In the run up to the Emmys, consensus seemed to be that Westworld would sweep the board, which I took as read with a sour kvetchiness, like indigestion of the soul. The Handmaid’s Tale and Westworld are not dissimilar in the broadest ways: dystopian tales of a credible near-future, wrecked by carelessness and male delusions. Westworld even has a little feminist tang, in the shape of some spunky female robots (we can debate robot gendering some other time).
艾美奖公布前，众人都以为《西部世界》将包揽各种奖项，该剧看得我满腹酸水，有如灵魂上的消化不良。最广义上说，《使女的故事》和《西部世界》差别并不大：发生在不久后的反乌托邦故事，漫不经心和男性妄想糟蹋了那个世界。《西部世界》甚至有点女性主义味道，有几个颇有胆识的女机器人（我们可以下次讨论机器人的性别。）
But The Handmaid’s Tale is in such a different league: so beautiful to watch that the end of each episode brought a peculiar, near-physical, pain at having to return to the unchoreographed hubbubs and humdrum colours of the regular world. It was so chilling in its plausibility, spoke so forcefully to the night terrors of today’s politics, that there ought to be an Emmy for fortune-telling
但《使女的故事》有一点大不相同：每集结尾都因不得不回到日常世界中无法设计的喧嚣与乏味色调之中而带来异常的、近乎身体上的痛苦，观之令人神往。剧集的巧辩如此震慑人心，强烈地表达了当今政治的噩梦，以至于艾美奖该设立算命奖。
Elisabeth Moss had already, by Mad Men, I think, entered that space that is rare for a male actor and almost unheard of for a female one, where you stop thinking about or even noticing what she looks like, as you dive into her face. And yet the confidence of this drama, the amount of sheer emotional toil they left to her eyes, and the way she met that challenge, so graceful and alive … it was peerless. The woman is simply incredible.
我认为，《广告狂人》中的伊丽莎白·摩斯进入到罕有男演员、几乎没听说过有哪个女演员达到的段位，你不再思考甚至不会注意到她长什么样，你看到了她的灵魂。可本剧的信心、让她的双眸里透出纯粹的情感力道、她应对挑战的方式，如此优雅生动……皆举世无双。这个女人真是了不起。
As is the director Reed Morano. Jake Polonsky, cinematographer on Billions, remarked of Morano: “She’s an extremely talented film-maker. She shot our season two opener on Billions and brought a great energy and eye to the episode. Coming from a background of cinematography, she has both technical ability and the on-set experience to be a great director.” I guess you would expect a cinematographer to appreciate a cinematography background in a director, but the visual coherence, the sumptuousness, the way that every shot looked like a Vermeer, did put The Handmaid’s Tale in a league of its own.
导演瑞德·穆拉诺也很了不起。《亿万富翁》的摄影师杰克·波隆斯基说到穆拉诺时说；“她是非常有才华的导演。她拍了《亿万富翁》第二季的开篇，给本集带来巨大的能量和收看率。她摄像出身，具有成为一个伟大导演的技术能力和破篇经验。”我猜你们可能认为一个电影摄影师会欣赏一位有摄影师背景的导演，可视觉流畅、画面华丽、每一个镜头都像维米尔的画作，这着实让《使女的故事》独具风格。
Margaret Atwood always said of her book that she didn’t see it as a feminist dystopia, as such, since the oppression was more pyramid-shaped, “with the powerful of both sexes at the apex, the men generally outranking the women at the same level; then descending levels of power and status with men and women in each, all the way down to the bottom”.
玛格丽特·阿特伍德总说她的书本身并非一本女性主义的反乌托邦作品，因为压迫更多是金字塔式的，“在塔尖是有权势的男女，在这个层面男人普遍居于女人之上，然后男人女人的权力和地位递次下滑，一直到最底层。”
On a related but separate note, the TV series is not feminist: to consider it a type of hell, when one caste of people is routinely mutilated and treated as a “womb on two legs”, is not exactly a radical bid for equality. And yet the sheer dynamic of it, the intensity of Moss’s performance, the complexity of Aunt Lydia’s character, the primacy of female friendship, female solidarity, compassion between women and the abhorrent chill of its absence … God, let’s be even plainer: the fact that this drama was about women, with men mainly in the supporting role of the faceless oppressor, forced the acknowledgment of how rare that is.
