《芭比》你觉得怎么样？

近日，电影《芭比》（Barbie）正在热映，你看了吗？

🤔️小作业：

A. Society's perspectives on women's roles have not significantly changed over time.

B. Society has been steadily pushing towards the liberalization and diversification of women's roles.

C. Society's expectations from women have become more demanding and unrealistic.

D. Society is resistant to changes and tends to cling to traditional norms.

2. How does the author's personal journey with Barbie influence her perspective on the doll?

A. It allows her to appreciate the versatility and adaptability of Barbie.

B. It leads her to dismiss Barbie as a flawed and misleading symbol.

C. It prompts her to question the impact of Barbie on young girls' self-perception.

D. It shapes her view of Barbie as a reflection of societal norms and values.

无注释原文：

Barbie Has Never Been a Great Symbol, but She’s an Excellent Mirror

From: The New York Times

The “Barbie” movie arrives today as the culmination of a nearly 15-year process that started when Universal Pictures acquired the rights to the character — which isn’t an unusually long time in Hollywood, where scripts regularly languish in turnaround until a combination of big names and deep pockets brings them to life. But Barbie’s film debut also comes in the context of a much longer and more tortuous journey with an existential question at its core: After all these years, does Barbie still matter? And if she does, then … why?

From the moment Barbara Millicent Roberts — Barbie — came on the scene in 1959, the doll was controversial. Male toy executives, conditioned to believe that little girls wanted to play with babies, were flummoxed by this representation of a fully grown woman. But little girls, as they do, understood. Barbie became a sensation. And then a lightning rod. Then a concern. For the past 64 years, Barbie has been at the center of countless debates about who women are, who they should be, how they look and what they want.

Barbie looms as simultaneously an unrealistically proportioned airhead and a striving Everywoman. Most of the time she can’t utter a word, yet she’s believed to speak for a critical mass of us. Perhaps that’s why the “Barbie” movie that finally exists is the only one that could exist: one that acknowledges and embraces that weirdness under the vigilant gaze of a corporate chaperone. The trailer’s tagline (“If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.”) is confirmation that Barbie is, in the most literal way, everyone’s business.

I get it. At 6 years old, I was offered a choice between two dolls for my birthday: the Bionic Woman or Barbie. I didn’t, in contemporary toy-representation parlance, see myself in Barbie; the Bionic Woman’s brown hair and jumpsuit much more accurately mirrored my ponytail and hand-me-down corduroy overalls. Barbie, with her white-blond cascade of flosslike hair and a plunge-necked pink dress, was nothing like any woman I’d ever seen. Wasn’t that the point?

I chose Barbie.

In my childhood, the doll was always there — perched on my dresser, toted along on car trips, surfing the waves of my bathtub on a tortoiseshell comb. She was more distant in my adulthood, as Barbie had become a subject of feminist concern. I followed many authors, artists, musicians and assorted culture jammers who were publicly working out their own Barbie issues in fascinating ways. Along the way, I realized this: Barbie is that childish thing none of us can put away, because as long as she’s existed, she’s never been a child. Rather, she’s been an emblem, a scapegoat, a lightning rod, a target and, most of all, a mirror. However we feel about Barbie at a given moment says a lot more about us than it does about Barbie.

When the 1980s backlash against women’s liberation bled into the ’90s, psychologists started raising the alarm over a crisis in girls’ confidence in best-selling books like “Reviving Ophelia.” Anita Hill was explaining sexual harassment to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and women on college campuses were reporting an alarming incidence of sexual assaults. A new wave of feminism was cresting, and it was dragging Barbie under. There was the matter of her unnatural proportions, like a waist-to-hip ratio that could not exist in real life without sacrificing key internal organs. Later, it was her inescapable blondness and whiteness. Despite introductions of Black and Latina Barbies in 1980, along with special collections like the 1980s’ Barbies of the World, everyone knew the real Barbie — the icon, the ur-Barbie, the one true Barbie — was a testament to the same Western beauty ideal inscribed into America’s other institutions of ornamental femininity, from Hollywood to Miss America to Playboy.

