分享一篇好文（機(jī)翻），在M本次住院期間難得正面的文章。 Why Madonna still matters She’s more than a musician

In my day job, I work with children. Well, OK, they’re in their twenties, but when they ask me who my favourite musician of all time is, and I say Madonna, they usually look blank. That funny-looking woman who had a few hits in the 1980s? 在我的日常工作中，我和孩子們一起工作。好吧，他們都二十多歲了，但當(dāng)他們問我最喜歡的音樂家是誰時，我說麥當(dāng)娜，他們通常一臉茫然。那個在80年代有幾首熱門歌曲的長相滑稽的女人?

Madonna may not have topped the charts for a few years, but for me and many other women of my generation, she is the greatest. And she always will be, in a way that the pop stars of today – derivative, airbrushed, on-message and PRed to the max – can only dream of. She changed the world of music, she changed lives and even now, in my forties, I still look to her as an inspiration – which is why I was so concerned last week when the news broke that she had spent several days in intensive care with a bacterial infection. 麥當(dāng)娜可能已經(jīng)有幾年沒有登上排行榜的榜首了，但對我和同代的許多女性來說，她是最偉大的。她永遠(yuǎn)是，以一種當(dāng)今流行歌星只能夢想的方式——衍生、修飾、傳遞消息的和最大限度的公關(guān)。她改變了音樂世界，改變了我的生活。即使是現(xiàn)在，我已經(jīng)四十多歲了，她仍然是我的靈感來源——這也是為什么上周她因細(xì)菌感染而在重癥監(jiān)護(hù)室待了好幾天的消息傳出時，我如此擔(dān)心的原因。

Madonna is living proof that you don’t have to be ‘nice’ – people-pleasing, appeasing, uncontroversial – to do good 麥當(dāng)娜是一個活生生的例子，證明你不必是“好人”——取悅他人、安撫他人、沒有爭議——才能做好事 At 64, Madonna is the bestselling female recording artist of all time; she has sold 300 million records in her 40-plus year career. She continues to release albums every three or four years. Before her hospital admission she had been preparing to begin a seven-month, 45-city world tour. Contemporary radio stations that ignore her in favour of younger artists are missing a trick, as she is still making both first-class dance-pop bangers and addictively beautiful slow-tempo tracks. To pick out just two from her recent albums: ‘Turn Up The Radio’ is a fantastic dance track that has lifted me out of a low mood more than once; ‘Ghost Town’ is a haunting evocation of the beauty of having a soulmate which I first heard with my equally music-obsessed ex and which, five years after we broke up, still revives a sadness. 現(xiàn)年 64 歲的麥當(dāng)娜是有史以來最暢銷的女唱片藝術(shù)家;在她40多年的職業(yè)生涯中，她已經(jīng)賣出了3億張唱片。她繼續(xù)每三四年發(fā)行一次專輯。在她入院之前，她一直在準(zhǔn)備開始為期七個月的45個城市世界巡回演出。當(dāng)代廣播電臺忽視她而偏愛年輕藝術(shù)家，他們錯過了一個技巧，因為她仍然在制作一流的流行舞曲和令人上癮的優(yōu)美慢節(jié)奏曲目。從她最近的專輯中挑選出兩張：“打開收音機(jī)”是一首夢幻般的舞曲，不止一次讓我擺脫低落的情緒;“鬼城”是對擁有靈魂伴侶的美感的令人難以忘懷的回憶，這是我第一次聽到的，是我同樣癡迷音樂的前任，在我們分手五年后，它仍然重新喚起了悲傷。 So what, you might say, she’s just a singer who’s made some good tunes and become very rich as a result. But there is so much more to Madonna than that. She moved to New York at 19, alone, and the five years she spent there before becoming famous were a time of grinding poverty and knockback after knockback as she struggled to make it big. She lived in cockroach-filled apartments in dangerous neighbourhoods, worked a series of low-paying jobs, was sexually assaulted at knifepoint and at times was homeless. When her father came to visit her he was so appalled by the squalor she lived in that he begged her to come home. But she refused; she wouldn’t give up. She clung to her dreams and ambitions with a tenacity that, given some of the conditions she endured, seems almost superhuman. How many of us can say that we would do the same? I certainly would have fled home at the first sign of all those six-legged housemates. But when you see someone you admire show that level of determination, and eventually succeed, it helps you to find a strength of your own. I can remember how upset I was when a man I was involved with told me to give up on my journalistic dreams: ‘The industry’s dead,’ he told me. ‘Retrain as a translator.’ Madonna didn’t retrain, and I wasn’t going to either; and he was out of the picture by the time I finally got published in the national press. 所以，你可能會說，她只是一個歌手，唱出了一些好歌，結(jié)果變得非常富有。但麥當(dāng)娜的意義遠(yuǎn)不止于此。19歲時，她獨自搬到紐約，在成名之前的五年里，她生活在極度貧困中，為了讓自己的事業(yè)成名，她經(jīng)歷了一次又一次的挫折。她住在充滿蟑螂的公寓里，住在危險的街區(qū)，干過一系列低薪工作，在刀指下遭到性侵犯，有時無家可歸。當(dāng)她的父親來看她時，他對她的骯臟生活感到震驚，求她回家。但她拒絕了；她不會放棄的。她堅持自己的夢想和抱負(fù)，堅韌不拔，在她所忍受的某些環(huán)境中，這種堅韌不拔的精神幾乎可以說是超人。我們中有多少人能說我們也會這么做？我當(dāng)然會在那些六條腿的室友一出現(xiàn)時就逃回家。但是，當(dāng)你看到你欽佩的人表現(xiàn)出那種決心，并最終取得成功時，它會幫助你找到自己的力量。我還記得，當(dāng)我交往過的一個男人讓我放棄我的新聞夢想時，我是多么沮喪。他對我說，這個行業(yè)已經(jīng)死了。再培訓(xùn)成為一名翻譯。麥當(dāng)娜沒有接受再培訓(xùn)，我也不打算再培訓(xùn);當(dāng)我的作品最終在全國媒體上發(fā)表時，他已經(jīng)消失了。