用一种有关却不同的说法讲 ，该剧集并非女性主义的：某处的某个种姓一律被致残，被视作“有两条腿的子宫”，而把这里视作地狱，这并非追求平等的极端方式。真正体现了平等，在于该作品活力四射，摩斯的表演力道、莉迪亚姑姑的复杂性格、女性友谊至上、女人团结、女人间相互同情以及因缺乏同情心引发的彻骨寒意……天啊，简单点说吧：这部剧是关于女人的，作为压迫者的男人是无关紧要的配角，你不得不承认，这殊为罕见。
There’s an all-female comic tradition (from Golden Girls, through Sex and the City to Girls), but in drama, not so much; the tacit uncertainty being, women’s interior lives are all very well, but can they really carry a whole hour?
全女性饰演喜剧的传统是有的（《黄金女郎》《欲望城市》《衰姐》等），但正剧却为数不多。女人是公认的纠结动物，她们的内心戏很好，可这撑得起来一个小时吗？
If The Handmaid’s Tale hadn’t won all that it did on Sunday, it would have been a travesty, an injustice against Moss, against Morano, against Ann Dowd (who played Aunt Lydia), against everyone else involved in it, against Margaret Atwood, oh, and against all women, regardless of whether or not they watched it.
如果《使女的故事》未在周日大获全胜，那倒成了闹剧，对摩斯不公平，对穆拉诺不公平，对饰演莉迪亚姑姑的安·唐德不公平，对所有参演的人不公平，对玛格丽特·阿特伍德不公平，对所有女人也不公平，不管她们看了或是没看。
But then it did win – outstanding lead actress, outstanding directing (for Morano’s pilot episode), outstanding drama series, outstanding supporting actress (for Dowd), outstanding writing (for Bruce Miller), outstanding production design, outstanding cinematography (for Colin Wilkinson) and outstanding guest actress, for Alexis Bledel’s haunting performance as Ofglen, whose act of violent defiance unspooled her delicate face in a shot that will live on in the assorted nightmares of all who watched it. It won a lot. It couldn’t have won much more. So that’s OK then.
可它毕竟赢了，最佳女主角、最佳导演（穆拉诺的试播集）、最佳剧集、最佳女配角（唐德）、最佳剧本（布鲁斯·米勒）、最佳制片设计、最佳摄影（科林·威尔金森）和最佳特约女演员，后者奖励阿丽克西斯·布莱德尔饰演的奥夫格兰，她演技纯熟，有一幕，脸庞娇美的奥夫格兰上演了暴力反抗，所有看过的人都会噩梦连连。得了很多奖，没法再多了，也就没什么可挑剔的了。
Nick Lee, the acquired series manager at Channel 4, describes how they lucked out with a show that was so politically relevant. “We acquired the show earlier this year, so were aware of the particular resonance of themes in the show.”
四频道电视剧采购经理尼克·李描述了他们走运地推出一部政治性强的剧。“我们今年初买下了电视剧，当时就知道剧中的主题会引发特别的反响。”
Whatever mix of instinct and serendipity produced such a vivid dystopia for such a vividly dystopian time, the shock and originality of that nowness can’t be repeated. But the Handmaid’s Tale has done something exciting for drama as a whole, in making that whole dark-future genre commercially viable.
在这样一个鲜活的反乌托邦时代，出现这样一部鲜活的反乌托邦作品，不管多大程度上本身质量过硬与机缘巧合共同发挥了作用，这种当下性给人带来的冲击和独树一帜的感受都无法重复。但《使女的故事》作为一部电视剧而言，已经做出一些令人激动的贡献，它让一部完全讲述黑暗未来的类型片在商业上卖座。
Arguably, given The Hunger Games and Maze Runner, dystopia was already a thing; previously, though, it was a teen-thing, and the Atwood-Moss-Morano axis has made it an adult’s thing. We can now presumably look forward to TV adaptations of We (niche 1920s Russian dystopia by Yevgeny Zamyatin, lots of marching and buildings made of glass for a long-pre-Facebook surveillance fantasy), the Chrysalids (niche British post-nuclear fantasy, telepathy, patriarchy and birth defects, not dissimilar to The Handmaid’s Tale, by John Wyndham) and anything by John Christopher (niche 50s and 60s British dystopian, whose canon is one manmade disaster after another, after which society immediately descends into rape and pillage, mainly rape).
