揽瓜阁俱乐部第四期
Day8 2021.01.25
Does it matter if “The Crown” fictionalises reality?It is more truthful than the story the royals sold
(The Economist - 634字 短精读）
“I’m struggling to find any redeeming features in these people at all,” says Margaret Thatcher to her husband Denis in the course of a visit to Balmoral Castle, where the Thatchers are snubbed, humiliated and forced to play an after-dinner game called Ibble Dibble in which players smear their faces with burnt cork while getting drunk. Oliver Dowden, Britain’s culture secretary, takes a similar view of the portrayal of the Royal Family in “The Crown”. He believes that the real royals have been traduced by Netflix, which makes the drama, and has demanded that the company issue a health warning before future episodes, pointing out that the programme is fiction.
It seems odd that a government led by a man who is writing a book on Shakespeare should insist on historical accuracy in drama. Boris Johnson has not been heard complaining that “Richard III” libels a supposedly non-nepoticidal monarch. All drama that involves real people is, to some extent, fiction: when Charles and Diana stared into each other’s eyes and realised it was over, no one else was in the room where it happened. If those being portrayed are dead, decently behaved and unimportant, nobody cares what lines script writers make up for them. But if they are alive, adulterous and the heir to the throne, things are bound to get sticky.
It is not surprising, then, that the release of the latest episodes has been accompanied by the sound of remote controls ricocheting off Home County walls. Conservatives are furious because their pin-up, Margaret Thatcher, appears as a rasping termagant determined to spill the blood of Argentines and rub the noses of the poor in the dirt. The royals’ friends and flunkeys are outraged that the Windsors are portrayed as cold-hearted bullies who drive Diana to bulimia. The series, they claim, is untrue, unfair and will harm the monarchy.
If the monarchy is so vulnerable that a man pretending to be Prince Charles saying mean things to a woman pretending to be his wife damages it gravely, then the institution has probably outlived its usefulness. Famous people are often portrayed in ways they do not like, but that is one of the costs of free speech. If they feel strongly enough about it, they can sue; but Netflix’s lawyers are probably not sitting by the phone.
The most interesting charge is of untruth. Certainly, “The Crown” distorts chronology and invents events. Prince Philip was not estranged from his mother. The queen did not visit Churchill on his deathbed. The row between Lord Mountbatten and Prince Charles before the prince’s mentor is blown up by the ira is, so far as anybody knows, made up. Yet the monarchy, too, is a purveyor of fiction. “Richard III” was propaganda written by a Tudor toady to justify the overthrow of the previous regime. The Windsors constructed their own happy-family story, which turned out to be less true than the fictionalised tale of dysfunction and despair. And, all in all, they do not come badly out of “The Crown”. Its theme is the conflict between duty and personal fulfilment, which causes pain to cascade down from generation to generation. That is no fiction.
Since a government wedded to free speech is unlikely to haul Netflix’s chief executive to the Tower of London for ignoring Mr Dowden, the intervention should be read as mere virtue-signalling to conservative Britons. Still, the government’s concern for veracity is welcome. Perhaps in future Mr Johnson will pay closer attention to the truth than he did when heading a campaign to leave the European Union which claimed that Brexit would save the country £350m a week, or when he said over a year ago that a trade deal was “oven-ready”. Those lies could lead to a geopolitical divorce far messier than the Windsors’.
Source: The Economist
【人文科学-艺术】
Anna Wetherill Olmsted and the Ceramic National exhibitions in 1930s USA
(WSY - 471 字 短阅读）
Anna Olmsted’s part in this was central, although her reputation waxed and waned between 1939 and 1989. It was at its height in the early 1950s when a number of celebratory articles appeared about her and the Ceramic National exhibitions in Ceramic Monthly and Ceramic Review. These made much of the influence of Robineau and the zeal of Olmsted, but they stressed, in particular, the extraordinary status of American ceramics abroad, attributing this to the influence of the Ceramic National exhibitions, of which it was said ‘none in the world [exhibitions] can compete with its prestige.’