As with every iteration of feminism, those of us in the third wave that rose in the ’90s had to grapple with the missteps, misgivings and unfinished business of the previous generations. Barbie certainly wasn’t the most important issue, but she was, after all, right there, nakedly and even proudly what we would come to term problematic. So we donned our hot-pink hair shirts.

Barbie’s overlords were also being humbled. In 1992, Mattel introduced Teen Talk Barbie, which uttered, among other phrases, a chirpy “Math class is tough!” confirming that the historically trend-savvy brand was falling behind the times — and prompting criticism from the American Association of University Women. Mattel’s litigious responses to things like the 1998 intersectional feminist body-image essay collection “Adios, Barbie” and Aqua’s gratingly ubiquitous earworm “Barbie Girl” didn’t help its P.R. Mattel celebrated Barbie’s 40th birthday in 1999 with a brand overhaul that shifted focus from dolls to actual girls, debuting an ad campaign that exhorted its young audience to “become your own hero.”

The “Barbie” movie is also about becoming your own hero or at least taking a hero’s journey — one that leads Barbie into a real world that, for the most part, finds her either dangerous or irrelevant. It’s a fitting approach, since the most interesting thing about Barbie has always been our reactions to her. Some reviews have said the film suffers from an attempt by the director, Greta Gerwig, to incorporate the breadth of the Barbie discourse, causing a narrative overload. But how could it not, given just how much discourse Barbie has inspired over 64 years?

There’s a different film — the 2018 documentary “Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie” — that, for me, helps put that discourse in context. “Tiny Shoulders” chronicled Mattel as a company in crisis: Faced with shrinking revenues and declining audience interest, the company was poised in 2016 to introduce a collection of dolls whose skin tones and body types tick a few diversity boxes. I was interviewed for the film, alongside the Barbie historians M.G. Lord and Amanda Foreman and the feminist authors Roxane Gay (a contributing Opinion writer) and Gloria Steinem, with each of us offering context and commentary on Barbie’s place in the past, present and future of women’s lives.

I didn’t realize the film’s narrative would essentially serve as a Mattel redemption arc. When I saw the finished film, I realized that in the course of my life I had gone from a guileless Barbie consumer to an enlightened Barbie renouncer to an unwitting Barbie P.R. booster.

Yet for all the ways Barbie has evolved, so have our expectations for her. As Michelle Chidoni, Mattel’s P.R. chief (or, as she describes herself, “Barbie’s publicist”), said, inspiring the documentary’s title, Barbie holds the weight of several generations’ worth of beauty standards and feminist analysis on her tiny shoulders. Those shoulders might get the occasional refashioning — to make them more athletic or fleshier or more diverse in hue or, in the case of this new film, more self-aware of the weight they’ve been tasked with carrying — but that doesn’t change the fact that we keep adding standards for her to live up to. As a symbol, Barbie is so complicated as to be useless. But as a vessel, she’s proved remarkably durable.

I’m willing to acknowledge — even mock — my once-reflexive feminist rejection of everything Barbie: She never had to be a zero-sum figure, a thing you were either with or against. Many of us definitely saw her that way. That we did speaks only to the continuing challenges of a world that, even now, isn’t sure whether women can be free of stereotypes or expectations and be allowed to simply exist.

- ◆ -

注：完整题目见本文开头；中文文本为纽约时报官方译文，仅供参考

含注释全文：

为什么芭比到今天依然重要

Barbie Has Never Been a Great Symbol, but She’s an Excellent Mirror

From: The New York Times

The “Barbie” movie arrives today as the culmination of a nearly 15-year process that started when Universal Pictures acquired the rights to the character — which isn’t an unusually long time in Hollywood, where scripts regularly languish in turnaround until a combination of big names and deep pockets brings them to life. But Barbie's film debut also comes in the context of a much longer and more tortuous journey with an existential question at its core: After all these years, does Barbie still matter? And if she does, then … why?