Yet that very strength of character has meant that Madonna has often been criticised for not conforming to traditional expectations of what a woman should be like. She has always been outspoken – taking on everyone from the Catholic Church to George W. Bush – sexually confident and even aggressive, and the latter especially means she has developed a reputation of not always being the nicest person. But in a world where women are still told to ‘be kind’ at their own expense, even, or perhaps especially, when their rights conflict with the desires of men, I think we need to see more women who don’t prioritise being ‘nice’, who aren’t afraid to state their opinions honestly, make trouble and stand their ground. 然而，正是這種性格的堅強(qiáng)讓麥當(dāng)娜經(jīng)常被批評，因為她不符合傳統(tǒng)對女性的期望。她總是直言不諱——從天主教會到喬治·W·布什——在性方面很自信，甚至好斗，后者尤其意味著她的名聲并不總是最好的。但在這個社會上，女性仍然被告知要“友善”，而代價是她們自己的權(quán)利與男性的欲望相沖突，我認(rèn)為我們需要看到更多的女性不把“友善”放在首位，不把“友善”放在首位害怕誠實地表達(dá)自己的觀點，制造麻煩，堅持自己的立場。

People don’t tend to mind opinionated women who have the ‘right’ views . Madonna has never had the right views. She was a vocal supporter of gay rights in the 1980s when homophobia was much more rife than it is now and Section 28 was still in force. She spoke out against the stigma surrounding HIV and Aids at a time when sufferers sometimes died alone because their families did not know they were gay. Yet there she was, on the Jonathan Ross Show, telling the world that being HIV positive was nothing to be ashamed of. A leaflet on safe sex was provided with every copy of the Like A Prayer album when it came out, and it included the line: ‘People with Aids, regardless of their sexual orientation, deserve compassion and support, not violence and bigotry.’ That may seem uncontroversial now, but I can remember the 1980s and it wasn’t then. It’s easy to forget the intensity of the fear, suspicion and prejudice that existed then and how against-the-grain her stance was. It could have ruined her career. 人們通常不會介意持有“正確”觀點的固執(zhí)女性。麥當(dāng)娜從來沒有正確的觀點。她是20世紀(jì)80年代同性戀權(quán)利的堅定支持者，當(dāng)時同性戀恐懼癥比現(xiàn)在更加普遍，第28條仍然有效。在艾滋病患者因家人不知道自己是同性戀而孤獨終老的時代，她公開反對人們對艾滋病的恥辱感。然而，她在喬納森·羅斯的節(jié)目中告訴全世界，艾滋病毒呈陽性沒什么好羞愧的?！断衿矶\一樣》專輯發(fā)行時，每一本都配有一份關(guān)于安全性行為的傳單，其中有這樣一句話：“艾滋病患者，無論其性取向如何，都應(yīng)該得到同情和支持，而不是暴力和偏見?！边@在現(xiàn)在看來似乎沒有爭議，但我還記得上世紀(jì)80年代，那時還不是。人們很容易忘記恐懼、猜疑和偏見的強(qiáng)度。這可能會毀了她的事業(yè)。

