美劇裏的巴基斯坦與現實不沾邊

KARACHI, Pakistan — When I heard that the fourth season of Showtime’s “Homeland” would be set in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I awaited its season premiere with anticipation and trepidation. A major American television show would be portraying events set in my country, but I knew those events would be linked to the only thing that seems to interest the world’s eye: terrorism and how Islamist extremism affects Americans and the West.

巴基斯坦卡拉奇——當聽說Showtime的《國土安全》(Homeland)把第四季的故事背景放在了巴基斯坦和阿富汗時，我開始充滿期待和擔心地等待這一季的首播。一部重要美劇將講述發生在我的祖國的事情，但我知道這些事情只會與一件事有關——這似乎也是唯一讓世界感興趣的事：恐怖主義，以及伊斯蘭極端主義對美國和西方所造成的影響。

As advertising for the season premiere was heating up, a short essay by an American writer and activist, Laura Durkay, appeared on The Washington Post’s website under the headline “Homeland Is the Most Bigoted Show on Television.” Ms. Durkay wrote, “The entire structure of ‘Homeland’ is built on mashing together every manifestation of political Islam, Arabs, Muslims and the whole Middle East into a Frankenstein-monster global terrorist threat that simply doesn’t exist.”

隨着這一季第一集的廣告片開始熱播，美國作家與活動人士勞拉·杜爾考伊(Laura Durkay)的一篇短文出現在了《華盛頓郵報》(The Washington Post)的網站上，文章的標題爲“《國土安全》是最狹隘的電視劇”。杜爾考伊寫道，“《國土安全》的整個結構建立在這樣一個基礎之上：把政治伊斯蘭、阿拉伯人、穆斯林和整個中東地區的方方面面融合在一起，形成一個弗蘭肯斯坦怪物般的全球性恐怖主義威脅，雖然它根本就不存在。”

The show’s reputation along those lines had kept me away, even as I longed to examine Claire Danes’s portrayal of Carrie Mathison as a conflicted C.I.A. agent immersed in a male-dominated world, and engaging with Middle Eastern and Muslim characters. How could the show’s creators have dreamed up such a complex protagonist, while depicting the sociopolitical milieu in which so many of its characters exist with so little nuance?

這部電視劇的名聲和這些說法使我對它敬而遠之，雖然我也想看看克萊爾·達內什(Claire Danes)如何演繹中情局(CIA)探員凱莉·馬西森(Carrie Mathison)——這個充滿矛盾色彩的角色身陷男性主導的世界，還需要與中東和穆斯林角色打交道。該劇的主創是如何構想出一個如此複雜的主角，卻又與此同時將其諸多角色寄身的社會政治環境描繪得如此簡略粗疏？

Yes, Hollywood isn’t known for historical accuracy or impartial portrayals of any fictionalized “other.” But I still couldn’t resist trying to see what Pakistan, my homeland, looked like through its eyes. I’m a writer of fiction, so I know about imagined worlds. You look not for complete truthfulness, but for verisimilitude — the “appearance of being true” — so it can give your art authenticity, credibility, believability. And we in Pakistan long to be seen with a vision that at least approaches the truth.

的確，好萊塢(Hollywood)不以歷史的準確性或對任何虛構的“他方”的公正描述而聞名。但是，我仍然無法抵抗誘惑，想看看我的祖國巴基斯坦在它的眼中究竟是何模樣。我是一個虛構類作家，所以我對想象出來的世界有所瞭解。你尋找的不是完全的真實，而是逼真程度——“表面上看似真實”——它能給你的藝術創造提供真實感、說服力和可信性。我們這些身處巴基斯坦的人希望別人對我們的看法至少能接近真實。

Pakistan has long been said to have an image problem, a kind way to say that the world sees us one-dimensionally — as a country of terrorists and extremists, conservatives who enslave women and stone them to death, and tricky scoundrels who hate Americans and lie pathologically to our supposed allies. In Pakistan, we’ve long attributed the ubiquity of these images to what we believe is biased journalism, originating among mainstream American journalists who care little for depth and accuracy. By the time these tropes filter down into popular culture, and have morphed into the imaginings of showbiz writers, we’ve gone from an image problem to the realm of Jungian archetypes and haunting traumatized psyches.

一直以來，巴基斯坦據說都存在一個形象問題，這委婉地說明，世界往往只會從一個角度看待我們——將我們視作一個恐怖分子和極端主義者的國度，這裏的保守主義者會奴役女性，用石塊把她們砸死，而且這裏還有狡猾的騙子，他們仇恨美國，經常強迫性地對我們所謂的盟友撒謊。在巴基斯坦，我們一直認爲，這種廣爲人知的形象源於我們眼中的存在偏見的媒體報道，這種報道則來自對深度和準確性不甚在意的主流美國記者。當這些描述滲入流行文化，演變爲娛樂界作家的想象時，我們就從形象問題走進了榮格原型和無法擺脫的受創心理的領域。

Whenever a Western movie contains a connection to Pakistan, we watch it in a sadomasochistic way, eager and nervous to see how the West observes us. We look to see if we come across to you as monsters, and then to see what our new, monstrous face looks like. Again and again, we see a refracted, distorted image of our homeland staring back at us. We know we have monsters among us, but this isn’t what we look like to ourselves.

