捕捉一個暴戾的時代 需要用暴戾的喜劇

If “South Park” were a person, it would be old enough to vote, though it probably wouldn’t. That scabrous cartoon has been a one-stop shop for anti-partisan satire and blasphemy on Comedy Central since 1997.

如果“南方公園”(South Park)是個人，應該已經到了投票的年齡，雖然它可能不會去。從1997年至今，這部污穢不堪的卡通劇一直在提供反黨派政治諷刺和神明褻瀆的一站式服務。

Few comedies can stay first-rate for that long. (Sorry, Homer.) Early in the current season, the show’s 19th, the creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to wonder how well the show’s offend-at-all-costs ethos has aged. “It’s like I’m a relic,” a recurring character says. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve outstayed my welcome.”

很少有哪部笑劇能如此長時間保持一流水平。（抱歉了，Homer。）在本季——即本劇第19季之初，劇創特雷·帕克(Trey Parker)和麥特·斯通(Matt Stone)似乎在想，這種不惜一切代價觸怒他人的精神是不是已經過時了。“我就像個老古董，”一個經常出場的人物說道。“有時候我覺得，老這麼賴着不走已經招人煩了。”

The character in question is a white restaurant owner who believes he is Chinese and speaks in a grossly stereotyped Asian accent. Maybe, that meta-lament seemed to suggest, the show had started punching down in its later years.

此人是個經營着一家餐館的白人，認爲自己是華人，操一口極端符合刻板印象的亞洲口音。平白無故冒出來的哀嘆似乎在暗示，也許這個步入暮年的劇已經有些力不從心。

Yet this fall “South Park” has gone and revitalized itself, by telling a more ambitious, serialized story and by asserting that it takes an outrageous comedy to capture an era of outrage.

然而在今年秋天，《南方公園》用一個更宏大的系列故事宣告，要捕捉一個暴戾的時代，需要用暴戾的喜劇。

This season, which airs its finale on Wednesday, is built around an extended satire of political correctness. South Park, Colo., is taken over by a new school principal — named, aptly, P. C. Principal — and his crew of like-minded, jacked-up frat bros, who believe that being p.c. “means you love nothing more than beer, working out and the feeling that you get when you rhetorically defend a marginalized community from systems of oppression!” They meet microaggression with macroaggression, bullying kids and adults who, say, refer to the transgender reality star Caitlyn Jenner as anything less than “stunning and brave.”

於本週三結束的這一季，是圍繞着一種對政治正確的全面嘲弄展開的。一位新校長入主科羅拉多州南方公園，他有個貼切的名字——“PC校長”（P.C. Principal，P.C.即“政治正確”[political correctness]。——譯註）——還有一幫跟他志同道合的弟兄手足，個個情緒激動，堅信政治正確“就是說你的最愛是啤酒、健身，以及那種在壓迫體制下慷慨激昂地捍衛一個邊緣羣體的感覺！”他們用“宏侵犯”(macroaggression)打擊“微侵犯”(microaggression)，任何不認爲跨性別真人秀明星凱特琳·詹納(Caitlyn Jenner)“美豔而勇敢”的人，不論長幼，都會遭到他們的恐嚇。

But the season also targeted the rise of Donald J. Trump, a phenomenon who has thrived on a resentment of things p.c., just this week crowing that his plan to ban Muslims from the United States was “probably not politically correct.” A longtime character, Mr. Garrison, begins a White House bid on a familiar-sounding platform of xenophobia against Canadians (recurring boogeymen of “South Park,” going back to the “Blame Canada” number from the 1999 movie musical). Canada, in turn, has elected its own Trump-like figure, with disastrous results. “We thought it was funny,” one Canadian laments. “Nobody really thought he’d ever be president!”