环球影业获得芭比版权15年后，《芭比》终于上映了，这个时间对好莱坞来说不算特别久，毕竟剧本常常陷入不断修改的苦境，直到有一天大人物和雄厚资金联手将它搬上荧幕。但《芭比》走向银幕的过程有着一个格外漫长而痛苦的背景，决定它生死的核心问题是：这么多年过去了，芭比还重要吗？如果重要的话，是为什么？

culmination /ˌkʌl.mɪˈneɪ.ʃən/表示“结局；某事物的顶点（极点，最终成果）”，英文解释为“Something, especially something important, that is the culmination of an activity, process, or series of events happens at the end of it.”举个🌰：This little book represented the culmination of 8 years' work. 这本小书是8年工作的结晶。

📍《经济学人》（The Economist）一篇讲述德国工会正推动四天工作制的文章中提到：Mr Hofmann's salvo ahead of collective-bargaining talks later this year points to a new stage in European labour relations—and a culmination of decades of pushing for working hours to be cut. 霍夫曼在今年晚些时候的劳资集体谈判启动之前突然开出这一炮，表明欧洲的劳资关系进入了一个新阶段，几十年来推动削减工时的努力也达到了顶峰。

acquire /əˈkwaɪər/ 作动词，表示“取得，获得；购得；学到；收购”，英文解释为“to get something”举个🌰：He acquired the firm in 2023. 他于2023年收购了这家公司。

表示“剧本；电影剧本；广播（或讲话等）稿”，英文解释为“a written text of a play, film/movie, broadcast, talk, etc.”举个🌰：That line isn't in the original script. 原剧本中没有那句台词。

languish /ˈlæŋ.ɡwɪʃ/ 表示“受苦，经历苦难，受煎熬”，英文解释为“to exist in an unpleasant or unwanted situation, often for a long time”举个🌰：After languishing in obscurity for many years, her early novels have recently been rediscovered. 她的早期小说在沉寂多年后最近被重新发掘出来。

1）表示“（突然）好转，改观，改善”，英文解释为“an occasion when a business, plan, or system suddenly becomes successful”举个🌰：The CEO was responsible for the turnaround in the company's fortunes. 公司命运的转变归功于首席执行官。

2）表示“（接活到交活之间的）周转期，时限，周转时间”，英文解释为“the amount of time it takes to do a piece of work that you have been given and return it”举个🌰：It is possible to produce a result within 24 hours but the standard turnaround is 12 days. 有可能在24小时之内得出结果，但正常的周期是12天。

3）表示“根本性的变化，彻底的改变”，英文解释为“any change from one thing to its opposite”举个🌰：What a turnaround - they were losing 3–0, they came back to win 4–3. 真是一个大逆转——他们先是0比3落后，可最后却以4比3赢了。

表示“名人；重要人物；大名鼎鼎的”，英文解释为“a famous or important person”举个🌰：Are there any big names in the movie? 这部电影里有大明星吗？

表示“（组织或人）财力雄厚”，英文解释为“If an organization or person has deep pockets, they have a lot of money.”举个🌰：Anyone who tries to save that company will need deep pockets. 想要拯救那家公司的人必须实力雄厚。

debut /ˈdeɪ.bju/ 作动词，表示“首演，首次登台；首次亮相”，英文解释为“to perform or be introduced to the public for the first time”举个🌰：The Broadway show debuted last year to great acclaim. 这个百老汇节目去年首次演出就受到了广泛赞扬。

作名词，表示“（演员、运动员等的）首次登台，初次亮相；新事物的问世”，英文解释为“The debut of a performer or sports player is their first public performance, appearance, or recording.”举个🌰：She made her debut in a 1937 production of "Hamlet." 她在1937年《哈姆雷特》的演出中首次登台。

tortuous /ˈtɔː.tʃu.əs/ 表示“弯弯曲曲的；曲折的；转弯抹角的”，英文解释为“with many turns and changes of direction; not direct or simple”举个🌰：He took a tortuous route through back streets. 他选择穿过偏僻的街道，走了一条弯弯曲曲的路线。

