸動(dòng)我。1989年開(kāi)始的“蝙蝠俠”系列，在90年代繼續(xù)出現(xiàn)(確切地說(shuō)是急劇退步)時(shí)，變得更造作、怪誕，也更忸怩。但是這兩部改編系列都很有玩鬧精神，這可能在現(xiàn)今已經(jīng)有點(diǎn)過(guò)時(shí)。 “小丑”(Joker)在《黑暗騎士》(The Dark Knight)中那個(gè)嬉皮笑臉的問(wèn)句——“干嘛那么嚴(yán)肅?”(why so serious?)——在過(guò)去10年里倒是廣為流傳，但除了這些少數(shù)例外，很多漫畫電影當(dāng)中的漫畫成分已經(jīng)非常少。相反，這些電影大多變得憤怒、不安并且對(duì)復(fù)仇的想法念念不忘。

Perhaps this is a reflection of the state of the world after Sept. 11, 2001. Certainly the superhero movies of today are, like the gangster pictures of the Depression and the westerns of the ’50s, a screen onto which our society projects its fears and dreams. But I also think that the grimness arises from another source. When hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, it is never a laughing matter.

或許，這反映了2001年9月11日之后的世界。無(wú)疑，今天的超級(jí)英雄電影也像大蕭條時(shí)代的黑幫電影和50年代的西部片一樣，把我們這個(gè)社會(huì)的恐懼和幻想都投射到了銀幕上。不過(guò)我也覺(jué)得，這種陰暗還來(lái)自于另一個(gè)方面：幾億美元的投資，這可不是鬧著玩兒的。

DARGIS The current superhero glut may have something to do with the human appetite for tales of good and evil, but there’s no question that the corporate appetite for bigger returns is insatiable. And one thing we do know is that superhero movies sell not just theater tickets but also generate multiple revenue streams (pay-per-view, toys, video games, international distribution). People were excited to see “The Avengers,” but how could they not be? We were bombarded with the movie for years in advance. As a Marvel executive told Forbes, “Every Marvel movie since 2008 was created with the full intention of this super franchise.” And then there’s the 24/7 advertising and Marvel’s corporate “partnerships” with Walmart (which is peddling some 600 “Avengers” products), Acura, Harley-Davidson, Hasbro, Target — I mean, there was no escaping it.

曼諾拉·達(dá)吉斯 當(dāng)前超級(jí)英雄電影的過(guò)?？赡芨祟愊矚g看正邪對(duì)立的故事有關(guān)，不過(guò)電影公司對(duì)于高回報(bào)的胃口肯定也是貪得無(wú)厭的。我們知道的一點(diǎn)是超級(jí)英雄電影不光是賣門票，還能帶來(lái)各種各樣的收入來(lái)源(付費(fèi)電視、玩具、電玩、海外發(fā)行權(quán)等)?！稄?fù)仇者聯(lián)盟》讓人很興奮，怎么可能不興奮呢?我們提前好幾年就開(kāi)始接受這部電影的轟炸。就像Marvel的一位高管對(duì)《福布斯》(Forbes)雜志所說(shuō)的：“從2008年起，每一部Marvel電影都是為了這一部超級(jí)系列而制作的。”然后還有每天全天候的廣告，還有Marvel與各方公司的“合作伙伴”關(guān)系，包括沃爾瑪(它正在售賣約600種“復(fù)仇者”的產(chǎn)品)、謳歌(Acura)、哈雷(Harley-Davidson)、孩之寶(Hasbro)、塔吉特百貨(Target)等等——我是說(shuō)，你根本逃不掉。

SCOTT There is something paradoxical about the modern ascendance of the superhero: world domination is what these guys were born to fight, and here they are chasing after it in a fairly literal way. Their rise is partly, like the rise of Hollywood itself, a great American success story. Back in the 1930s a bunch of writers, illustrators and entrepreneurs discovered a fertile and profitable intersection between the old pulps and the emerging youth culture. The creators of the first superheroes were outsiders — the children of immigrants or Jewish refugees from Europe — and their creations were marginal to everything respectable in the culture. Elite opinion regarded comic books as juvenile, disreputable, even dangerous, according to Dr. Fredric Wertham’s influential “Seduction of the Innocent,” which inspired Senate hearings in 1954.

