PBS高端访谈:赛金花不能讲的笑话

JUDY WOODRUFF: Tonight's Brief But Spectacular pulls back the curtain of the NBC show Late Night With Seth Meyers. Amber¹ Ruffin and Jenny Hagel write for the show and perform regularly in the long-running Jokes Seth Can't Tell segment. The writers, funny comedians² in their own right, give us a sense of what it takes to get a joke on the air. This segment is part of our ongoing³ Canvas series on arts and culture.

AMBER RUFFIN, Late Night With Seth Meyers: When you hear a joke that you know is the perfect joke, first of all, usually, that happens to me when it is someone else's joke.

JENNY HAGEL, Late Night With Seth Meyers: Yes. I feel like comedy writers rarely even laugh. When a comedy writer hears a joke that good, they all go, oh. Oh, you did it. You got it. When I first started writing Late Night With Seth Meyers, I was trying very hard to kind of figure out Seth's voice. And there happened to be an item in the news that was about lesbians, and I don't remember what it was, but I happen to be a lesbian. So, I saw that headline and I was like, here we go. And I think I submitted like 10 jokes about that. And then I saw the head writer, Alex Baze, in the hallway later and, just jokingly, I was like, Let me know if you need more lesbian jokes. And he was like, We cannot use them. And I didn't, I just hadn't thought about that. Like, right, Seth can't burn lesbians. I pulled Amber aside. And I said: Hey, what if we tried to do a segment where we tell jokes that Seth can't tell? And Amber was like, Let's figure that out.

AMBER RUFFIN: In Jokes Seth Can't Tell, Seth sets up the joke, and then the minority says the punchline⁴.

JENNY HAGEL: Yes.

SETH MEYERS, Host, Late Night With Seth Meyers: Focus Features has released the trailer for the new movie Harriet about Harriet Tubman.

AMBER RUFFIN: It tells the unlikely story of a black lady who, against all odds⁵, was the main character in a movie.

AMBER RUFFIN: If I talk about slavery, it's not as big a bummer as it is for white people to hear about it, which is something I learn each time we do Jokes Seth Can't Tell, and they go, oh, that's too much of a bummer. And you go, all right, I guess so.

JENNY HAGEL: Like, I had a joke where there was some setup about gay weddings. And then Seth said, Jenny, what's the difference between a straight wedding and a gay wedding? And I said, The reason the parents are crying, which to me is very funny.

JENNY HAGEL: But I happened to mention it to a friend of mine before that segment aired. And they're like: You can't say that on television. That's too sad. There's a lot of conversation about, like, P.C. culture and what's too far. And we're not trying to court that line of offensiveness, but we're trying to court this line between like, there's things to be said about our respective communities that are hard and true.

AMBER RUFFIN: Yes.

JENNY HAGEL: And we're interested in exploring those through jokes.

AMBER RUFFIN: Are we saying something new that the audience can hear and then learn and understand in one fell swoop⁶?

JENNY HAGEL: I don't love can't, and when people talk about there are things you can't joke about. But I think it's important to ask, what's your intent? We live in America. We have the First Amendment⁷. We can say anything. So, I don't think it's about can't. It's just, what do you want to do with that time and space that you have, and does it feel good to you, and does it feel good to the people hearing it? I can't imagine living in these times, waking up every morning, seeing the news, and then being like, OK, time to go be a dentist, where I have to not talk about it all day.

AMBER RUFFIN: I mean, some people get up and they cannot talk about it.

JENNY HAGEL: Right. You have to go to work and be polite and keep all your feelings here. And we get to have all our feelings...

AMBER RUFFIN: I'm sorry if that's your life.

JENNY HAGEL: I know. And I'm sorry that our life is basically us working on our feelings, and then you guys have to hear it. We owe you all a co-pay for therapy.

AMBER RUFFIN: But thank you for that. Thank you.

JENNY HAGEL: Yes. I'm Jenny Hagel.

AMBER RUFFIN: And I'm Amber Ruffin.

JENNY HAGEL: And this is our Brief But Spectacular take on...

AMBER RUFFIN: Ladies of late night.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch additional Brief But Spectacular episodes on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.

朱迪·伍德拉夫：今晚的《简短而精彩》要提到美国国家电台的节目《赛金花深夜秀》。安布尔·拉芬和詹妮·黑格尔为一档节目写了素材，也会定期在这档节目上表演。这档节目就是《赛金花不能讲的笑话》。这些作家都是趣味横生的喜剧演员，他们让我们明白了让一则笑话广为流传需要付出怎样的努力。本期节目是帆布系列节艺术与文化节目的部分内容。

