在很多人眼中,“家”是一个温馨的符号,这其中包括一脸温情地注视着自己的母亲,一脸严肃训导自己的父亲,还有与自己打打闹闹的兄弟姐妹。但是,美剧《摩登家庭》告诉我们,煽情是“旁门左道”,搞笑才是“沧桑正道”。整天神经兮兮的老妈,自认为很时髦的老爸,正处叛逆期的女儿,笨拙木讷的继父,以及敏感又爱表现的继子,各色人物之间的碰撞使得这部剧可笑又可爱。我一直认为,就是对着至亲的人,我们才可以肆无忌惮地开玩笑和搞怪,而这比“催泪弹”更能体现“家”的价值之所在。 ——Mac
文字难度：★★★☆
The family sitcom, as our understanding would have it, lost its cultural currency when networks determined that for the affluent viewers they sought, the workplace had become the new household, the 1)cubicle the new bedroom, and young careerist2)upstarts the 3)precocious toddlers of the urban nursery. It seems reasonable enough to 4)carbon-date the moment loosely to the transition in ethos from 5)Family Ties to 6)Murphy Brown. In recent years reality television has exerted an even more powerful force in displacing the genre, not simply because of its 7)prevalence but also because its commitments to 8)unchecked domestic 9)lunacy render the entertainment value of mere 10)dysfunction, the family sitcom’s lifeblood, 11)obsolete.
美国的各大电视网络为吸引更多富裕的观众而纷纷决定给肥皂剧改头换面,让办公室变为新一代的家庭居室,办公室里的格子间成为新一代的卧室,年轻激进的职场新贵取代城市托儿所里的早熟幼儿,自这一切开始,我们过去所熟识的家庭情景喜剧已失去其文化吸引力,不再流行。追溯起来,可以说这种过渡大概是从《家庭的诞生》到《风云女郎》这其中价值观方面的转变开始的。近年来,纪实型电视剧显示出更加强劲的势头,大有取代家庭情景喜剧之势,这并非仅仅因为这类新剧已遍地开花,还因为其太肆意展露家庭内部的极端冲突,使得旧式家庭情境喜剧里的“伦理小纷争”这一娱乐元素变得过时,失去娱乐价值。
12)Arrested Development, which ended in 2006, was the last great family comedy on television, and Modern Family—the best new half-hour of funny television in a season 13)rife with half-hours of funny television—owes a tremendous debt to its predecessor’s style and 14)anthropological vision. Set in a nameless 15)suburbia, the new series (Wednesdays on ABC) examines three families, each representing a specific submission or challenge to contemporary domestic convention. Their connection to one another is best experienced as a surprise, though it’s clear from the start that they are all being filmed for a documentary that will appear on Dutch television, where presumably the 16)Gosselins have not yet taken over the 17)civic imagination. Easily the new season’s best comedy pilot, Modern Family deftly serves up laughs on multiple levels—from 18)understated 19)one-liners to grand sight 20)gags. 21)Flitting among three storylines, it’s smart, 22)nimble and best of all, funny, while actually making a point about the evolving nature of what constitutes “family.” Some 23)thinning of the comedy herd seems likely, and one can only hope that this 24)cream rises to the top.
最近一部家庭情景喜剧的佳作是2006年完结的电视剧《发展受阻》,而《摩登家庭》——作为当季众多的半小时喜剧中最为优秀的新剧,其成功很大程度上要归功于采用了《发展受阻》的风格和人类学研究视角。《摩登家庭》这部新剧(ABC电视台逢周三播出)把背景设在一个无名郊区,讲述三个家庭的故事,每个家庭的生活模式都反映了对当代家庭的传统或屈服或反抗。三个家庭之间的联系是你意想不到的,虽然你一开始就清楚他们都是为一部纪录片会在荷兰电视台上播出的纪录片而拍摄的,而推测起来,戈斯林家庭对当地的观众来说还没失去新鲜感。《摩登家庭》巧妙地运用不同级别的幽默,既有不夸张的小笑话,也有着力刻画的滑稽举止,轻而易举地成为新一季度喜剧片中的翘楚。剧集在三条故事主线之间切换,内容活泼,情节明快,更重要的是,非常有趣,而事实上本剧要阐述的是那些不断发展变化的“家庭”构成元素。在一大堆喜剧中,多多少少会有些给刷下来的,而我们希望这个“优秀分子”能一往无前,称雄称霸。
The themes about family life and its stresses are nothing new, but you couldn’t ask for better execution. The pairing of former 25)Frasier writer-producer Christopher Lloyd and 26)Just Shoot Me’s Steven Levitan has previously yielded 27)Back to You, but this is a vastly superior effort—one that employs some of 28)The Office’s direct-to-camera production style and confessionals without feeling overly precious or like it’s working too hard at being the coolest kid in the room. Modern Family takes an appropriately29)disparaging view of soft-core parental strategies. Phil and Claire stand in for one of the more questionable trends of our time: the tendency of young parents to friend their children rather than discipline them. For Phil especially, played by the fantastic, 30)gesticulating Ty Burrell, family ought to be like 31)Facebook. He is every misguided middle-aged father who believes his teenagers would rather hang out with him than down a couple of 32)Budweiser in the back of a Sunoco station. “I’m the cool dad, that’s my 33)thang,” Phil tells the interviewer by way of introduction. “I’m 34)hip, I surf the Web, I text. LOL: Laugh out Loud. OMG: Oh my God. WTF: Why the Face?” Phil and Claire’s 15-year-old daughter, Haley (Sarah Hyland), treats the minor demands her parents make of her—always presented as 35)tenuous requests—as if she were being asked to serve two consecutive tours in Afghanistan. Claire (Julie Bowen), resigned to her lack of influence, lowers her expectations to a bare minimum. Looking into the camera early on, she declares, “If Haley never wakes up on a beach in Florida half-naked, I’ve done my job.”