From the moment Barbara Millicent Roberts — Barbie — came on the scene in 1959, the doll was controversial. Male toy executives, conditioned to believe that little girls wanted to play with babies, were flummoxed by this representation of a fully grown woman. But little girls, as they do, understood. Barbie became a sensation. And then a lightning rod. Then a concern. For the past 64 years, Barbie has been at the center of countless debates about who women are, who they should be, how they look and what they want.

自1959年芭芭拉·米利森特·罗伯茨——芭比——问世以来，这个娃娃一直是个争议。玩具制造商的男性高管惯常地认为小女孩喜欢玩婴儿娃娃，这样的成年女性娃娃形象让他们感到困惑。但小女孩们不困惑，她们懂。芭比红极一时。然后招来批评。然后变成了令人担忧的问题。在过去的64年里，芭比娃娃一直处于无数争论的中心：何为女性，她们应该是什么人，她们应该是什么样子，以及她们想要什么。

表示“有争议的；引起争议的”，英文解释为“causing disagreement or discussion”如：a controversial issue 有争议的问题。

作名词，熟词僻义，除了表示“情况，状况”，condition本身可以表示“疾病”，英文解释为“any of different types of diseases”如：to suffer from a heart/skin condition 患有心脏/皮肤病。

📍out of condition 可以表示“身体状况不佳，不在状态”（not healthy enough for hard physical exercise, as a result of not taking part in sport or other physical activities）。

作动词，表示“训练；使习惯于；使适应；使（人或动物）形成条件反射”，英文解释为“to train or influence a person or animal mentally so that they do or expect a particular thing without thinking about it”如：a conditioned reflex/response 条件反射/反应，举个🌰：Women were conditioned to expect lower wages than men. 女性以前习惯于接受比男性低的工资。

flummoxed /ˈflʌm.əkst/ 表示“困惑的，迷惘的”，英文解释为“so confused that you do not know what to do”举个🌰：He looked completely flummoxed. 他看起来完全不知所措。

1）表示“表现；展现；描绘；描述”，英文解释为“the way that someone or something is shown or described”举个🌰：He gave a talk on the representation of women in 19th-century art. 他作了一个演讲，是关于19世纪艺术中女性形象塑造的。

2）表示“陈述；述说；抗议”，英文解释为“formal statements made to sb in authority, especially in order to make your opinions known or to protest”，一般用复数，举个🌰：We made representations to the boss about the long working hours. 我们就工作时间过长一事向老板提出抗议。

1）表示“轰动；哗然；引起轰动的人（或事物）”，英文解释为“very great surprise, excitement, or interest among a lot of people; the person or the thing that causes this surprise”举个🌰：The band became a sensation overnight. 一夜之间，这支乐队名声大振。

📍此前，戳爷Troye Sivan被传已分手数月？文中出现过，pop sensation可以理解为“流行巨星”，“流行天王”。还有，63岁中国爷爷成油管网红文中标题就是Master carpenter's ancient Chinese skills are a YouTube sensation.

2）作可数名词，还可以表示“感觉；知觉”，英文解释为“a feeling that you get when sth affects your body”如：a tingling/burning sensation 刺痛/烧灼的感觉。

3）作不可数名词，可以表示“感觉能力；知觉能力”，英文解释为“the ability to feel through your sense of touch”举个🌰：She seemed to have lost all sensation in her arms. 她的两条胳膊好像完全失去知觉了。

🎬电影《困在爱中》（Stuck in Love）中的台词提到：I was overcome by the oddest sensation. 我像是被一种怪异的冲动（感觉）驱使着。