然而這一季還瞄準了唐納德·J·特朗普(Donald J. Trump)，一個因爲憎恨一切PC而大紅大紫的人物，就在這一週他還得意地說，他的禁止穆斯林入境計劃“可能政治不大正確”。在劇中已有些年頭的人物“加里森先生”開始爲入主白宮而努力，他採用的是排斥加拿大人的立場（也就是那個屢屢被《南方公園》樹立爲大惡人的族羣，這段恩怨可追溯到1999年歌舞片版裏那首《都怪加拿大》[Blame Canada]），聽上去十分耳熟。而加拿大反過來也選擇了自己的特朗普式人物，後果是災難性的。“我們是覺得好玩，”一個加拿大人痛心疾首地說。“誰能想到他真當上總統呢。”

In reality, Canada has a prime minister. But “South Park” has never cared much about political fine points so much as comedy that deflates zealots and defends the offensive, like an American Charlie Hebdo. It was ahead of the curve in asserting a right to depict the Prophet Muhammad, who appeared in a 2001 episode (though Comedy Central squelched later attempts).

在現實中，加拿大選的是總理。但《南方公園》從來不在乎這些政治細節，它更在乎用喜劇貶損狂熱，捍衛無禮，就像美國版《查理週報》(Charlie Hebdo)。在先知默罕穆德形象描繪權的伸張上，它是走在前面的，早在2001年的一集中就已經出現（不過此後的幾次企圖遭到Comedy Central的壓制）。

Now, it was as if our culture had been shining an Eric Cartman-shaped Bat-signal and “South Park” answered. You could see the news from college campuses — safe spaces, trigger warnings — and conclude that America was more radically leftist than ever. You could read a dispatch from the Republican primary — border walls, refugee panic — and conclude that it was more reactionary than ever. The country is deeply polarized, and between two poles is precisely where the quasi-libertarian “South Park” most likes to swing.

此時此刻，我們的文化彷彿亮起了一個埃裏克·卡特曼(Eric Cartman)形狀的蝙蝠訊號，《南方公園》應聲趕來。你也許看到了大學校園傳來的新聞——安全空間(safe space)、觸發警告(trigger warning)——認定如今的美國出於空前激進的左傾狀態。你也許看到了共和黨初選的報道——邊境牆、難民潮恐慌——認定它比以往更加抗拒進步。這個國家是深度分化的，類自由主義的《南方公園》，恰恰最喜歡在這兩極之間搖擺。

“South Park” used to be so anti-continuity — its episodes are often written days before airing — that the show would kill the same character, Kenny McCormick, every week. By shifting toward serial stories, Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone have been able to make more complex arguments this season: acknowledging, for instance, that sometimes outrage culture has a basis in actual outrages. An episode on police brutality posits both that South Park’s cops are needed to keep the peace and that many of them joined the force to have carte blanche to beat up minorities.

《南方公園》曾經非常反對連續性——腳本往往是在播出前幾天寫就——每週都要殺死肯尼·麥考爾米克(Kenny McCormick)。本季轉向有連續情節的故事後，帕克和斯通開始進行一些更復雜的論辯：比如他們承認，動輒覺得被冒犯的文化，有時的確源於粗暴的對待。在關於警察暴力的一集中，南方公園的警察被認爲是維護安定的必要存在，但同時，他們中的許多人加入警隊就是爲了可以肆意毆打少數族裔。

And where past “South Park” satires once looked at single issues, this season is sketching something like a grand — if messy — unified theory of anger, inequality and disillusionment in 2015 America.

以前的《南方公園》把諷刺的筆墨放在某個單一的問題上，而這一季裏，面對2015年美國的憤怒、不公和幻滅，它選擇去勾勒某種宏大的統一理論——雖然談不上有條理。

Even as the p.c. wars rage, the town of South Park is being gentrified: It’s attracted a Whole Foods and built Sodosopa (South of Downtown South Park), an enclave of hipster eateries and condos built literally around the house of the dirt-poor McCormick family. The townspeople are delighted, until they realize many of them can’t afford to join the few, the smug, the artisanal. Under the town’s chichi new facade is a familiar slurry of resentment (of the privileged, of immigrants, of elites) and fear (of terrorism, of crime, of economically falling).

