“BoJack Horseman, Rick And Morty, and the art of cynical sincerity” - By Zack Handlen
http://www.avclub.com/article/bojack-horseman-rick-and-morty-and-art-cynical-sin-223245
（這是我第一次翻譯非商業用的文章，行文仍然有點沙石，請多見諒。本文解釋了為何我們都深愛有病的故事，和自我中心的混蛋主角，作者對目前新興的成人向美番動畫有著深刻獨特的見解，十分值得一看！）
Back in the ’90s, BoJack Horseman (protagonist of the Netflix original series BoJack Horseman) was the star of a sitcom named Horsin’ Around. The clips we see of that show reveal sentimentality at its most toxic: Every line is either a bad joke or an unearned expression of affection; every problem is easily solved; and every lesson learned is simple, direct, and painfully obvious. The sitcom’s shallowness is an ever-ready punchline set against the ambiguity and misery of BoJack’s “real” life. Yet the former star remains obsessed with the show that made him his fortune, watching and re-watching taped episodes even as his world falls apart. Those lessons may be obvious, but at least they’re something.
在九零年代，BoJack Horseman（Netflix原創劇集BoJack Horseman的主角）是情景喜劇《胡鬧的小馬》裏的明星。來自這節目的片段都充滿著極其危險的情感：每句對白不是一個糟糕的玩笑，就是一段不勞而獲的感情；所有問題都能輕易解決；每個教訓都是簡單、直接，並且非常一目了然的。這套情景喜劇的淺薄在於每個精心鋪排的笑點，都是針對著BoJack「真實」生活裡的模稜兩可和痛苦。可是，這位過氣明星仍然迷戀著這齣成名之作，就算他的世界正分崩離析，仍然再三地重看從前錄下的集數。這些教訓或許是顯而易見的，但至少它們有著某些意義。
It’s a tension that’s practically universal: The knowledge that life is complex, often unfair, and generally mysterious wars with our innate need for simple answers. The airwaves are littered with TV shows that exploit that conflict by offering straightforward escapism, or by scoring surface points off of life’s strangeness without requiring any deeper investment. Then there are the shows that want to achieve a more lasting impact than simple distraction. The challenge being that audiences for that kind of show pride themselves on being jaded and harder to reach. The popularity of the type of sitcom that Horsin’ Around parodies informed a generation of cynics, eager to pick apart even the slightest hint of false sincerity. The trick is to find a way to tell stories that get past those well-honed defenses, stories that seem to believe in nothing but ultimately believe in everything.
這是一種近乎通行的張力：明白生命中的複雜，通常充滿著不公，並且普遍都與我們與生俱來對簡單答案的渴求神秘地拉扯著。大氣電波裏充斥著利用這種衝突的電視節目，提供直接了當的逃避，或是不需投放任何多餘情感下，顯淺地消費著生活裏的古怪和陌生，但有些節目亦希望能製造出比普通娛樂更為持久的影響。然而，當中的挑戰是，這類節目的目標觀眾大多以厭倦普通節目為傲，並且更難吸引。由於《胡鬧的小馬》所惡搞的那種情景喜劇十分普及，從而教育一整個世代的觀眾變得憤世嫉俗。他們熱衷於挑剔、揭破哪怕只有絲毫的虛情假意。因此，關鍵在於找出一種方式來訴說一個能解除那些精心磨練的防禦的故事，一個似乎什麼也不相信，最終卻也相信一切的故事。
BoJack Horseman is very good at this. So is Rick And Morty, a sci-fi comedy mindfuck currently airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block. Both in their second seasons, the two are the latest example of a by-now recognizable genre: animated series hiding a rich emotional life behind a thick layer of dark comedy and borderline nihilism. While neither would seem to have much in common—BoJack’s surreal, melancholic take on Hollywood and stardom is light years away in texture and tone from Rick And Morty’s frenetic cosmic absurdity—they both demonstrate an affection for their ensembles and a need for audiences to share that affection. Both have beating, vital hearts, even as they do everything in their respective powers to pretend otherwise.