美式 lightning rod，英式 lightning conductor 1）表示“避雷针”，英文解释为“a strip of metal, going from the highest point of a building to the ground, that prevents lightning from damaging the building by taking the electricity to the ground before it can reach a dangerous level”

2）表示“替罪羊，代人受过者;引火烧身的人(或事)”，英文解释为“someone or something that takes all the blame or criticism in a situation, although other people or things are responsible too”举个🌰：Pay rises for politicians have become a lightning conductor for criticism. 给政客涨工资这一举措便成了众矢之的。

Barbie looms as simultaneously an unrealistically proportioned airhead and a striving Everywoman. Most of the time she can't utter a word, yet she's believed to speak for a critical mass of us. Perhaps that's why the “Barbie” movie that finally exists is the only one that could exist: one that acknowledges and embraces that weirdness under the vigilant gaze of a corporate chaperone. The trailer's tagline (“If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.”) is confirmation that Barbie is, in the most literal way, everyone's business.

芭比既以一个身材比例不切实际、头脑简单的女人形象出现，又代表了努力奋斗的普通女人。她大多数时候不会说话，但被认为代表了我们中的大多数人。也许这就是为什么最终面世的《芭比》电影是唯一可能存在的芭比电影：一部在企业监护人警惕的目光下承认并拥抱这种怪异的电影。预告片的口号（“如果你喜欢芭比，你应该看这部电影。如果你讨厌芭比，你应该看这部电影。”）以最直白的方式表明，芭比和每个人都相关。

1）表示“（令人惊恐地）隐约显现；赫然耸现”，英文解释为“to appear as a large, often frightening or unclear shape or object”举个🌰：Dark storm clouds loomed on the horizon. 天边隐约出现了一团团的乌云。

2）表示“（不希望或不愉快的事情）阴森地逼近”，英文解释为“If a worrying or threatening situation or event is looming, it seems likely to happen soon.”举个🌰：The threat of renewed civil war looms ahead. 新一轮内战的威胁在逼近。

simultaneously /ˌsɪm.əlˈteɪ.ni.əs.li/ 表示“同时地”，英文解释为“in a way that is simultaneous (= happening or being done at exactly the same time)”举个🌰：Two children answered the teacher's question simultaneously. 两个孩子同时回答了老师的问题。

proportioned /prəˈpɔː.ʃənd/ 表示“成比例的，比例匀称的”，英文解释为“having parts of the size or shape that is described”

everywoman = Everywoman表示“普通女性；一般女人”，英文解释为“a woman who is very typical and ordinary, with similar experiences or qualities to most people”举个🌰：Her image is one of an everywoman: a nice, humble, ordinary person. 她的形象是一个普通的女人：善良、谦逊而平凡。

utter /ˈʌtə/ 表示“发出（声音）；说”，英文解释为“If someone utters sounds or words, they say them.”举个🌰：He uttered a snorting laugh. 他扑哧一声笑了。

vigilant /ˈvɪdʒ.əl.ənt/ 表示“警觉的；警戒的；警惕的”，英文解释为“always being careful to notice things, especially possible danger”举个🌰：Following the bomb scare at the airport, the staff have been warned to be extra vigilant. 机场的炸弹恐吓事件之后，全体员工都被告诫要格外警惕。

trailer /ˈtreɪlə/，表示“（电影或电视节目的）预告片”，英文解释为“a series of short scenes from a film/movie or television programme, shown in advance to advertise it”。

📍常出现的还有一个词叫teaser，词典里的意思是“前导广告，悬念式广告（含蓄而引人好奇）”，英文解释为“an advertisement for a product that does not mention the name of the product or say much about it but is intended to make people interested and likely to pay attention to later advertisements”。也可以用来指“预告”，“预热”片。