可以这样说，有了《饥饿游戏》和《迷宫行者》，反乌托邦作品已经成型，可不过是小儿科，阿特伍德-摩斯-穆拉诺三联手才做出像样的东西。现在我们或许可以期盼电视改编《我们》（上世纪二十年代叶夫根尼·扎米亚京创作的俄罗斯反乌托邦小说，作品中有许多阅兵，还有玻璃建筑物，前脸书时代监控一切的幻想小说），改编《蝶蛹》（约翰·温德姆创作的英国后核弹幻想小说，心灵感应、父权和天然缺陷，同《使女的故事》差不多），改编约翰·克里斯托弗的所有作品（五六十年代的英国反乌托邦小说家，主题是接连不断的人造疾病导致社会立马陷入混乱，强奸、抢劫频发，主要是强奸）。
Ann Dowd, who played Aunt Lydia, won the Emmy award for best supporting actress. Photograph: George Kraychyk/Hulu
And The Handmaid’s Tale has done something invaluable for Hulu, which started life as an S-VOD (a subscription video-on-demand service), jointly backed by Disney, 21st Century Fox and Time Warner. Like Netflix, it diversified into making its own content (which is where the money is made), and, like Netflix, made some low- to zero-impact shows before producing something outstanding. Lee points out that this isn’t unusual. “AMC’s launch of Mad Men 10 years ago proved that new entrants can always be the source of big hits.”
《使女的故事》对葫芦网的价值难以估量，葫芦王以订阅视频点播起家，迪士尼、21世纪福克斯和时代华纳都予以支持。和网飞一样，葫芦王业务多元化，也开始制作内容（这一块可以赚钱），同样和网飞一样，在有大制作之前，做了一些影响力不大的烂片。李指出这没什么稀奇的。“10年前AMC推出《广告狂人》，证明了新来者总能大获全胜。”
A TV exec who wishes to remain anonymous (being in the middle of a delicate deal), explains: “The fact that it was a book made it an easier sell, because the book is a brand.” If Hulu were previously seen as arrivistes, “they are massive players now. All you need is one show, and then suddenly, that’s it. It’s like Netflix and House of Cards, the brand of a successful drama is just gold dust.”
一位因敏感交易而不愿透露姓名的电视总裁解释说：“因为有一本书，所以更好卖，书就是个品牌。”如果葫芦王以前被当成暴发户，“现在他们是大玩家。你需要一部电视剧，突然就来了一部。就像网飞和纸牌屋，一部成功的剧集品牌就是金装。”
Season one’s ending didn’t diverge from Atwood’s book so much as leave out a bit of crucial detail to set up season two, which is already under way. It is a perilous business, taking a book farther than its author did, as we can see from the last season of Game of Thrones, all dragons and not enough sex being the headline complaint, the more sophisticated rendition of which is that the show never managed to breathe the original author’s life into the characters, and it became plot-driven and head-spinning, like a whistle-stop tour of military planning. Whether or not The Handmaid’s Tale: the Sequel suffers the same fate, nobody can know; it’s a risk I’m prepared to take. The end of season one felt like losing a limb.
第一季结尾与阿特伍德的原著相差不远，但保留了一些关键细节，以便在第二季展开，第二季已经开拍了。为作者续书，这有点冒险，《权力的游戏》最后一季就是如此，头条上的批评说，全是龙，没有色，对故事处理太过复杂，未能设法将原作者的生机注入到人物中去，完全被情节驱动，让人晕头转向，好像是军事规划中的走马观花。无论是不是《使女的故事》：续集都命运相同，没人知道，可我愿意冒这个险。第一季的结尾让人感觉丢了条腿。
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