However, at the publication of the major catalogue of the Everson Museum’s (formerly Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts) ceramics collection in 1989 Olmsted’s reputation had declined to such an extent that she barely merited a mention. There were a number of reasons for this. Firstly, by 1989, when the catalogue was produced, the history of ceramics in the USA was most definitely written in terms of ‘named subjects’. These people were creative and artistic, part of a lucrative international art market supported, in turn, by specialist, private and public galleries and museums. American Ceramics, The Collection of the Everson Museum consolidated this. Also Olmsted was not a ceramicist; rather she was a curator, organizer and facilitator.
Surprisingly, given her extraordinary promotion of the exhibitions, she was not a self-promoter. She was neither judge nor juror of the exhibitions, and nor are there any photographs representing her as a professional participating in them, whereas there are numerous photographs of Cowan and Atherton. Furthermore the curatorial stance which she epitomized had been rejected by 1989; indeed in 1972 the exhibitions were abandoned as the intellectual and creative centre of US ceramics shifted west to California, and it was claimed that the exhibition had no coherence, and that it was too vast and uneven in quality. Olmsted was a powerful, influential figure who – even in the mid-1950s – was seen as an obstacle to change at the newly built Everson Museum of Art. Controversially, she was moved sideways in a change of personnel at the end of the 1950s.
Retrospectively, it can be seen that Olmsted’s fluctuating reputation went hand in hand with changing priorities in American ceramics. The experimental ceramics of the 1930s helped to establish the preconditions for the blurring of categories, and Olmsted’s role in organizing, staging and promoting both ceramic vessels and sculpture via the Ceramic National exhibitions made a huge contribution to the dissemination of what had become the distinctiveness of American ceramics around the world. Writing in the decorative art section of the Golden Gate international exposition held in 1939, Olmsted quoted Richard F. Bach’s assessment that the Ceramic National exhibitions had ‘rendered signal service in consolidating American interest in ceramics – thus providing an experiment station where criteria of quality may be established’.
Source: WSY
【人文科学-人际】
An essay on the importance of interracial friendships
（PBS - 2分39秒 精听）
先做听力再核对原文哦~
Almost two-thirds of Americans say that social media has a mostly negative impact on the country, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. They report concerns like the spread of misinformation, hate speech, and only listening to people that you agree with.
So, how can you really break apart those echo chambers? One way, make a new friend. Tonight, author and journalist Christine Pride shares her Humble Opinion on the importance of interracial friendships.
I wonder if you have ever had a Black person to your home for a social visit. I know the answer is probably no, because most people can count their Black friends not just on one hand, but with one finger.
And I know this to be true, because I am often that person, the one Black friend. And as much as I love and adore all my white friends, that role can get a little old.
The fact that most people don't have a friend of another race speaks to our segregated society, but also our complacency. Many people, many white people, could easily go their whole lives without ever getting to know someone of another race, which requires effort.
Making a new friend is hard, period. Making a friend of another race is harder yet. You don't have the ease of common experience and instant camaraderie.
And, for Black people, going out of our way to make a white friend requires enormous trust. It could, after all, be only a matter of time before said friend reveals their true colors.
It's much easier to conclude, why bother?
Well, we all have to bother. These relationships are important. Even the most well-intentioned, well-meaning white person isn't going to get the same benefits researching and reading about race, though you still should do that, as hearing about the personal experiences of someone you respect, admire and trust.
And this is not to say that white people should go seek out strangers or acquaintances and say, tell me about your Black experience. Do not do that. That's not friendship. That's a transaction.
Real friendship means a willingness to listen carefully, and have your views challenged, because your Black friend doesn't see the world the same way you do. It's going to require you to do the important work of earning and offering trust, so that, if you make a mistake or misstep, you will have some good will to fall back on.
But, even before that, it starts with stepping outside your comfort zone. A diverse social circle isn't just going to fall in your lap. You're going to have to think carefully about where you live and where your children go to school, the activities you participate in, because, if you're only ever around people who look like you, it's going to be all but impossible to create a meaningful connection with someone of another race.
Ultimately, these friendships are going to require putting actions behind intentions.
Source: PBS
京公网安备11010202008513号 京ICP证101109号 京ICP备12012021号
发表于 2021-1-24 23:08:49
收藏
收藏
