The Dark Side of Joel on“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”《了不起的麦瑟尔夫人》中乔尔的阴暗面

文/艾莉森·斯泰恩 译/陆璐

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.

亚马逊出品的剧集《了不起的麦瑟尔夫人》讲述了剧集同名人物米琪·麦瑟尔（蕾切尔·布罗斯纳安饰）的故事：她在20世纪50年代后期的纽约市从家庭主妇奋斗成为职业单口喜剧演员，把生活的主动权夺回到自己手中。她努力奋斗的诸多原因之一在于与自己分分合合的丈夫乔尔（迈克尔·泽根饰）。

2 第一集剧情中，乔尔在乡村夜总会“煤气灯”的舞台上演砸了喜剧段子，随后突然抛弃了米琪。米琪原本以为丈夫只把单口喜剧当成爱好，没想到他真的相信自己能成为著名职业单口喜剧演员（剧透警告：他没成功）。夫妻二人大吵一架后，乔尔把衣服收进了妻子的行李箱，坦言已经和秘书有染数月。

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 进入第四季，两位剧中人物的生活际遇都变化颇多。米琪刚刚起步的喜剧事业小有所成，却又因为一次严重的舞台事故走了下坡路。乔尔也算是有了自己的生活。然而尽管二人各有烦恼，乔尔却明显过得更轻松。他总是能混过去，现在也不例外。

4 《纽约时报》在2021年刊登了一篇题为“业内女性称，‘平庸’男性更易在金融业取得成功”的报道，受访女性表示金融界的男性“比能力相仿的女性更容易在职场生存”；男性“一直在职场”，而女性却要花费数年时间照顾家庭。

5 乔尔总能“躺赢”，是个典型的平庸男。而他漫不经心、得过且过的生活态度掩饰了他的阴暗个性，他的无能掩饰了他那近乎虐待的有害行为，对待生活中他认为不如自己的女性时尤其如此。

6 乔尔搞砸了很多份工作。是的，不止一份。剧情开始时，他在叔叔的塑料制品厂工作，随后在一次重大会议上大发脾气辞了职。接下来，他给父母的服装公司打工，但父亲想解雇乔尔，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 乔尔优柔寡断，从不知足。米琪在送孩子去见乔尔时才发现他和秘书女友同居，而且公寓布置得几乎与她和乔尔的旧居一模一样（多了那套乔尔不肯买给她的漂亮新沙发）。乔尔是个典型的不闻不问式父亲，他迅速进入与之前有家室时同样的生活模式，只不过换了一个更年轻的女伴。

8 在与米琪离婚后不久，醉酒的乔尔又和她复了婚，同时却还有一个名叫梅（斯蒂芬妮·许饰）的女友。梅帮着乔尔打理唐人街的生意。（乔尔用父亲资助的 6 万美元在唐人街开了一家夜总会。）

9 谁也说不清乔尔的喜剧梦从何而起，也许他起初是想成为有名的诗人，也许他不拘艺术形式，只是醉心自命不凡的幻想，一向自视过高。“我以为我的人生会与众不同。”离开妻子时，他这样说道。他嘴上说自己梦想成为喜剧演员，却从不为此付出努力。反倒是米琪每次看演出都会做详尽的笔记，写下每个段子再进行修改，打磨喜剧技艺——她才是切实付出努力的那个人。

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 乔尔总是把错推给别人，把自己视为受害者（其实是他抛弃米琪，也是他最早让米琪接触到喜剧），这些都是自恋者的特征。控制欲也是其一。

11 第一次发现米琪摘掉了结婚戒指，乔尔就大发雷霆——尽管此时他正和同居女友坐在餐厅的另一桌吃饭。

12 金钱方面，乔尔的控制欲是典型的财务虐待。他不愿让米琪出去工作，试图买下一套公寓给她和孩子们居住，这不是发自善意的行为，而是因为他想掌控米琪。

13 后来米琪自己站上舞台，展现出了极高的喜剧天赋，这对乔尔这样的男人来说就成了天大的背叛。他把这看作是对他本人的冒犯，就像他认为全世界都在和他作对一样。

14 米琪的经纪人苏茜（了不起的亚历克丝·博斯坦饰）令乔尔备感危机，她和米琪十分亲近，相信米琪，并且努力帮助米琪实现梦想。苏茜所代表的自主女性形象也给乔尔带来了危机感：她不畏世俗，不寻求男人的认可，活出了乔尔梦寐以求的那种艰难奋斗的艺术家人生。

1 5乔尔经常因为恐同焦虑对苏茜发火。在第四季第三集中，苏茜刚经历了个人生活变故，但乔尔看见她穿着睡衣出现在米琪的公寓里就立刻脱口而出：“你们在干什么？”

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 乔尔是众多平庸、不安男性角色中的最新一员，他们被有能力、有天赋的女性所吸引——直到意识到她们比自己更聪明，更有成就，或更具潜能。乔尔的魅力具有迷惑性，他想方设法伤害他人，这一切都是刻意而阴险的。 □