LONDON — "We know no spectacle so ridiculous," opined the great nineteenth-century historian, Thomas Babington Macauley, "as the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality." But for sheer ridiculousness, few spectacles are quite so grimly moronic as the American media plunging overboard in one of its periodic obsessions with the British House of Windsor. The news -- to use the term in its most limited sense -- that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge expect their first child to arrive on this Earth sometime next summer is sending a good part of the American press into a familiar frenzy of twittering, fluttering excitement.
伦敦——“我们都知道不会出现如此可笑的情况，”伟大的19世纪历史学家托马斯 巴宾顿如此观察到，“这种好笑的情况就好像英国公众所发生的周期性道德癫狂一样。”但是美国的新闻媒体们又开始对英国的温莎皇室产生了周期性的迷恋，而美国媒体的这种迷恋真的是很愚蠢，没有人可以比得上。最近又出了一个新闻——其实也不算是什么大新闻——那就是剑桥公爵和公爵夫人在明年夏天的时候可能会生出他们的第一个孩子，而这个使新闻媒体们疯狂并且激动不已，美国媒体的这种情绪似乎在以前也出现过。
There will be a baby! Not just any baby -- a royal baby! Could anything be finer or more deserve front-page coverage? Were I an American, I suspect I should find this contemptible; as a Briton, I make do with considering it laughable.
将会有一个婴儿降生！不是任何的普通的婴儿——而是一个皇家婴儿！还有什么新闻比这个更有价值或者更值得成为新闻头条的吗？如果我是一个美国人的话，我会觉得这不是一个什么大新闻；但是最为一个英国人，我觉得美国媒体真的是很可笑。
Mark Twain was surely right. "Unquestionably the person that can get lowest down in cringing before royalty and nobility, and can get most satisfaction out of crawling on his belly before them, is an American. Not all Americans, but when an American does it he makes competition impossible." Consider, too, that Twain never had the pleasure of witnessing American morning television and its ridiculous habit of fawning over, successively, Prince William's engagement, his marriage to Kate Middleton and now, the happy news that the next stage of the succession is on the point of being secured.
马克 吐温是对的。“如果说有谁会降低自己的身份在皇家和贵族的面前阿谀奉承并且通过膜拜皇家和贵族而得到满足感的话，那么这个人肯定是美国人，这么做的当然不仅仅只有美国人，但是当一个美国人这么做时，没有人可以在这一点上打败美国人。”我们可以想见，马克吐温可能从来不看美国早间的电视新闻，也不会喜欢看电视节目上出现的有关奉承威廉王子约会的无聊新闻，或者也不喜欢看威廉王子和凯特王妃的婚礼，当然也不喜欢电视上正在播出了有关他们两个要生孩子从而英国皇室又有接班人的新闻了。
I recall experiencing some of this first-hand. When Queen Elizabeth enjoyed a state visit to Washington in the summer of 2007, you should have seen the palaver. I lived in Washington in those days and was mildly taken aback by all the upper-crust hysteria. My, how members of the imperial capital's elite scrambled for the merest glimpse of royal flesh. At a garden party hosted by the British embassy, members of Congress and what remains of (or passes for) Georgetown society could have been mistaken for teenage girls queuing for tickets to see One Direction. (Tough-hearted British journalists, of course, did their best to hide their amusement at this spectacle behind a mask of laconic detachment.) Needless to say, this didn't happen when other heads-of-state came to town.
我还记得之前接触过的有关这方面的第一手新闻。2007年，当伊丽莎白女皇对华盛顿进行国事访问时，你肯定见过美国人对女皇的奉承行为。当时，我还住在华盛顿，当时我就被美国上层社会的那种歇斯底里给震惊了。天啊，为什么帝国首都（华盛顿）的精英们为了看一眼女皇而争得头破血流呢。在一个由英国大使馆举办的一场露天招待会上，那些国会议员和乔治城社区的上层人士们（或者假装是上层人士），他们看起来就好像是排队购买单向乐队演唱会门票的疯狂女孩。（当然，在现场的那些英国记者们看到这一场景后都有点忍俊不禁了，但是他们还是极力的保持不笑，就当作没看到一样。）毫无疑问，如果是其他国家的领导人来访问美国，这种盛况是不会发生的。
The American fascination with the British royals is hardly new, even if it has been magnified and encouraged by a culture ever more in thrall to celebrity and an age in which trivia and gossip are privileged by carrying around Google on your phone. Much of the rot set in with Princess Diana, whose "fairytale" wedding to Prince Charles descended into a gruesome -- if compelling -- soap opera.
