The Dark Side of Joel on“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”《了不起的麥瑟爾夫人》中喬爾的陰暗面

文/艾莉森·斯泰恩 譯/陸璐

By Allison Stine

The Amazon primeshow “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” follows its titular character, Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan), a former housewife in New York City in the late 1950s, who struggles to establish a career as a standup comic—and to wrest control of her life.One of the reasons for her struggle is her on and off again husband, Joel (Michael Zegen).

2 In the very first episode of the show,Joel leaves Midge, seemingly out of nowhere, after he bombsonstage at a Village nightclub called the Gaslight,attempting a comedy set, which Midge thought he was doing just for fun. It turns out Joel really believes he can be a famous, professional standup comic(spoiler alert: he cannot). After the couple fight, he packs up his clothes insuitcase and admits he’s been having an affair for months with his secretary.

亞馬遜出品的劇集《了不起的麥瑟爾夫人》講述了劇集同名人物米琪·麥瑟爾（蕾切爾·布羅斯納安飾）的故事：她在20世紀50年代后期的紐約市從家庭主婦奮斗成為職業單口喜劇演員，把生活的主動權奪回到自己手中。她努力奮斗的諸多原因之一在于與自己分分合合的丈夫喬爾（邁克爾·澤根飾）。

2 第一集劇情中，喬爾在鄉村夜總會“煤氣燈”的舞臺上演砸了喜劇段子，隨后突然拋棄了米琪。米琪原本以為丈夫只把單口喜劇當成愛好，沒想到他真的相信自己能成為著名職業單口喜劇演員（劇透警告：他沒成功）。夫妻二人大吵一架后，喬爾把衣服收進了妻子的行李箱，坦言已經和秘書有染數月。

3 Entering its fourth season, the show finds the characters in completely different places in their lives. Midge has had some success in her own fledging comedy career, which then plummets after she makes a terrible mistake on stage. Joel has his own life, kind of. But while both characters have difficulties,Joel’s are demonstrativelydifficult.He slides by. He always has.

4In 2021, theran a story headlined “‘Mediocre’ men get ahead in finance more easily, say women in the industry.” In the article,the women interviewed report that men“could survive more easily than women with comparable abilities” in the world of finance. Men are “always around”while women lose years of work to caregiving.

5 With his ability to fall up, Joel is the quintessential mediocre man. But his lack of care and casual ease through life conceal darker qualities, his ineffectiveness masking toxic behavior that borders on abuse, particularly to the women in his life, whom he believes are beneath him.

3 進入第四季，兩位劇中人物的生活際遇都變化頗多。米琪剛剛起步的喜劇事業小有所成，卻又因為一次嚴重的舞臺事故走了下坡路。喬爾也算是有了自己的生活。然而盡管二人各有煩惱，喬爾卻明顯過得更輕松。他總是能混過去，現在也不例外。

4 《紐約時報》在2021年刊登了一篇題為“業內女性稱，‘平庸’男性更易在金融業取得成功”的報道，受訪女性表示金融界的男性“比能力相仿的女性更容易在職場生存”；男性“一直在職場”，而女性卻要花費數年時間照顧家庭。

5 喬爾總能“躺贏”，是個典型的平庸男。而他漫不經心、得過且過的生活態度掩飾了他的陰暗個性，他的無能掩飾了他那近乎虐待的有害行為，對待生活中他認為不如自己的女性時尤其如此。

6 喬爾搞砸了很多份工作。是的，不止一份。劇情開始時，他在叔叔的塑料制品廠工作，隨后在一次重大會議上大發脾氣辭了職。接下來，他給父母的服裝公司打工，但父親想解雇喬爾，希望他能自力更生。

6 Joel is not good at his jobs. Yes,jobs plural. Joel begins the show employed by his uncle’s plastics company.During a big, important meeting, Joel quits that job in an emotional tantrum.He next works for his parents’ garment business. His own father attempts to fire him, hoping he’ll move on.

7 Joel is indecisive and never satisfied. Midge discovers he’s living with the secretary girlfriend only when she drops the kids off, and sees the arrangement of his apartment is nearly identical to the one she and Joel shared (but with the nice new couch he refused to buy her). A stereotype of the estranged dad, Joel has slipped into the same life as he had with his family, only with a younger woman.

8 Soon after divorcing her, he drunkenly remarries Midge while he’s seeing someone else at the time: Mei (Stephanie Hsu), who’s been helping Joel navigate Chinatown. (Joel’s father has given him $60,000, and Joel has opened a Chinatown nightclub.)