But it didn’t. Seeing a woman who is outspoken, argumentative, and with a lot of the ‘wrong’ opinions, helped give me the confidence to be honest about who I am (a left-leaning Leave voter, so everybody disagrees with me). Madonna has continued to take flak throughout her life over everything from her much younger boyfriends to the quality of her singing, and she doesn’t cave in – she just carries on doing what she wants to do. Every time I’m made to feel I need to shut my mouth and switch off my brain, I think of Madonna, who has never shut hers and never will. 但事實并非如此。看到一個直言不諱、好爭論、持有很多“錯誤”觀點的女人，我就有了信心，讓我誠實地認(rèn)識自己（左傾脫歐選民，所以每個人都不同意我的觀點）。麥當(dāng)娜的一生中，從年輕多了的男朋友到她的演唱質(zhì)量，她一直在受到批評，她從不屈服，她只是繼續(xù)做自己想做的事。每當(dāng)我感到需要閉上我的嘴，關(guān)閉我的大腦時，我就會想起麥當(dāng)娜，她從來沒有閉上過她的嘴，以后也不會閉上。

Madonna is living proof that you don’t have to be ‘nice’ – people-pleasing, appeasing, uncontroversial – to do good. She has donated millions to numerous medical and children’s charities, including Aids and breast cancer charities, and paid the huge medical bills of friends diagnosed with Aids, most notably her former flatmate Martin Burgoyne, whose bedside she was at when he died. She has founded two charities – the Ray of Light Foundation, which supports education for girls in poorer countries, and Raising Malawi – and has raised four adopted children as well as two biological children, for much of the time as a single parent. 麥當(dāng)娜是活生生的證明，要做好事不一定非得表現(xiàn)得“友好”——取悅?cè)藗?、安撫人心、無爭議。她向許多醫(yī)療和兒童慈善機(jī)構(gòu)，包括艾滋病和乳腺癌慈善機(jī)構(gòu)捐贈了數(shù)百萬美元，并為那些被診斷為艾滋病的朋友支付了巨額醫(yī)藥費，其中最著名的是她的前室友馬丁·伯戈因（Martin Burgoyne），伯戈因去世時她就在他的床邊。她創(chuàng)立了兩家慈善機(jī)構(gòu)——支持貧困國家女童教育的光明之光基金會（Ray of Light Foundation）和養(yǎng)育馬拉維（Raising馬拉維）——并撫養(yǎng)了4個被收養(yǎng)的孩子和2個親生子女，大部分時間都是單親家庭。

Madonna isn’t all good, or all bad. And this is why her fans love her. She’s a megastar, but we see ourselves in her. Like all women, she makes bad fashion choices, has insecurities about her appearance (hence overdoing it just a bit on the fillers recently), dates unsuitable men and has struggled to find the perfect partner. Like all mums, she’s had difficulties with her teenage children. Like all career women, she’s had failures and flops, made bad choices and wrong moves. Like all unmarried women over the age of 30, she’s written an embarrassing book about her sex life – OK, maybe that’s just her. 麥當(dāng)娜不全是好的，也不全是壞的。這就是為什么她的粉絲喜歡她。她是個超級巨星，但我們在她身上看到了自己的影子。和所有女人一樣，她的時尚選擇很糟糕，對自己的外表缺乏安全感（因此最近在填充物上做得有點過頭了），和不合適的男人約會并且努力尋找完美伴侶。和所有的母親一樣，她也很難與十幾歲的孩子相處。和所有職業(yè)女性一樣，她也經(jīng)歷過失敗和失敗，做出了錯誤的選擇和錯誤的舉動。和所有30歲以上的未婚女性一樣，她寫了一本關(guān)于自己性生活的尷尬書——好吧，也許這只是她的想法。

But again and again, Madonna bounces back from very public criticism, ridicule and failure, puts it behind her and moves onto something different in a way that ought to inspire each of us who’s messed up in a smaller, less public way. She never lets it get the better of her. And if she can overcome her mistakes and go on to new successes, then so can I. Get well soon, Madonna. You’re needed now as a role model as much as you ever were – maybe even more. 但一次又一次，麥當(dāng)娜從公眾的批評、嘲笑和失敗中恢復(fù)過來，把它拋在腦后，以一種不同的方式前進(jìn)，這應(yīng)該能激勵我們每一個以更小、更不公開的方式陷入困境的人。她從不讓這種情緒占據(jù)她的上風(fēng)。如果她能克服自己的錯誤，走向新的成功，那么我也可以。 祝你早日康復(fù)，麥當(dāng)娜。你現(xiàn)在就像以前一樣被需要成為一個榜樣，甚至更多。

原文：https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-madonna-still-matters/