2013年4月18日 星期四

More Than ‘The Iron Lady’: Margaret Thatcher, Cultural Icon



More Than ‘The Iron Lady’: Margaret Thatcher, Cultural Icon

即使死亡,也沒有阻止文藝界對她的臧否

Alex Bailey/Weinstein Company
梅麗爾·斯特里普在2011年的電影《鐵娘子》中扮演的撒切爾夫人。她的表演贏得了奧斯卡最佳女主角獎。

“我絕不會動搖,”瑪格麗特·撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)在一次演講中說過這句著名的話。撒切爾夫人周一去世,享年87歲。幾乎從她1979年搬到唐寧街10號那一刻起,英國的藝術家和作家們就開始拍攝她、紀錄她、普遍地責難她——他們從她頑固的保守黨政綱和一成不變的髮型中看到了很多可以攻擊的地方。

“The lady’s not for turning,” Margaret Thatcher famously said in an early speech. But almost from the moment she moved into 10 Downing Street in 1979, Mrs. Thatcher, who died on Monday at 87, was most definitely for filming, recording, and generally excoriating by British artists and writers who saw a rich target in her stiff-necked conservative politics and stiffer coiffure.
From the beginning, some of the toughest depictions came from musicians. Opposition to her free-market ideology infused albums like Gang of Four’s 1979 “Entertainment!” and, in the same year, the Clash EP “Cost of Living,” the cover of which Joe Strummer reportedly wanted to include a collage featuring Mrs. Thatcher’s face and a swastika. Robyn Hitchcock, in the song “Brenda’s Iron Sledge” (1981), imagined Thatcher’s Britain as a surreal dog-sled ride to hell. The Beat’s “Stand Down Margaret” (1980) called on her to resign. In 1985 Billy Bragg, Paul Weller, Kirsty McColl and other musicians founded Red Wedge, a collective aimed at forcing her to do just that.

一開始,最刻薄的一些描繪來自音樂家們。很多專輯都充滿了對她的自由市場理念的反對,比如四人幫(Gang of Four)樂隊1979年的專輯《娛樂!》(Entertainment!) 以及衝撞樂隊(The Clash)同年發佈的迷你專輯《活着的代價》(Cost of Living),據說喬·斯特魯默(Joe Strummer)想在專輯封面上加入一張以撒切爾夫人的臉和納粹十字記號為主要內容的拼貼畫。魯賓·希區柯克(Robyn Hitchcock)在歌曲《布蘭達的鐵雪橇》(Brenda’s Iron Sledge, 1981)中,把撒切爾領導下的英國比喻成一個駛向地獄的超現實的狗拉雪橇。“打擊樂隊”(The Beat)的《下台吧,瑪格麗特》(Stand Down Margaret, 1980)要求她辭職。1985年,比利·布拉格(Billy Bragg)、保羅·維勒(Paul Weller)、科斯蒂·麥科爾(Kirsty McColl)以及其他一些音樂家成立了“紅色楔形隊列”(Red Wedge),這個團體的宗旨就是迫使撒切爾下台。
那個努力失敗之後,一些人開始轉向惡毒的幻想。在《瑪格麗特在斷頭台上》(Margaret on the Guillotine, 1988)里,莫里西(Morrissey)用顫音唱道:“人們喜歡你/這讓我很厭倦/你什麼時候死啊?”艾爾維斯·科斯特洛(Elvis Costello)在《把土踏平》(Tramp the Dirt Down, 1989)中發誓“在他們終於把你埋入土中之後/我將站在你的墓地上,把土踏平”。
 Literary depictions were hardly kinder. The Thatcher-era ethos was skewered in novels like Martin Amis’s “Money,” Jonathan Coe’s “What a Carve-Up!” and Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” (where she was mocked as “Mrs. Torture”). Other writers took more direct aim at the lady herself. Angela Carter once mocked her “braying tones” as reminiscent “not of real toffs but Wodehouse aunts.” In Alan Hollinghurst’s 2004 novel, “The Line of Beauty,” she shows up at an upper-class country-house party “looking like a country and western singer.”
文學界對她的描繪沒有比音樂界溫和多少。撒切爾時代的社會思潮在很多小說中都有所體現,比如馬丁·艾米斯(Martin Amis)的《金錢》(Money)、喬納森·寇依(Jonathan Coe)的《分贓》(What a Carve-Up!),以及薩爾曼·拉什迪(Salman Rushdie)的《撒旦詩篇》(Satanic Verses,她在裡面被嘲諷為“折磨夫人”[Mrs. Torture])。其他一些作家更是直接針對她本人。安吉拉·卡特(Angela Carter)曾嘲諷她“刺耳的音調”不是讓人想起了“真正的有錢人,而是伍德豪斯[Wodehouse]筆下的大嬸”。在艾倫·霍林赫斯特( Alan Hollinghurst)2004年的小說《美人的線條》(The Line of Beauty)中,她出現在一個上層人士的別墅宴會上,“看起來像個西部民謠歌手”。

