小天后麥莉•塞勒斯:童星成長的煩惱

The performance from Miley Cyrus at MTV's Video Music Awards not only quickly lit up the social Web but also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the former Disney star is all grown up. And then some. Fans were shocked to see Hannah Montana, America's ultimate good girl, get raunchy.

小天后麥莉•塞勒斯（Miley Cyrus）在MTV音樂電視頒獎禮上的表演不僅迅速傳遍了社交網絡，也證明了這位之前在迪斯尼（Disney）頻道熱播情景喜劇《蒙塔娜》中擔綱主角的童星毫無疑問已經長大成人了。不止於此。粉絲們還震驚地發現，美國終極好女孩漢娜•蒙塔娜（Hannah Montana）變得賣弄風騷、不修邊幅了。

When the 20-year-old twisted her tongue, twerked and touched herself, social media went nuts; as the U.K.'s Mirror noted, young fans on Twitter branded Cyrus “scary, ” “embarrassing” and “disturbing.” Brooke Shields, who played Hannah's mom, weighed in, too: “I just want to know who's advising her.”

當這位二十歲的女孩開始搔首弄姿時，社交媒體難以自持；正如英國《鏡報》（Mirror）所指出，Twitter上的年輕粉絲們稱塞勒斯的表現“嚇人”、“令人尷尬”和“讓人不安”。劇中扮演漢娜媽媽的波姬•小絲（Brooke Shields）也在認真掂量：“我只想知道是誰在給她提供建議。”

Cultural critics from Camille Paglia to Jody Rosen opened up their laptops, debating everything from whether the performance was degrading or empowering to Cyrus' sloppy use of African-American symbols. (Sasha Weiss wrote a good summary of that response in The New Yorker, also making the case that “Miley … in her spastic mayhem, anticipated the imminent online feeding frenzy. It was [as] if she were saying, ‘GIF me now.'”)

從卡米爾•帕格里亞（Camille Paglia）到喬迪•羅森（Jody Rosen）等一干文化評論家開始撰文進行全面討論，該表演對於塞勒斯草率地運用非裔美國人元素來說會起到抑制作用還是鼓勵作用。（在《紐約客》雜誌中，薩莎•韋斯對這種反應做了很好的總結，“麥莉……在其神經質的自毀形象中料到了網上即將惡評如潮。好像在說，‘快轉發我的照片吧。'”）

Less highfalutinly, the Mirror suggested that her “raunchy performance … sparked fears she will be the next American teen star to go into meltdown.” That puts her squarely in the company of Britney Spears, Mischa Barton and Amanda Bynes. All those stars had hugely successful brands as child and teen stars, only to trash them as they tried to grow up in public.

《鏡報》不帶誇張地認爲，她“不修邊幅的表現……讓人擔心她將成爲下一個墮落的美國青少年偶像。”而這番點評將她與小甜甜布蘭妮（Britney Spears）、米莎•巴頓（Mischa Barton）和阿曼達•拜恩斯（Amanda Bynes）歸到了一類。這些昔日獲得了巨大成功的童星或少年明星，當他們竭力想在公衆面前長大時卻作踐了自己。

When your brand is based on being relentlessly wholesome, innocent and adorable, it's hard to transition into new brand attributes that suit a worldly, experienced adult. For girls becoming women, flaunting their sexuality is an easy way to show they aren't a little kid anymore—and a way that has historically (when used judiciously) enhanced women's likability. The problem is, it often backfires, especially when the girls go too far too fast.

當你的品牌形象是基於永遠健康、天真和可愛時，就很難轉型以迎合現實、事故的成人觀衆。女孩要成長爲女人，賣弄性感是表明他們不再是一個黃毛丫頭的一種簡單方法，而且從經驗來看這種方法（當運用有度時）也能提高女明星的受喜愛程度。問題是，它常常事與願違，尤其當女孩們做得太過、太急於求成時。

Cyrus didn't help her case when she showed up “stumbling around, ” in the words of the Mirror, waiting to catch a private jet at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport sporting a cellphone, Chanel bag, goofy pajamas and fuzzy unicorn slippers. It was as if she was trying to be an innocent, wholesome little girl again. But it was too late—Pandora's secrets don't go back into the box—and she more than overcompensated with the outfit, which would have been weird on anyone older than 4.