A.O.斯科特 超級(jí)英雄在當(dāng)下時(shí)代的統(tǒng)治地位其實(shí)也有些自相矛盾：這些角色的存在是為了讓世界不被任何人占領(lǐng)，但如今他們卻又實(shí)實(shí)在在地想要占領(lǐng)世界。他們的崛起也跟好萊塢的崛起一樣，某種程度上是一個(gè)美國(guó)式的成功故事。當(dāng)初在20世紀(jì)30年代，一群作家、插圖畫家和創(chuàng)業(yè)者發(fā)現(xiàn)在老套的通俗讀物和新興的青年文化之間有一個(gè)交集，能帶來(lái)大量的作品和巨大的利潤(rùn)。最初創(chuàng)作超級(jí)英雄的人都是邊緣族群——新移民的子女或者歐洲的猶太難民——而他們的作品并不受到主流文化的尊重。根據(jù)弗雷德里克·魏特漢博士(Dr. Fredric Wertham)《誘惑純真》(Seduction of the Innocent)一書(shū)所說(shuō)，精英觀點(diǎn)認(rèn)為漫畫書(shū)是幼稚、有失體面甚至是危險(xiǎn)的，這本書(shū)影響力頗大，在1954年參議院還專門就此舉行了聽(tīng)證會(huì)。

But the audience for comics continued to grow through the 1960s — what fans call the silver age of Marvel — and beyond, and the form has shed most of its bad reputation. Comics studies is now a legitimate academic field, and comic books may be weathering the collapse of print better than most of their paper-based kin. The musclebound paladins with their special capabilities still anchor the form. They inspire creative labor and fan loyalty as almost nothing else does. The movies have, as it were, supersized all of this, turning a cabal of fans into a mighty planetary army.

不過(guò)一直到20世紀(jì)60年代，漫畫的讀者人數(shù)都在持續(xù)增長(zhǎng)——漫畫迷們把那個(gè)時(shí)代稱作Marvel的白銀時(shí)代——而且，這種藝術(shù)形式已經(jīng)擺脫了大部分的壞名聲。漫畫研究現(xiàn)在是一個(gè)正經(jīng)的學(xué)術(shù)領(lǐng)域，漫畫書(shū)也似乎比其他大多數(shù)同道更有能力邁過(guò)紙媒?jīng)]落這一道檻。擁有一身肌肉和超能力的游俠仍然是這種藝術(shù)形式的重心。它所能吸引的創(chuàng)作人才和粉絲的忠誠(chéng)度，幾乎沒(méi)有任何其他東西可以比擬。而它們的電影更將此放大了很多倍，將一小撮的粉絲集團(tuán)變成了全球性的浩大軍團(tuán)。

And yet ... I have to say that the hegemony of the superheroes leaves an increasingly sour taste in my mouth, and that their commercial ascendance has produced, with a few exceptions, diminishing creative returns. The scrappy underdogs and pulpy tales have turned into something else, and I wonder if some of the fun, and much of the soul, has been lost.

然而話說(shuō)回來(lái)……我不得不說(shuō)這些超級(jí)英雄的主導(dǎo)地位讓我覺(jué)得越來(lái)越不是滋味，他們?cè)谏虡I(yè)上的優(yōu)勢(shì)也讓創(chuàng)造力逐漸退化，只有少數(shù)的例外。那些勇于反抗的弱者和通俗的故事正在變味。我在想，它是不是已經(jīng)不像原來(lái)那么有娛樂(lè)性了，并且也失去了大部分的靈魂。

DARGIS There was a time when motion pictures were considered disreputable too, bad for the moral and psychological health of not just (vulnerable) children but also (weak) women. Just like movies, comic books have undergone cycles of popularity, denunciation and legitimization that reflect larger shifts in mass and popular culture. Wertham’s anti-comic message was one facet in the high culture versus popular culture debates, one that was also expressed by a series of essays Edmund Wilson wrote, beginning in 1944, for The New Yorker, the first being “Why Do People Read Detective Stories?” He was focusing on a popular genre, which he characterized as a waste of time but also, amusingly, did read himself. “Friends, we represent a minority, but Literature is on our side,” Wilson wrote. “There is no need to bore ourselves with this rubbish.”