就在PC戰火熊熊燃燒之際，南方公園這座小鎮卻在士紳化：它迎來了第一座全食超市(Whole Foods)，建造了Sodosopa（南方公園下城南）區，一個潮人食肆林立的地方，貧困的麥考爾米克家四周圍全是新建的共管公寓。鎮民們十分欣喜，但是沒過多久他們就發現，他們無力負擔那稀罕、自得、精緻的生活。在附庸風雅的新外表之下，這座鎮子瀰漫着一種熟悉的（對特權階層、對移民、對精英的）怨恨和（對恐怖主義、對犯罪、對經濟滑坡的）恐懼。

And all that, in the “South Park” worldview, drives people to a self-pitying narcissism that extends to politics but also goes beyond it. In the season’s darkest episode, “Safe Space,” the townspeople assign a single child to filter every negative comment from their social media, to protect their self-esteem from all manner of “-shaming.”

在《南方公園》的世界觀裏，這些會讓人產生一種自憐的自戀，它會擴張到政治中，還會向別處蔓延。在本季最黑暗的一集《安全空間》中，鎮民們指定一個孩子去過濾社交媒體上的所有負面評論，讓他們的自尊免受一切“羞辱”的侵擾。

After the boy nearly dies from the strain of filtering the entire Internet’s hate, an allegorical figure named Reality — wearing a silent-movie villain’s cape and mustache — shows up to scold South Parkers with a lecture that sums up this season’s Swiftian brimstone morality: “I’m sorry the world isn’t one big liberal-arts college campus! We eat too much. We take our spoiled lives for granted. Feel a little bad about it sometimes.”

爲了過濾整個互聯網的恨意，男孩在沉重的壓力之下幾乎因此喪命，一個名叫“現實”的寓言式人物隨後出場，他穿着默片時代反派人物的斗篷，蓄着鬍鬚，前來責罵南方公園的居民們，他用一場演說總結了這一季中的喬納森·斯威夫特式道德拷問：“很遺憾，這世界不是一座巨型文科學院校園！我們吃太多了。我們以爲生活本來就該這麼養尊處優。心裏應該偶爾有點過意不去的感覺。”

Affected by his words, the citizens are moved to action: They take Reality to the town square and hang him.

他的言語促使居民們行動起來：他們把現實帶到鎮廣場，將其吊死。

It’s not exactly subtle, nor is the show’s argument entirely focused; the season-ending arc has involved a tangent about deceptive online advertising. (The finale may be more timely. Only a week after the terrorist shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., the episode promises a story on how “the citizens of South Park feel safer armed”; a teaser video has Cartman getting in an armed standoff with his mother at bedtime.)

這不是多精巧的安排，而它的論述也不見得總能落在正題上；本季結尾的劇情中突然插入了一段講欺騙性網絡廣告的內容。（全季大結局可能有更多的時效性。一週前剛剛發生加州聖貝爾納迪諾恐怖主義襲擊，這一集承諾要講講“南方公園人民手裏有槍心中不慌”的故事；在一段預告視頻中，卡特曼在睡前和媽媽發生了一場持槍對峙。）

And by making P. C. Principal and friends white dudes, the show sidesteps the fact that “politically correct” is often a label lobbed by white dudes at women and minorities who’ve faced actual prejudice. Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone anticipate this criticism too, having Cartman tell his schoolmate Kyle, with atypical self-awareness: “We’re two privileged straight white boys who have their laughs about things we never had to deal with.”

劇中的PC校長和他的朋友都是白人男性，這就回避了一個現實：很多時候是白人男性在往女人和少數族裔頭上扣“政治正確”的帽子，也就是那些真的在受歧視的人羣。帕克和斯通料到有人會揪住這裏不放，他們讓卡特曼用一種反常的自知之明對他的同學凱爾(Kyle)說：“我們是兩個有特權的白人直男，喜歡取笑一些我們永遠不需要面對的東西。”

This product of two white guys does have a different vantage point from many of today’s best comedies dealing with identity issues, from “black-ish” to “Master of None.” But in a way, its project and theirs are the same: to deal with tensions by prescribing more conversation, even if it’s uncomfortable, not less.

比起目前其他的一些涉及身份問題的喜劇傑作——比如《喜新不厭舊》(Black-ish)和《無爲大師》(Master Of None)，本劇作爲兩個白人男性的作品，的確佔據着一個別人沒有的優勢。但從某種程度上說，它們的課題是一樣的：在緊張的氣氛下，它們開出的處方是增加而非減少對話，即便這對話讓大家坐立不安。