當塞勒斯“跌跌撞撞地四處亮相”（用《鏡報》的話說）時，當她在新澤西的蒂特波羅機場故意展示她的手機、香奈兒手袋、高飛狗睡褲和毛茸茸的獨角獸拖鞋時，這些都沒能幫她扭轉局面。好像她想試着重新做回那個天真無邪的健康小女孩。但是一切爲時已晚，潘多拉魔盒一旦打開便覆水難收，而且這次她又矯枉過正了，這身裝扮放到任何超過四歲的孩子身上都會顯得怪異不自然。

Brooke Shields is onto something: Cyrus needs an intelligent adviser to help her get her brand back on track, stat.

波姬•小絲說到了點子上：塞勒斯需要立即找一個聰明的顧問把她的形象拉回正軌。

She needs to find an equilibrium for her brand, one that's neither too sweet and innocent nor too scandalous and salacious. And she needs to do better than she has done so far, complaining to the Mirror that “I'm messed up…. I have so many f—ing issues…. I don't have a normal life. I take a hiatus every now and again, but I'm not good at that.” She told the same interviewer a few weeks earlier that she's a “workhorse” who “can sleep for just 45 minutes—I'm used to it.”

她需要爲自己的品牌找到一個平衡點，既不能太清純可愛也不能太放蕩不羈。她需要做得比以往更好，向《鏡報》抱怨說“我陷入了一團糟……我有那麼多該死的事情……我沒有一個正常的生活。我偶爾會抽離片刻，但並不善於自我調節。”幾周前她在同一位記者採訪時說，自己是一位“勞模”，“能夠只睡45分鐘的覺——而且習慣於此。”

In other words, it's so hard being famous and successful. Cue the world's smallest violin. Plenty of young girls, teenagers and millennial women work just as hard without dressing like showgirls and twerking before an audience of millions.

換句話說，要出名並取得成功相當不易。想想世界上爲數不多的小提琴手吧。許多年輕女孩、青少年以及千禧一代女性都同樣賣力，卻不能身穿表演服在數百萬觀衆面前演奏。

Cyrus is no doubt hardworking, and there's no question that fame at age 14 can mess with a girl's head. But her VMA performance wasn't a matter of exhaustion or burnout. It was an attempt to slough off an outdated young brand with one that's much more outrageous.

賽勒斯無疑工作非常努力，而14歲就揚名立萬無疑會衝昏一個小女孩的頭腦。但她在MTV音樂錄影帶大獎頒獎禮上的表演不是由於身心俱疲的關係，而是嘗試以更加離譜的形象來摒棄滯後的青春美少女品牌定位。

As the New York Daily News put it, “Now that she's coming into her own womanhood, the ‘We Can't Stop' singer is going full throttle with her bad girl image and said that's more like who she is than any good girl persona previously portrayed on television.”

正如《紐約每日新聞》（New York Daily News ）所說，“由於她即將成年，這位‘勢不可擋'的歌手將以壞女孩的形象全速發展，並且說比起之前在電視銀幕上刻畫的任何好女孩形象，這才更像她自己。”

Cyrus has said that all along her Disneyfied brand was out of sync with her true identity. But now it's time for that brand to grow up along with her. The question is whether she can make it appealing and dignified at the same time.

隨着迪斯尼頻道爲她打造的品牌與她真實的自我不再同步，賽勒斯已經表明了其中的分歧。但現在是時候讓品牌形象和她一起成長了。問題是她是否同時能讓新品牌高貴而且具有吸引力。