曼諾拉·達(dá)吉斯 曾有過(guò)一段時(shí)間，電影也被認(rèn)為是有失高雅，對(duì)(脆弱的)兒童和(柔弱的)婦女的道德和心理健康不利。漫畫也像電影一樣，經(jīng)過(guò)被批判、被認(rèn)可和流行起來(lái)的過(guò)程，這也反映了更廣大的流行文化的變化。魏特漢反漫畫的論調(diào)在高雅文化與流行文化的討論當(dāng)中，只是其中一個(gè)方面，埃德蒙德·威爾遜(Edmund Wilson)從1944年開(kāi)始為《紐約客》寫的一系列隨筆中也表達(dá)過(guò)相仿的觀點(diǎn)。第一篇就是《人們?yōu)槭裁磿?huì)讀偵探故事?》(Why Do People Read Detective Stories?)，他著眼于這種當(dāng)時(shí)很受歡迎的題材，認(rèn)為讀這種書(shū)純屬浪費(fèi)時(shí)間，不過(guò)有趣的是，他自己也在讀。“朋友們，我們代表的是少數(shù)人，但文學(xué)是站在我們這一邊的，”威爾遜寫道：“我們沒(méi)有必要忍受這些垃圾。”

Wilson’s second line, by the way, pretty much sums up my take on “The Avengers,” a movie that I thought was almost unrelievedly dull.

說(shuō)起來(lái)，威爾遜的后半句話多少概括了我對(duì)《復(fù)仇者聯(lián)盟》的看法，我覺(jué)得這部電影實(shí)在是部大悶片。

SCOTT Don’t tell Samuel L. Jackson!

A.O.斯科特 這話可別告訴塞繆爾·L.杰克遜(Samuel L. Jackson)啊!

But the kind of condescending dismissal practiced by Wilson and the cultural panic expressed by Wertham exist nowadays almost entirely as straw men. A critic who voices skepticism about a comic book movie — or any other expensive, large-scale, boy-targeted entertainment — is likely to be called out for snobbery or priggishness, to be accused of clinging to snobbish, irrelevant standards and trying to spoil everyone else’s fun.

不過(guò)像威爾遜這種高傲的否定和魏特漢所表達(dá)的這種文化恐慌，在今天幾乎無(wú)足輕重。如果一個(gè)批評(píng)家對(duì)漫畫電影——或者任何高成本、大場(chǎng)面并且以男孩為目標(biāo)受眾的娛樂(lè)片——表示懷疑，他很可能會(huì)被罵成是自大狂或者勢(shì)利眼，自己抱殘守缺，還想剝奪其他人的娛樂(lè)。

What the defensive fans fail or refuse to grasp is that they have won the argument. Far from being an underdog genre defended by a scrappy band of cultural renegades, the superhero spectacle represents a staggering concentration of commercial, corporate power. The ideology supporting this power is a familiar kind of disingenuous populism. The studios are just giving the people what they want! Foolproof evidence can be found in the box office returns: a billion dollars! Who can argue with that? Nobody really does. Superhero movies are taken seriously, reviewed respectfully and enjoyed by plenty of Edmund Wilson types.

為這類電影辯護(hù)的粉絲們不能或者說(shuō)不愿意發(fā)現(xiàn)的是，他們其實(shí)已經(jīng)贏了。超級(jí)英雄電影如今絕不是一小群文化異教徒所捍衛(wèi)的邊緣電影類型，而是代表著商業(yè)和企業(yè)的高度集權(quán)。支撐這種集權(quán)的意識(shí)形態(tài)正是似曾相識(shí)的偽平民主義。電影公司只不過(guò)是在供應(yīng)人們想要的東西!10億美元的票房回報(bào)就是無(wú)可辯駁的證據(jù)!誰(shuí)能跟這個(gè)爭(zhēng)辯?也沒(méi)有人會(huì)去爭(zhēng)辯。超級(jí)英雄電影正在受到認(rèn)真的對(duì)待，得到恭敬的評(píng)價(jià)，還贏得了與埃德蒙德·威爾遜身份接近的精英的青睞。

DARGIS One problem is that public intellectuals like Wilson no longer have the forums they once did. There are oppositional voices, yes, yet they can be difficult to hear in the contemporary media context, with everyone always selling the exact same thing at the exact same moment. A recent editorial in The Columbia Journalism Review points to a reason: “Six companies dominate TV news, radio, online, movies, and publishing. Another eight or nine control most of the nation’s newspapers.” The media consolidation that traces back to the Reagan years has had enormous deleterious consequences on American movies. We’re at a paradoxical moment when new digital technologies have created more and more stuff, movies included, even as the consolidation of the media gives us fewer real choices.