BoJack Horseman很擅長這一點，正於卡通頻道的Adult Swim時段播出，腦洞大開的科幻喜劇Rick and Morty也是。同樣地在第二季，這兩套片集都是目前一個易於識別的流派中的最新例證：表面是一層厚厚的黑色喜劇動畫和虛無主義，但內裡卻充滿著濃濃的情感生活。縱使它們看似並無什麼共通之處－BoJack對荷里活的超現實和憂鬱處理，以及名氣遙遙無期的質感和氣氛，相對於Rick and Morty狂熱荒謬的宇宙－它們都展現了角色們的情感，並且需要與觀眾共享這種情感。兩者都有著躍躍而動的心，儘管它們都在盡一切可能地假裝和否認著。
It’s a neat trick, and one that requires a considerable amount of effort and balance to pull off. The format helps. Animation inspires certain assumptions, even when it’s immediately evident those assumptions aren’t true. Most cartoons are made for children, which means bright colors, trustworthy authority figures, and happy endings. There’s nothing subtle about the way BoJack and Rick And Morty’s adult themes (death, sex, drugs, ennui) undercut the presumed family-friendliness of animated entertainment, but that doesn’t make the effect any less, well, effective. On a basic level, it’s funny to see a talking horse getting drunk and screwing groupies, or a drunken grandfather forcing his grandson to decide the fate of the world. It’s even funnier when those scenes are animated because the surprise that drives the humor becomes more subversive.
這技巧非常聰明，並需要大量的努力和平衡去實踐。動畫這種模式也有幫助，它能激發某些假設，儘管這些假設都顯然不正確。大多數動畫是為兒童製作，這意味著鮮豔的色彩，值得信賴的權威人物，和大團圓結局。BoJack和Rick and Morty裏的成人主題毫不低調含糊（死亡、性、毒品、虛無），違反了動畫作為「友好的家庭娛樂」的假定，但這並不代表了減弱其影響。在基本層面上，看見一隻會說話的馬醉酒，與粉絲胡混，或是醉酒的祖父迫使他的孫子來決定世界的命運，是十分好笑的。動畫化這些場景甚至會令其更加好笑，因為驚喜驅使這種幽默更為顛覆。
That subversion is a key element in earning an audience’s trust. Having cartoon characters do horrible things signals that these shows are clever enough to recognize cliche and work against it. But that cleverness only goes so far, and BoJack and Rick And Morty take great pains to make sure the specificity of their respective worlds adds to the irony. There’s no real plot reason why BoJack should be a horse-man, or that his show’s reality should be populated by talking animals. But those animals offer story and joke potential as well as being familiar to anyone who’s watched many children’s movies, which, again, sets up those quickly subverted expectations. Talking animals are supposed to be cheerful and funny, not morose and self-destructive.
這種顛覆正是贏得觀眾信任的一大關鍵。卡通人物做出可怕事情，這標誌著這些節目都聰明得能找出當中的陳腔濫調，並且與之作對。然而小聰明也只能做到這裏為止，BoJack和Rick and Morty煞費思量把其獨特的世界混入諷刺。劇情從未解釋為何BoJack必須是一隻馬，或是為何劇中世界處處是會說話的動物。但是，這些動物提供了故事和笑話的可能性，對任何曾經觀看許多孩童電影的人而言亦十分熟悉，同樣建立起那些被迅速顛覆的前設。會說話的動物應是歡樂有趣的，而非鬱悶又有自毀傾向的。
Rick And Morty’s premise sounds like something that wouldn’t be out of place on Disney Channel: A brilliant inventor takes his grandson around the multiverse, meeting aliens and having adventures. But just as BoJack and his friends belie the expected behavior of cartoon beasts, Rick and Morty’s escapades are a far cry from Doc and Marty McFly bopping around time. The show presents a reality which is brutal, merciless, and cold, one where the smallest mistake can kill millions. And worse, Rick, the ostensible authority figure, is loopy, regularly drunk, and openly contemptuous of just about everybody. It’s horrifying to imagine a houseplant under his care, let alone a teenager.
Rick and Morty的背景聽起來像由迪士尼頻道出品：一個聰明的發明家帶著孫子四處冒險，探索多元宇宙和認識外星人。一如BoJack和他的朋友們，看似有著一般卡通人物的預期行為，Rick and Morty異常瘋狂的冒險，其實絲毫不像布朗博士和馬蒂的時空旅行。該節目呈現了一個殘酷無情而冰冷的現實，一個最小的錯誤都可能導致數百萬人死亡。更壞的是，所謂的權威人物Rick經常酗酒，並公然蔑視所有人，很難想像他能好好照料一盤盆栽，更遑論一名青少年了。
So that’s the cynicism: showing the dark reality under the smiling-happy-people surface of familiar concepts. Both shows deal in morbid humor, but if that were their only interest, neither would have the impact they currently enjoy. BoJack’s initial shallowness and animal puns gave way over the course of its first season to a frank, and often devastating, portrayal of depression and unhappiness, a portrayal the show’s second season expanded and enriched. (The animal puns remained.) Rick And Morty, while more of a comedy at heart than BoJack, made the case over its first run of episodes that Rick’s amoral attitude was arguably the only sane response to an insane universe, and that his callousness actually concealed a sincere affection for his family—not the Hallmark kind of love, maybe, but no less meaningful.