美国人对英国皇室的这种迷恋由来已久，美国的名人文化在不断的发展，如今借助谷歌等媒介方式使得琐事和小道消息满天飞，但是即使在这样的名人文化和时代背景下，美国人依然对英国皇室情有独钟。戴安娜王妃事件更是让美国人对英国皇室为之疯狂，她和查尔斯童话般的婚礼最终演变成了可怕的——如果引人注目的话——肥皂剧。
Diana's death was, if you will, as tragic as it was useful. She died before her story became too tawdry. Her demise allowed attention to pass to the next generation and, befitting his status in the line of succession, to Prince William in particular. Here was a photogenic and responsible royal, whose rise could redeem the family's tarnished brand, offering fresh hope and, above all, a fresh storyline.
戴安娜的死亡有好的一面但是也有杯具的一面（如果你愿意这么认为的话）。在她的故事变得更加低俗之前她死了。由于她死了，公众们都把注意力放到了皇室下一代身上，尤其是威廉王子，由于他是皇位的继承人，所以大家都把注意力集中到他身上了。威廉王子是一个很上镜的并且也很有责任感的皇家成员，他的出现洗涮了英国皇室之前的不光彩并且给人们带来了希望，而最重要的是，他为大众提供了一个新鲜的故事情节素材。
His wedding in the summer of 2011 to Kate Middleton -- a commoner, no less! What a fairytale! -- was an event crying out for mawkish excess. American television, ever ready on this front, fell upon the challenge in splendid style. The morning shows decamped to London for a week of newlywed overkill. As purveyors of mindless tommyrot at the best of times, "Good Morning America" was in its element as it offered Americans the opportunity to gawk at all the princely finery, pomp, and flummery on display in Ye Olde London Town.
威廉王子在2011年夏天的时候和凯特 米德尔顿结婚，凯特只是一个平民，真是童话般的故事啊！这次的婚礼也得到了人们过度的关注，多的令人作呕。美国的电视台早就做好了准备，并且尽全力来报道这次婚礼。一些美国电视台的新闻秀节目早就跑到伦敦去进行为期一周的新婚报道。这些无聊的美国新闻媒体们终于碰上了最好的时机，其中《早安美国》这档节目就发挥了自己的独特优势，为美国观众提供了这次盛况空前的婚礼。
A writer for Entertainment Weekly dryly reported that "NBC had a graphic in the upper right corner of its screen: "‘Countdown to the Kiss.' The network didn't realize it should have made that plural. When the freshly spliced William and Kate went in for a second smooch on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, I think I heard Barbara Walters gasp on ABC."
一位娱乐周刊的记者冷冰冰的写道“NBC电视节目的右上方出现了一个标志：‘接吻倒计时。’这家电视台并没有意识到应该把kiss写成复数（kisses）才对。当威廉王子和凯特出现在白金汉宫阳台上准备进行第二次接吻时，我好像听到了芭芭拉 沃尔特在ABC电视节目上的喘气声。”
A gasp! An honest-to-goodness gasp! Some people are too easily impressed. And so it continues. The Daily Beast -- helmed by the indefatigable British import Tina Brown -- publishes a blog titled "The Royalist," which, "updated several times daily" is deemed "essential eyeballing for fans of the world's most famous family." There is something ghastly about this.
气喘吁吁！一个纯洁的喘气声！有些人就特别容易被别人感动。到这里，故事还没有结束。野兽日报——由不屈不挠的英国人蒂娜 布朗掌舵——建立了一个题名为“保皇主义者”的博客，每天博客都会更新好几次，人们称这个博客为“世界上最著名皇室的粉丝们必须要关注的博客。”听起来都让人觉得不寒而栗。
Ghastly but not, alas, un-American. There is no novelty in observing that much of American culture thirsts for dynasties and aristocracy to an extent and with a prominence that is sometimes hard to find in the United Kingdom. To cite Twain again: "We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter."
令人不寒而栗，但是并不是非美国式的。在某种程度上来说，美国的大部分文化都渴望朝代和贵族这些类型的东西，而且表现的特别的显著，可是这种现象你很难在英国找到。再一次引用马克吐温的话：“我们美国人只有被那些我们认为更高贵的人鄙视才会开心；我们美国人需要一个对象来崇拜和嫉妒，否则我们永远得不到满足。在美国，我们可以通过所有古老和传统的方式来证明马克吐温说的这一点。在公共场合，我们总是藐视地位和世袭特权，但是在私下里，我们又在不断的追求这些东西，一旦有机会，我们就会用金钱或者是利用自己的女儿来获得这些东西。”
转自龙腾
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发表于 2012-12-7 11:48
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