曼諾拉·達(dá)吉斯 有一個(gè)問(wèn)題是像威爾遜這樣的公共知識(shí)分子已經(jīng)不再有以前那種討論空間了。是的，反對(duì)聲音還是有，但在目前這樣的媒體語(yǔ)境下，它們很難被聽(tīng)見(jiàn)，因?yàn)榇蠹叶荚谕粫r(shí)間賣一模一樣的東西?！陡鐐惐葋喰侣勗u(píng)論》(Columbia Journalism Review)最近的一篇社論點(diǎn)出了一個(gè)原因：“六家公司統(tǒng)治了這個(gè)國(guó)家的電視新聞、廣播、網(wǎng)絡(luò)、電影和出版業(yè)。另外八九家公司則控制了大部分的報(bào)紙。” 可以追溯到里根時(shí)代的媒體合并現(xiàn)象，給美國(guó)電影帶來(lái)了巨大的危害。我們正處在一個(gè)非常矛盾的時(shí)刻，新的數(shù)碼技術(shù)正在創(chuàng)造越來(lái)越多的東西，也包括電影，但是不斷合并的媒體卻讓我們真正擁有的選擇越來(lái)越少。

And when everyone is selling the same thing — one week Spider-Man, the next Batman — who, as you put it, can argue with that, especially when everyone is making so much money? One complicating factor is the corporate appropriation of fan culture. In a March article on how Lionsgate promoted “The Hunger Games,” our colleague Brooks Barnes reported that the studio had assigned a publicist to cultivate fan blogs. It also sponsored a sweepstakes to bring five fans to the set, but it didn’t invite reporters, because it didn’t want fans to think, as Mr. Barnes wrote, that they were being fed something through professional filters. “People used to be O.K. with studios telling them what to like,” Danielle DePalma, the company’s senior vice president for digital marketing, said. “Not anymore. Now it’s ‘You don’t tell us, we tell you.’ ” I don’t know if she said this with a straight face, but it made me laugh.

當(dāng)所有人都在賣同樣的東西時(shí)——這個(gè)星期是“蜘蛛俠”，下個(gè)星期是“蝙蝠俠”——而且大家都賺那么多錢，就像你說(shuō)的，誰(shuí)還能跟它爭(zhēng)辯?還有讓這件事更加復(fù)雜的一個(gè)元素，是電影公司對(duì)于影迷的導(dǎo)向作用。三月份的時(shí)候，我們的同事布魯克斯·巴恩斯(Brooks Barnes)在一篇文章中報(bào)道了獅門影業(yè)(Lionsgate)是怎樣宣傳《饑餓游戲》(The Hunger Games)的，里面說(shuō)到電影公司還委派了一位公關(guān)人員來(lái)維護(hù)影迷博客。它還贊助了一個(gè)抽獎(jiǎng)，帶五個(gè)幸運(yùn)影迷去片場(chǎng)探班，但是它沒(méi)有邀請(qǐng)記者，據(jù)巴恩斯所寫，它是不想讓影迷覺(jué)得自己是被專業(yè)人士牽著走。“在過(guò)去人們?cè)敢庾岆娪肮緛?lái)告訴他們應(yīng)該喜歡哪些電影，”該公司的網(wǎng)絡(luò)營(yíng)銷資深副總裁丹妮埃爾·德帕爾瑪(Danielle DePalma)曾說(shuō)，“現(xiàn)在不能這樣了?，F(xiàn)在影迷會(huì)說(shuō)，‘不是你來(lái)告訴我們，而是我們來(lái)告訴你’。”我不知道她說(shuō)這話的時(shí)候表情是不是嚴(yán)肅的，反正我是笑了。

SCOTT But comic book fans need to feel perpetually beleaguered and disenfranchised, marginalized by phantom elites who want to confiscate their hard-won pleasures. And this resentment — which I have a feeling I’m provoking more of here — finds its way into the stories themselves, expressed either as glowering self-pity or bullying machismo. There are exceptions: Mark Ruffalo’s soulful Hulk (though not Eric Bana’s or Edward Norton’s); most of the X-Men. But even that crew of mutant misfits turned protectors of humanity exists in a circumscribed imaginative space. As Ta-Nehisi Coates pointed out in a New York Times Op-Ed article last summer about “X-Men: First Class,” that film noticeably refrained from connecting its chronicle of prejudice and outsider-dom in postwar America to the contemporaneous drama of the civil rights movement.