安布尔·拉芬，《赛金花深夜秀》：当你听到一则特别棒的笑话时，首先，通常情况下，这一般都是别人讲的笑话。

詹妮·黑格尔，《赛金花深夜秀》：没错，我感觉喜剧作家几乎不怎么笑。每当喜剧作家听到很棒的笑话时，他们的反应都是：哇，天呐，你这梗太成功了，太赞了吧。我刚开始为《赛金花深夜秀》创作的时候，我非常努力地想要辨别出赛金花的声音。那时候，恰好新闻里有关于女同性恋的一件物品，我现在记不太清那个物品是什么了，但是肯定是跟女同性恋有关得。我看见标题的那一刻，我就知道可以在这里做文章。我想我大概提交了10个与这件事有关的笑话。后来，我在走廊里遇到了那位作家亚历克斯·贝兹，我开玩笑地跟他说，如果你还需要跟女同性恋有关的笑话的话，一定要告诉我哦。他的反应大概是说：这些笑话，我们不能用。我也没想到。我知道，没错，赛金花不能否认同性恋的存在。我把安布尔拉到一边。我说：嘿，如果我们试着把赛金花讲不出来的笑话和赛金花风格的笑话做个区分呢？安布尔说，那就试一下看看。

安布尔·拉芬：在《赛金花不能讲的笑话》里，赛金花说的笑话只有少数人能点题。

詹妮·黑格尔：没错。

赛金花，《赛金花深夜秀》的主持人：美国焦点电影公司发布了新电影《哈丽特·塔布曼》的预告片。

安布尔·拉芬：这部电影讲述了一位黑人女性的故事。这位女性突破了千难万阻，是这部电影的主角。

安布尔·拉芬：每当我们谈到奴隶制的时候，白人总是很不喜欢听到的。这件事我是在做《赛金花不能讲的笑话》时发现的，因为白人的反应总是——哇哦，这个可是我不喜欢听到的话题哦。我们的反应是：好吧，猜到了。

詹妮·黑格尔：举个例子，我讲了个笑话，笑话的背景是有一对同性恋举行婚礼。

赛金花会说：詹妮啊，标准性取向的婚礼和同性恋的婚礼之间有什么区别吗？我说，原因是父母是否会哭，这个区别在我看来也很有趣。

詹妮·黑格尔：但在这部分播出之前，我恰好跟一位朋友提起这件事。他们的反应是：你不能在电视上这样说啊，太让人难过了。有很多人都提到过政治正确的文化，说这种文化太过火了。我们不会试着讨论冒不冒犯的问题，但我们会试着讨论——关于我们受到尊重的各个社群，有些话很真实，也很难接受。

安布尔·拉芬：没错。

詹妮·黑格尔：我们对探索这样的笑话很感兴趣。

安布尔·拉芬：我们说的这些对观众来说是短时间内能接受的吗？

詹妮·黑格尔：我不太喜欢的时候，总有人跟你说有些事情是不能开玩笑的。但我觉得很重要的问题是：说话人的意图是什么？我们生活在美国，我们的国家有《第一修正案》，所以我们可以无所不言。我觉得问题不在于不能说，而在于在你可用的时空下，你是否感觉良好，听者是否感觉良好。我不能想象生活在这样一个时代——每天早上醒来后看到新闻，然后心里想，好了，又要当牙医了，我今天一定不能说的话有哪些。

安布尔·拉芬：我是说，有些话是大家起床后就不能说的。

詹妮·黑格尔：是这哪一个男的。上班的时候要礼貌彬彬，收起自己的所有情绪。我们得把这些情绪……

安布尔·拉芬：如果你的生活是这样的话，那真地心疼。

詹妮·黑格尔：我知道，我也感觉很遗憾，我们的生活基本上就是在处理自我的情绪，那么你们大家一定要听。对于你们只能自我疗伤的这件事，我们欠你们一个补偿。

安布尔·拉芬：感谢你这样说，谢谢你。

詹妮·黑格尔：那么，今天的节目就是这样啦，我是詹妮·黑格尔。

安布尔·拉芬：我是安布尔·拉芬。

詹妮·黑格尔：以上就是本期的《简短而精彩》。

安布尔·拉芬：也是深夜茶话会。

朱迪·伍德拉夫：更多节目可在PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief观看。

1 amber   

n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的

参考例句：

• Would you like an amber necklace for your birthday?你过生日想要一条琥珀项链吗？
• This is a piece of little amber stones.这是一块小小的琥珀化石。

2 comedians   

n.喜剧演员，丑角( comedian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The voice was rich, lordly, Harvardish, like all the boring radio comedians'imitations. 声音浑厚、威严，俨然是哈佛出身的气派，就跟无线电里所有的滑稽演员叫人已经听腻的模仿完全一样。 来自辞典例句
• He distracted them by joking and imitating movie and radio comedians. 他用开玩笑的方法或者模仿电影及广播中的滑稽演员来对付他们。 来自辞典例句

3 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

4 punchline   

n.（笑话、故事等的）结尾警语，点睛之笔

参考例句：

• Even then,the magical pause can strengthen the punchline.即使这样，有魔力的停顿依然可以增强笑点。
• A good joke or a mystery novel has along wind up to the final punchline.好的笑话或神秘小说都是一路曲折，直至最后的笑料或真相。

5 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

6 swoop   

n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击

参考例句：

• The plane made a swoop over the city.那架飞机突然向这座城市猛降下来。
• We decided to swoop down upon the enemy there.我们决定突袭驻在那里的敌人。

7 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。