9 One wonders when Joel’s comedy dream began. Perhaps he dreamed of being a famous poet first. Perhaps it’s not the art form specifically, but delusions of grandeur, constantly believing he’s better than he is. “I thought my life was going to be something different,”he says when he leaves his wife. He says his dream is to be a comic—but it’s a dream he doesn’t work at. Midge is the one making copious notes about every show she attends, writing down and revising jokes, honing craft: actually doing the work.

7 喬爾優柔寡斷，從不知足。米琪在送孩子去見喬爾時才發現他和秘書女友同居，而且公寓布置得幾乎與她和喬爾的舊居一模一樣（多了那套喬爾不肯買給她的漂亮新沙發）。喬爾是個典型的不聞不問式父親，他迅速進入與之前有家室時同樣的生活模式，只不過換了一個更年輕的女伴。

8 在與米琪離婚后不久，醉酒的喬爾又和她復了婚，同時卻還有一個名叫梅（斯蒂芬妮·許飾）的女友。梅幫著喬爾打理唐人街的生意。（喬爾用父親資助的 6 萬美元在唐人街開了一家夜總會。）

9 誰也說不清喬爾的喜劇夢從何而起，也許他起初是想成為有名的詩人，也許他不拘藝術形式，只是醉心自命不凡的幻想，一向自視過高。“我以為我的人生會與眾不同。”離開妻子時，他這樣說道。他嘴上說自己夢想成為喜劇演員，卻從不為此付出努力。反倒是米琪每次看演出都會做詳盡的筆記，寫下每個段子再進行修改，打磨喜劇技藝——她才是切實付出努力的那個人。

10Constantly blaming others and seeing oneself as a victim (even though Joel is the one who left Midge—and who introduced her to comedy in the first place) is a trait of a narcissist. So is being controlling.

11Joel is furious when he first discovers Midge is not wearing her wedding ring—even though he uncovers this fact at a restaurant where he’s dining with his live-in girlfriend at another table.

12Money-wise, Joel’s control is a clear example of financial abuse. He doesn’t want Midge to work, and tries to buy an apartment for her and the kids—not out of the kindness of his heart, but because he wants her contained.

13When Midge goes on stage herself—and is really, really good at comedy, a natural—it’s the ultimate betrayal for a man like Joel. He views it as a personal slight against him, an extension of how he views the whole world as out to get him.

10 喬爾總是把錯推給別人，把自己視為受害者（其實是他拋棄米琪，也是他最早讓米琪接觸到喜劇），這些都是自戀者的特征。控制欲也是其一。

11 第一次發現米琪摘掉了結婚戒指，喬爾就大發雷霆——盡管此時他正和同居女友坐在餐廳的另一桌吃飯。

12 金錢方面，喬爾的控制欲是典型的財務虐待。他不愿讓米琪出去工作，試圖買下一套公寓給她和孩子們居住，這不是發自善意的行為，而是因為他想掌控米琪。

13 后來米琪自己站上舞臺，展現出了極高的喜劇天賦，這對喬爾這樣的男人來說就成了天大的背叛。他把這看作是對他本人的冒犯，就像他認為全世界都在和他作對一樣。

14 米琪的經紀人蘇茜（了不起的亞歷克絲·博斯坦飾）令喬爾備感危機，她和米琪十分親近，相信米琪，并且努力幫助米琪實現夢想。蘇茜所代表的自主女性形象也給喬爾帶來了危機感：她不畏世俗，不尋求男人的認可，活出了喬爾夢寐以求的那種艱難奮斗的藝術家人生。

1 5喬爾經常因為恐同焦慮對蘇茜發火。在第四季第三集中，蘇茜剛經歷了個人生活變故，但喬爾看見她穿著睡衣出現在米琪的公寓里就立刻脫口而出：“你們在干什么？”

14Joel feels threatened by Midge’s manager Susie (the marvelous Alex Borstein), the person to whom Midge is probably the closest, who believes in her and actually works to make Midge’s dreams come true. Joel is also threatened by what Susie represents as a woman who wears pants, a woman who lives her life outside of men’s approval and who embodies the kind of struggling artist life he can only fantasize about.

15 He frequently explodes at her in a kind of queer panic. “What’s going on?”he says immediately when he sees Susie in her pajamas at Midge’s apartment in episode 3 of season 4, after Susie has had particularly rough personal news.

16 Joel is the latest character in a long line of mediocre, threatened men drawn to the power of capable, talented women—until he realizes they’re smarter than him, or more accomplished or have more potential. It’s deliberate and insidious, how Joel’s charm conceals, how he seeks to harm. ■

16 喬爾是眾多平庸、不安男性角色中的最新一員，他們被有能力、有天賦的女性所吸引——直到意識到她們比自己更聰明，更有成就，或更具潛能。喬爾的魅力具有迷惑性，他想方設法傷害他人，這一切都是刻意而陰險的。 □