英国新闻听力 对安吉丽娜·朱莉宣布做手术的思考

However rich you are, however secure and successful, the decision to have invasive surgery, cutting away your breasts and your ovaries must be an agonising one. The actor and UN ambassador Angelina Jolie has just announced that that’s what she’s done. Her body has been a large part of her commercial image and success as a film star; as the dynamic and powerful Lara Croft Tomb Raider and latterly as the central character in the film Maleficent, in which her brooding physical presence dominates the magical forest in which she lives. In her life away from film, she’s prioritised a high profile campaign with the MP William Hague tackling the use of rape¹ as a weapon of war in places such as Syria, Rwanda, Congo and Colombia. On and off screen, she seems to be a woman who claims the agency that she has, not to be to the side but in the centre, of making change. The decisions she’s making about her health are intensely personal but she is making them public. In response, UK clinics reported a doubling of enquiries from women wanting to be tested for the BRCA gene² that increases the chances of developing cancer, a gene which Angelina Jolie carries. Jolie herself has said that the reason she has had this invasive and preventative surgery is so that her children don’t have to say, as she had to say “my Mum died of ovarian cancer”. She goes on to say “knowledge is power”.

Women, and of course, men will make their own decisions about gene testing, about surgery and treatment, when that moment comes in the doctor’s room and the news is bad; and for people of faith, these decisions will be made in the light of their own experience too of the presence of God. In our generation, in the West at least, the knowledge we have about our own bodies is unprecedented³, and in some cases, to paraphrase⁴ Scripture⁵, it seems we do have the power within ourselves to save ourselves. But for all the photographed and filmed hours of her life, still the vast majority of Angelina Jolie’s days are lived without cameras and as for the rest of us, it is in these off screen hours that we come face to face with reality, discovering our capacity for fear, faith, courage and despair. We experience this kind of depth in what you might call the “small hours of belief”, when old certainties have gone and our own fragility comes close. That kind of physical vulnerability tests our faith in God and in ourselves. And for a woman to go public about this, to help others decide what to do, is brave, and worthy⁶ of any of her action hero alter egos⁷.

无论你多么富有、稳定和成功，决定做手术切掉乳房和卵巢必定是非常痛苦的选择。演员兼联合国大使安吉丽娜·朱莉最近宣布她正准备这么做，她的身体一直是其商业形象的很大一部分，也在很大程度上促成了她作为电影明星的成功。她先是塑造了《古墓丽影》中有活力而强大的形象，然后又在《梅尔菲森特》中扮演主角，其中她阴沉的形象左右着她所生活的魔幻森林。在电影之外的生活里，她最关心的就是与议员威廉·黑格发起的一项备受关注的运动，也就是解决在叙利亚、卢旺达、刚果和哥伦比亚等国家使用强奸作为战争武器的问题。无论在屏幕内外，她似乎都是提倡进行变革的女性，而且是站在舞台中间而不是边角上呼喊。对自身健康所做的决定纯粹是私人问题，但她将之公布于众。英国的医院报道称，得知该消息后，希望做乳癌基因测试并进行咨询的女性人数翻倍，这种基因能增加患癌的几率，安吉丽娜·朱莉就携带有这种基因。朱莉本人曾说过，她之所以进行这次预防性的手术是因为这样她的孩子们就不用说，“我妈妈死于卵巢癌”。她还说“知识就是力量”。

妇女、当然还有男人会自主决定进行基因测试，无论是为手术还是进行治疗，在医院遇到这个时刻时会遇到坏消息。对于有信仰者来说，做出这些决定是基于自身的经历，也基于上帝的存在。在我们这个时代，至少在西方国家，我们对人体知识的掌握是前所未有的，在一些情况下，似乎我们自身就具备拯救自己的力量。尽管安吉里拉·朱莉一生中会有在镁光灯下和屏幕上的时光，但她其余大部分时间都是在摄像机之外，就像我们每个人一样，正是在这些屏幕之外的时间里我们开始面对现实，发现自身有恐惧、信仰、勇气和绝望的能力。我们会深深体验这种所谓“短暂的信仰”，这时有把握的时候过去，我们自身的脆弱开始逼近。这种身体上的脆弱考验我们对上帝和我们自身的信仰，对这样一位将私事公布于众的女性来说，能帮助别人去决定做什么，是勇敢的举动，值得她所扮演的所有动作英雄改变自我。

1 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

2 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

3 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

4 paraphrase   

vt.将…释义，改写；n.释义，意义

参考例句：

• You may read the prose paraphrase of this poem.你可以看一下这首诗的散文释义。
• Paraphrase the following sentences or parts of sentences using your own words.用你自己的话解释下面的句子或句子的一部分。

5 scripture   

n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段

参考例句：

• The scripture states that God did not want us to be alone.圣经指出上帝并不是想让我们独身一人生活。
• They invoked Hindu scripture to justify their position.他们援引印度教的经文为他们的立场辩护。

6 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

7 egos   

自我，自尊，自负( ego的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Their egos are so easily bruised. 他们的自尊心很容易受到伤害。
• The belief in it issues from the puerile egos of inferior men. 这种信仰是下等人幼稚的自私意识中产生的。