A.O.斯科特 不過(guò)漫畫迷卻要一直覺(jué)得自己被圍攻，權(quán)利被剝奪，覺(jué)得自己被那些幻想出來(lái)的精英邊緣化了，扼殺他們辛苦得來(lái)的快樂(lè)。而這種怨恨——我感覺(jué)我在這兒也能激起更多——也融入到了故事本身，通常表現(xiàn)為一種憤怒的自憐或者強(qiáng)勢(shì)的男子氣。有一些是例外：比如馬克·魯法洛(Mark Ruffalo)演的那個(gè)很有靈魂的綠巨人(但埃里克·巴納[Eric Bana]和愛(ài)德華·諾頓[Edward Norton]演的就沒(méi)有了)，比如大多數(shù)的X戰(zhàn)警。但即使是這一群由社會(huì)邊緣人突變成異種來(lái)保護(hù)人類的人物，也只是活在一個(gè)很局限的想象空間里。就像塔那西斯·科茨(Ta-Nehisi Coates)在《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》一篇關(guān)于《X戰(zhàn)警：第一戰(zhàn)》(X-Men: First Class)的專欄里寫到的，可以察覺(jué)得到，那部電影在描寫戰(zhàn)后美國(guó)的偏見(jiàn)和邊緣社會(huì)時(shí)，刻意沒(méi)有將它和同時(shí)代的民權(quán)運(yùn)動(dòng)事件聯(lián)系起來(lái)。

To do so would have been too risky. And much as they may fetishize courage and individualism, these movies are above all devoted to the protection of a status quo only tangentially (or tendentiously) related to truth, justice and the American Way. The DC and Marvel superheroes, champions of democracy in the ’40s and ’50s and pop rebels in the ’60s and ’70s, have become, in the 21st century, avatars of reaction.

如果它要那樣做的話，就太冒險(xiǎn)了。姑且不論這些電影多么鼓吹勇氣和個(gè)人主義，它們首先還是要維護(hù)現(xiàn)狀，于是對(duì)于真相、真理和美式思維的觸及只能是點(diǎn)到即止(或者甚至帶有偏向性)。DC和Marvel的超級(jí)英雄在40和50年代是民主的捍衛(wèi)者，在60和70年代是流行文化的叛逆者，在21世紀(jì)，他們就變成了反擊者的象征。

DARGIS They’re certainly avatars of reaction in how they justify and perpetuate the industry’s entrenched sexism. You just have to scan the spandex bulges in “The Avengers” to see that superhero movies remain a big boys’ club, with few women and girls allowed. Yes, there are female superheroes on screen, like Jean Grey from the “X-Men” series, but they tend not to drive the stories, while female superheroes with their own movies never dominate the box office. Most women in superhero movies exist to smile indulgently at the super-hunk, to be rescued and to flaunt their assets, like Scarlett Johansson’s character in “The Avengers,” whose biggest superpower, to judge by the on- and off-screen attention lavished on it, was her super-rump.

曼諾拉·達(dá)吉斯 他們當(dāng)然是反擊的象征，看看他們?cè)鯓泳S護(hù)這個(gè)行業(yè)根深蒂固的性別歧視就知道。你只要看看《復(fù)仇者聯(lián)盟》里那些緊身衣里面的肌肉就會(huì)明白，超級(jí)英雄電影仍然是大男孩的天下，只有很少的女人和女孩可以加入。是的，銀幕上也是有女性超級(jí)英雄的，比如“X戰(zhàn)警”系列里的琴·格蕾(Jean Grey)，不過(guò)她們通常不會(huì)是故事的主線，而以女性超級(jí)英雄為主角的電影也通常不會(huì)在票房上占主導(dǎo)地位。超級(jí)英雄電影里女性的存在大多數(shù)是為了對(duì)著超級(jí)大塊頭笑一笑，被拯救，還有炫耀一下她們的身材，就像《復(fù)仇者聯(lián)盟》里斯嘉麗·約翰森(Scarlett Johansson)的角色。從戲里戲外她所得到的關(guān)注來(lái)看，她最大的超能力就是她的“超級(jí)屁股”。