 Sometimes she hit back. In his memoir, “Hitch 22,” Christopher Hitchens (who once called himself “sexually but not politically” attracted to her) gleefully recalled the time he invited her to spank him with her parliamentary-order papers after a fight about Rhodesia/Zimbabwe policy. “As she walked away,” Mr. Hitchens noted, “she looked back over her shoulder and gave an almost imperceptibly slight roll of the hip while mouthing the words ‘Naughty boy!’ ”
有時她的形象也會被扳回一城。克里斯托弗·希欽斯(Christopher Hitchens,他曾聲稱自己被“她的性感而不是政治魅力吸引住了”)在他的回憶錄《希欽22》(Hitch 22)中愉快地回憶道,在他們就羅德西亞/津巴布韋的政策發生爭執之後,他讓她用議會議程表打他的屁股。“她要走開的時候,”希欽斯寫道,“回頭看了我一眼,屁股輕輕地、不易察覺地晃了一下,說道:‘調皮鬼!’”



  parliamentary-order papers

正式定議:Order Paper - Glossary page - UK Parliament
www.parliament.uk › Site informationGlossary - Cached
The Order Paper in the House of Commons is published each sitting day and lists the business of the House and business for sittings in Westminster Hall.=Order book ((しばしばO- B-))((英))(下院への)動議通告簿.




在007系列影片《最高機密》(For Your Eyes Only, 1981)中,撒切爾夫人是個具有諷刺意義的次要角色;在諷刺性電視節目《明星臉》(Spitting Image)中她多次被責難;在《周六夜現場》(Saturday Night Live)中邁克爾·帕林(Michael Palin)扮演撒切爾;在《鐵娘子》(The Iron Lady)中梅麗爾·斯特里普(Meryl Streep)演繹了一個完美的撒切爾,她那讓人又愛又恨的次中音讓人想起了弗朗索瓦·密特朗(Francois Mitterrand)的評價:“她有着卡里古拉(Caligula)的眼睛,卻有着瑪麗蓮·夢露(Marilyn Monroe)的嘴唇。”


On screen Mrs. Thatcher has been given a mocking cameo in the James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only” (1981), repeated drubbings on the satirical television show “Spitting Image,” a Michael Palin send-up on “Saturday Night Live,” and the full Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady,” whose grudgingly admiring tenor recalled Francois Mitterrand’s remark: “She has the eyes of Caligula, but the mouth of Marilyn Monroe.”

Onstage Mrs. Thatcher’s presence was felt in the West End as early as 1981, when she and her husband, Denis, once spent an awkward evening at the farce “Anyone for Denis?” She received acid portrayals in plays by Alan Ayckbourn, David Hare and Peter Morgan, whose new play, “The Audience,” about Queen Elizabeth II’s meetings with her prime ministers, has drawn some criticism for its depiction of Mrs. Thatcher as a combative, racial-epithet-slinging vulgarian at frequent odds with the queen. (“What is it about the left that it attracts so many contemptible, vicious and anti-social people these days?” Lord Tebbit, one of her former cabinet ministers, said to The Telegraph.)

撒切爾夫人首次出現在戲劇舞台上可以追溯到1981年,那是在倫敦西區。她和丈夫丹尼斯(Denis)度過了一個難堪的夜晚,因為他們看的是喜劇 《有人要丹尼斯嗎》(Anyone for Denis?)。很多劇作家在劇作中對她進行了辛辣的描繪,比如艾倫·艾克邦(Alan Ayckbourn)、戴維·黑爾(David Hare)和彼得·摩根(Peter Morgan)。最後這位的新作《觀眾》(The Audience)講述的是女王伊莉莎白二世與首相們的會面,劇中撒切爾夫人被描述成一個好鬥、粗俗的人,常說帶有種族歧視的話語,經常與女王意見不和,該劇因此遭到了一些批評。(撒切爾夫人當政時的內閣大臣比特爵士[Lord Tebbit]對《每日電訊報》,“為什麼左翼現在吸引了那麼多卑鄙、惡毒、反社會的人?”)

她去世的消息似乎並沒有緩和這樣的描繪。據一位媒體發言人說,《比利·艾略特》(Billy Elliot)一劇今晚的演出中仍將演唱《聖誕快樂,瑪吉·撒切爾》(Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher),其中一句歌詞是“我們一起歡慶吧/因為離你死去的日子又近了一天”。

The news of her death hardly seems to be softening the portrayals. Tonight’s performance of “Billy Elliot,” according to a press representative, will include the usual rendition of “Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher,” which includes the verse “We’ll all celebrate/’Cause it’s one day closer to your death.”
And James Graham, the author of “This House,”  onstage at the Olivier Theater in London, said on Twitter that he would not be making any changes for tonight’s performance of the play — a drama about the House of Commons set during the economic hard times of the 1970s that ends, forbodingly, with Mrs. Thatcher’s election.
As usual, in the play’s closing moments, actors playing 30 members of Parliament who served with her “or against her” will be seated onstage, Mr. Graham noted. “What is theater for,” he said, “if not for nights like tonight?”
《這個議院》(This House)正在倫敦的奧利維爾劇院(Olivier Theater)上演,該劇作者詹姆斯·格拉漢姆(James Graham)在推特上說他不會對當晚的演出做任何修改。該劇講述的是20世紀70年代經濟困難時期的下議院,結尾處撒切爾夫人的當選似乎是一種預言。

格拉漢指出,像往常一樣,在該劇的結尾部分,扮演議院30名議員的演員將在舞台上就座,他們有的支持她,有的“反對她”。“劇院是用來幹什麼的呢,”他說,“難道不就是為了今晚這種情況嗎?”
翻譯:王艷

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