每當一部與巴基斯坦有關的西方電影出現時，我們都會以一種受虐狂的心態去觀看。我們總是迫不及待地想看看自己在西方世界眼中是什麼模樣。我們想知道，我們是否在你們的眼中變成了怪物，以及我們的怪物新形象是什麼樣的。一次又一次，我看到都是我們國家變形而扭曲的畫面。我知道我們當中有怪物，但是在我們看來，我們並非如此。

There have been previous international attempts to portray Pakistan on film: “A Mighty Heart,” about the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl; or “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the assassination of Osama bin Laden. The Pearl film was shot largely in India, with some scenes in Pakistan; the Bin Laden film was shot in Jordan and India; in these and other films, streets and shops in India were given nominal Pakistani makeovers, and Indian actors were hired to pass as Pakistanis. In them, I have seen India’s signature homemade Ambassador cars traveling down Pakistani streets; actors who play tribal Pashtuns but look Bihari; Western women wearing chadors where they don’t have to, or going around bareheaded when they should be covered.

國際上有人曾試圖把巴基斯坦拍進電影：講述丹尼爾·珀爾(Daniel Pearl)遭到綁架和謀殺的《堅強的心》(A Mighty Heart)，以及講述奧薩馬·本·拉登(Osama bin Laden)被暗殺故事的《刺殺本·拉登》(Zero Dark Thirty)。珀爾的那部電影主要在印度拍攝，只有一些場景攝於巴基斯坦；本·拉登的那部電影則攝於約旦和印度。在這些和其他電影中，印度的街道和商店都被裝扮成了帶有些許巴基斯坦色彩的樣子，劇組還會聘請印度演員扮作巴基斯坦人。在它們當中，我看到印度特有的國產大使車沿着巴基斯坦街道行駛，扮演普什圖族的演員看起來像是比哈里人，而有時西方女性會在不需要穿黑色罩袍的時候穿罩袍，或者在需要把頭蓋住的時候，四處拋頭露面。

In the season premiere of “Homeland,” Carrie Mathison orders an airstrike on a terrorist compound in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan. It is utterly surreal for a Pakistani to watch a fictional imagining of the dreaded strike from the viewpoint of the person ordering it in an American control room: the disconnection, the studied casualness, the presenting of a birthday cake afterward. It’s not clear who the monsters are in this scene, even before it’s revealed that the strike hit a wedding party, killing women and children. It’s a moment of obvious reversal, but also of nuance, when I wasn’t expecting it.

在《國土安全》第四季的第一集當中，凱莉·馬西森下令對與阿富汗接壤的一個巴基斯坦部落地區的恐怖主義建築發動空襲。讓一個巴基斯坦人從一個在美國控制室裏下令發動空襲的人的視角來觀看這種虛構的可怕襲擊，實在有種非常之超現實的感覺：那種疏離感、那種故意爲之的漫不經心，以及隨後的生日蛋糕。在那一幕中，人們還不能清楚地看出怪物究竟是誰，在劇情揭露此次空襲襲擊了一個婚禮，導致許多婦女和兒童死亡之前就是如此。它是一個明顯的逆轉時刻，但同時也頗具微妙之處，在那一刻，這完全出乎我的意料。

Still, the season’s first hour, in which Carrie also goes to Islamabad, offers up a hundred little clues that tell me this isn’t the country where I grew up, or live. When a tribal boy examines the dead in his village, I hear everyone speaking Urdu, not the region’s Pashto. Protesters gather across from the American Embassy in Islamabad, when in reality the embassy is hidden inside a diplomatic enclave to which public access is extremely limited. I find out later that the season was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, with its Indian Muslim community standing in for Pakistanis.

但這一季的第一集中依然出現了衆多蛛絲馬跡，告訴我這不是我長大或生活的那個國家。在劇情方面，凱莉也去了伊斯蘭堡。當一名部落男孩查看他所在村子裏的死者時，我聽到所有人說的都是烏爾都語，而不是該地區的普什圖語。畫面上，抗議者聚集在伊斯蘭堡美國大使館的對面，而在現實中，美國大使館隱藏在一個外交機構聚居地內。公衆要想進入那片地區，會受到極大限制。稍後我發現，這一季是在南非的開普敦拍攝的，那裏的印裔穆斯林羣體扮成了巴基斯坦人。

I realize afterward that I’ve been creating a test, for the creators of “Homeland” and all who would sell an imagined image of Pakistan: If this isn’t really Pakistan, and these aren’t really Pakistanis, then how they see us isn’t really true.

後來我意識到，我一直在爲《國土安全》的創作人員，以及所有兜售想象出來的巴基斯坦形象的人，進行一種測試。如果這不是真正的巴基斯坦，這些人也不是真正的巴基斯坦人，那麼他們對我們的看法，實際上也是不準確的。

A verse in the Quran says, “Behold, we have created you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another.” Even after everything that’s happened between us, we in Pakistan still want you to know us, not as you imagine us, but as we really are: flawed, struggling, complex, human. All of us, in the outside world as well as in Pakistan, need art — film and television, story and song — that closes that gap between representation and reality, instead of prying the two further apart.

《古蘭經》中的一節說，“衆人啊！我確已從一男一女創造你們，我使你們成爲許多民族和宗族，以便你們互相認識。”儘管我們之間發生了那麼多事情，但我們身在巴基斯坦的人，依然想讓你們瞭解我們，不是你們想象中的我們，而是真實的我們：不完美、艱難謀生、複雜、通人情。我們所有人，不管是世界其他地區的人，還是身在巴基斯坦的人，所需的電影、電視、故事和歌曲等藝術作品，要能縮小描述與現實之間的差距，而不是讓兩者進一步背向而馳。