Historically the comic book industry survived partly because its superheroes changed. In the early 1960s Stan Lee helped come up with a new kind of long-underwear character, Spider-Man, an imperfect super-teenager whose failings helped bring young-adult readers and turn Marvel into a powerhouse. In 1986 Frank Miller created “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns,” which ushered in a new, grittier bat-freak that influenced Mr. Nolan’s resurrection of the Batman movies. Yet, like the movie industry, the comic industry remains staggeringly male dominated. As Laura Hudson wrote in December on the online site ComicsAlliance, both DC and Marvel “illustrate two different but interrelated problems: the lack of women playing major roles in the comics, and the lack of women playing major roles in creating them.”

在歷史上，漫畫產(chǎn)業(yè)之所以能生存下來(lái)，一部分原因是它的超級(jí)英雄一直在變。20世紀(jì)60年代初期，斯坦·李(Stan Lee)參與創(chuàng)造了全新的緊身衣人物蜘蛛俠，這個(gè)并非完人的超級(jí)少年身上的缺點(diǎn)吸引了年輕的成年讀者，也使Marvel漫畫變成了大公司。1986年，弗蘭克·米勒(Frank Miller)創(chuàng)造了《蝙蝠俠：黑暗騎士歸來(lái)》(Batman: The Dark Knight Returns)，塑造了一個(gè)更剛強(qiáng)的新蝙蝠怪人，也啟發(fā)了克里斯托弗·諾蘭去復(fù)興蝙蝠俠系列電影。然而，就像電影業(yè)一樣，漫畫業(yè)也是出奇地被男性所占據(jù)著。就像去年12月勞拉·哈德森(Laura Hudson)在網(wǎng)站“漫畫同盟”(ComicsAlliance)上所寫到的，DC和Marvel兩家公司“都表現(xiàn)出了兩個(gè)不一樣但相互關(guān)聯(lián)的問(wèn)題：在漫畫中缺少女性的重要角色，而在漫畫的創(chuàng)作團(tuán)隊(duì)中也鮮有擔(dān)當(dāng)重要角色的女性。”

The movie industry has also adapted to survive, yet it persists in recycling maddeningly troglodytic representations of women that its embrace of superheroes has only perpetuated and maybe exacerbated. For all the technological innovations, the groovy new Bat cycles and codpieces, superhero movies just recycle variations on gender stereotypes that were in circulation back in the late 1930s, when Superman and Batman first hit. The world has moved on — there’s an African-American man in the Oval Office, a woman is the secretary of state — but the movie superhero remains stuck in a pre-feminist, pre-civil rights logic that dictates that a bunch of white dudes, as in “The Avengers,” will save the world for the grateful multiracial, multicultural multitudes. What a bunch of super-nonsense.

電影業(yè)為了生存一直在做改變，不過(guò)它卻堅(jiān)持反復(fù)地物化女性，從而一直保持著對(duì)超級(jí)英雄的崇拜，甚至越演越烈。盡管有那么多的技術(shù)革新，蝙蝠俠的摩托車和超人內(nèi)褲也在創(chuàng)新，但超級(jí)英雄電影在反映性別成見(jiàn)卻始終換湯不換藥，這一點(diǎn)從1930年代超人和蝙蝠俠最初流行時(shí)到現(xiàn)在并無(wú)改變。世界早已經(jīng)不一樣了 ——白宮橢圓形辦公室有了一位非裔美國(guó)人，現(xiàn)任國(guó)務(wù)卿是一位女性——但電影里的超級(jí)英雄卻始終走不出女性主義運(yùn)動(dòng)和民權(quán)運(yùn)動(dòng)以前的邏輯，就像《復(fù)仇者聯(lián)盟》里講的一樣，總是一群白種男人拯救了世界，各個(gè)種族、各種文化的人民大眾都在感謝他們。這是多么超級(jí)荒謬的瞎話。