這正是諷刺所在：呈現出在動畫這熟悉的概念中，那些經常微笑和快樂的人物背後的黑暗現實。這兩個節目充滿著病態幽默，但如若這是他們的唯一目的，他們都不會享有目前的影響力。BoJack最初的膚淺和動物雙關語笑話，最終讓路予第一季中對抑鬱和不快樂的誠實且絕望的描寫，這在第二季裏也變得更為深入和豐富。（動物雙關語笑話依然存在）Rick and Morty雖比BoJack更貼近一套喜劇，在第一季裏Rick毫無道德觀念的態度，可說是對這份瘋狂宇宙唯一理智的回應，他的無情背後實際隱藏著關愛家人的心－也許不是任何標誌性的愛，但不減意義。
Each series began with apparent indifference, even hostility to its leads, encouraging viewers to laugh in shock and disgust over their behavior. They established a pattern of apparent assholery and then disrupted that pattern with flashes of honest feeling, which land all the harder because they’re unexpected. It’s a model that respects an audience’s unwillingness to settle for easy heartwarming moments by burning the bridges that lead to those moments, and then slowly, patiently rebuilding them. No one’s going to pretend that BoJack isn’t an ass, or that Rick and Morty have a functional relationship. But once that pretense is off the table, it’s possible to find other, more challenging but still affecting veins of emotion. The surprise of realizing you care about a story that, up until five minutes ago, seemed to be the antithesis of caring, is what makes loyal fans for life.
兩齣片集都由明顯的冷淡開始，甚至對主角存有敵意，鼓勵觀眾為其行為感到驚喜、可笑和厭惡。他們建立出明顯的混蛋模式，然後偶爾展露真實情感，破壞當初建立的模式。由於出乎意料，故能製造出更大的震撼。這是一個尊重觀眾不願滿足於簡單窩心時刻的模式，摧毀所有導致情感流露的橋樑，然後再慢慢一一重建。沒有人會假裝BoJack不是一個混蛋，或Rick和Morty有著健康的關係。可是，一旦所有假裝都消失了，就有可能找出其他更具挑戰性，卻仍然動人的情感。這種「直至五分鐘前你才發現你關心一個看似什麼也不在意的節目」所帶來的驚喜，正是使人成為終身粉絲的關鍵。
BoJack and Rick And Morty are hardly the first animated series to use this approach (intentionally or otherwise). While The Simpsons’ cock-eyed take on the nuclear family may seem sweetly wholesome today, its mild disruptions were received as borderline offensive when the show first aired. In its later seasons, Futurama was able to generate a frequently astonishing amount of power by interspersing its usual grab bag of mildly cruel sci-fi silliness with raw heartbreak. But the best example in the modern era is The Venture Bros., which turned an inventive but fundamentally mean-spirited take on Jonny Quest and other boy adventure shows into an unsparing, humane examination of masculine failure.
BoJack和Rick and Morty大概不是首部（有意無意地）使用這種技巧的動畫片集。The Simpsons對核心家庭尖銳而荒謬的觀察或許在今天看來過於甜美，然而其溫和的諷刺在首播當時卻被視為近乎侮辱的。在Futurama後期季度，它亦能製造巨大的能量，用偶爾的心碎點綴有點殘酷的傻氣科幻。但近代最好的例子必數The Venture Bros，別出心裁但實際酸溜溜地把Jonny Quest和其他男孩冒險節目，顛覆成一次對男子氣概的失敗毫不留情和人性化的考察。
It’s hard to say how much this style of storytelling is a conscious decision by showrunners, and how much it’s just writers improving as they go. It could be the natural expression of a worldview whose depths only become evident with time. Regardless, the results are the same: shows that flatter a viewer’s knowledge of tropes by deconstructing those tropes, only to reveal the hilarious but wounded soul underneath.
很難一概而論這種風格的故事有多少是由創作團隊有意決定，有多少只是他們臨場隨意發揮。這也可能是一種世界觀的自然流露，隨著時間會變得越來越有深度。無論如何，結果都是一樣的：那些尊重觀眾智商的節目，透過解構電視常見的劇情和角色定型，只是為了揭露背後搞笑但傷痕纍纍的心靈。
馬男波傑克 瑞克和莫蒂
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