虽然说以家庭生活和压力为主题毫无新鲜感,但是这部剧集的制作表现确是一流。克里斯托弗·洛伊德(《欢乐一家亲》的编剧和监制)与史蒂芬·列维坦(《麻辣上班族》的制作人)这对搭档之前推出了电视剧《老将出马》,而这次的《摩登家庭》更是他们的上等心血之作。《摩登家庭》运用了《办公室》里的一些直面镜头的拍摄风格以及不会让人觉得矫揉造作或刻意装酷的内心剖白。该剧适度讽刺了父母采用的“怀柔政策”。菲尔和克莱尔是当今其中一种备受质疑的子女教育方式的代表人物:年轻夫妻喜欢把子女当作朋友一样对待,而不是严加管教。菲尔(由演技一流、喜欢边说边比划的泰·布利尔饰演)尤其如此,他认为家庭就应该像“脸谱网”一样——家人之间像朋友一样相处。他就像每个被误导的中年父亲一样,以为自己的孩子宁愿和他出去逛逛也不愿意在“太阳”加油站后面灌上几罐百威啤酒。“我是个时髦的老爸,那是我的风格,” 菲尔在接受采访时介绍道,“我很时髦,我上网啦,发短信啦,还知道‘LOL(Laugh out Loud)’的意思是‘哈哈大笑’,‘OMG(Oh My God)’是‘我的天啊’,‘WTF(Why the Face)’是‘为什么这种表情?’”菲尔和克莱尔的十五岁女儿哈利(由莎拉·海兰饰演)觉得父母对她的那些小要求——看起来总是很无聊的要求——简直与派她去阿富汗连续服役两期一样难受。克莱尔(由朱莉·鲍恩饰演)也无奈地自认对女儿毫无影响力,只好把期望降到最低。之前她对着镜头宣布:“要是哈利没有在佛罗里达的沙滩上半裸着醒来的话,我这当妈的就算尽职了。”
Living nearby, Ed O’Neill and the 36)beguiling Colombian star Sofía Vergara play out the aging 37)schlub-trophy wife marriage of Jay and Gloria, who are rearing Gloria’s overly sensitive son, Manny, with little mind to how much he probably hates playing soccer. Mr. O’Neill exquisitely portrays the straight man to the fire engine of Ms. Vergara, whose performance is a 38)tonally perfect 39)send-up of the 40)Hispanic hot-mama stereotype.
住在他们附近的是杰伊(由艾德·奥尼尔饰演)和格洛里亚(由哥伦比亚逗趣女星索菲娅·维加拉饰演)一家,妻子格洛里亚愈发无能,而两人养育着格洛里亚与前夫所生的那性格过于敏感的儿子曼尼,懵然不知他有多么讨厌踢足球。奥尼尔把杰伊这个普通乏味的男人演得丝丝入扣,衬托起火辣热情的维加拉,而她凭借精湛的演技在声调上进行模仿,把典型的西班牙辣妈形象演得惟妙惟肖。
Modern Family manages to 41)have a light touch while still packing in lots of jokes and some deft physical bits. With all that going for it, it almost feels like overkill to hear that actors such as 42)Shelley Long, 43)Edward Norton and 44)Elizabeth Banks stop by to guest star on the show. And the diversity quota is the funny part of the show, which is further filled by Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet), a gay couple whose 45)bed death, though obvious, is never overtly referred to and seems to be a problem that is only getting worse now that Cameron has gained a significant amount of weight since they adopted a baby girl from Vietnam.
《摩登家庭》尽量保持自然不造作,同时也穿插了许多笑话和滑稽举动。《摩登家庭》已经有那么多的亮点,当你听到谢莉·朗、爱德华·诺顿和伊丽莎白·班克斯这些大明星也顺道要来客串的时候,感觉都有点锦上添花得过了头。该剧有趣之处就是角色的多样性,米切尔(由杰西·泰勒·费格森饰演)和卡梅伦(由埃里克·斯通斯特里特饰演)这对同性恋进一步丰富了该剧。在剧中,他们俩越来越“性趣”索然,两人却显然从未坦诚地谈一下这个问题,而且自从他们从越南收养了一名女婴之后,卡梅伦就开始狂长肉,这使他们的“性趣”更加雪上加霜。
I can’t imagine who’d fight Modern Family.
我很难想象有谁能抵抗得了《摩登家庭》的吸引力。