表示“宣传词”，英文解释为“a short, easily remembered phrase that a company uses in its advertisements, especially on television or the internet, so that people will recognize it or its products”

literal /ˈlɪt.ər.əl/ 表示“（意义）字面的，根本的”，英文解释为“The literal meaning of a word is its original, basic meaning.”举个🌰：The literal meaning of "television" is "seeing from a distance". television 的字面意思是“从远处看”。

I get it. At 6 years old, I was offered a choice between two dolls for my birthday: the Bionic Woman or Barbie. I didn't, in contemporary toy-representation parlance, see myself in Barbie; the Bionic Woman's brown hair and jumpsuit much more accurately mirrored my ponytail and hand-me-down corduroy overalls. Barbie, with her white-blond cascade of flosslike hair and a plunge-necked pink dress, was nothing like any woman I'd ever seen. Wasn't that the point?

我能理解。6岁生日的时候，有两个娃娃供我选择：“无敌女金刚”或芭比。用当下谈论玩偶代表性的惯用语来讲，我没有在芭比身上“看到我自己”；而无敌女金刚的棕色头发和连体衣更像是我的镜像——一个梳着马尾辫，穿着别人穿剩下的灯芯绒连体衣的女孩。芭比的层层金发如丝绸一般，穿着深V粉色连衣裙，完全不像任何我见过的女性。可是，不就是为了这个吗？

parlance /ˈpɑːləns/ 表示“说法，用语；术语”，英文解释为“a group of words or style of speaking used by a particular group of people”。

-necked / -nekt/ 表示“有…脖子的;是…衣领的”，英文解释为“used to refer to the type of neck someone or something has, or to the style of a piece of clothing around the neck or the way that it is worn”如：a stocky, stiff-necked little man 脖子僵直、身材粗壮的矮个男人，a round-necked jumper 圆领针织套衫，an open-necked shirt 开领衬衫，plunge-necked 深V/深开式领口。

I chose Barbie.

我选择了芭比。

In my childhood, the doll was always there — perched on my dresser, toted along on car trips, surfing the waves of my bathtub on a tortoiseshell comb. She was more distant in my adulthood, as Barbie had become a subject of feminist concern. I followed many authors, artists, musicians and assorted culture jammers who were publicly working out their own Barbie issues in fascinating ways. Along the way, I realized this: Barbie is that childish thing none of us can put away, because as long as she's existed, she's never been a child. Rather, she's been an emblem, a scapegoat, a lightning rod, a target and, most of all, a mirror. However we feel about Barbie at a given moment says a lot more about us than it does about Barbie.

在我的童年里，这个娃娃一直在那里——坐在我的梳妆台上，在汽车旅行中陪伴我，在我的浴缸里，站在我的玳瑁梳上冲浪。成年后，我和她疏远了，因为芭比成了女性主义者关注的话题。我关注了许多作家、艺术家、音乐家以及各种文化反堵人士，他们用及其有趣的方式公开解决自己的芭比困境。一路走来，我意识到：芭比是我们谁都无法摆脱的孩童玩物，因为自问世以来，她从来不是孩子。相反，她是一个象征、一个替罪羊、一个众矢之的、一个被针对的目标，最重要的是，她是一面镜子。然而，我们在某个特定时刻对芭比的感觉更多地反映了我们自己，而不是芭比本身。

perch in/on sth. 表示“坐在…（的边缘）上；栖息于；停留于”，英文解释为“to sit on or near the edge of something”举个🌰：We perched on bar stools and had a beer. 我们坐在酒吧高凳上，喝了一杯啤酒。

作动词，tote /təʊt/ 表示“携带，搬运，背负（尤指重物或不便之物）”，英文解释为“to carry something, especially something heavy or awkward”举个🌰：She usually toted the baby around in a backpack. 她通常把婴儿放在背包里，背着到处走。

作名词，tote / tote bag表示“大手提包，大手提袋”，英文解释为“a large bag for carrying things with you”。

tortoiseshell /ˈtɔː.təʃ.ʃel/ 表示“玳瑁壳，龟甲，龟板；仿玳瑁壳”，英文解释为“the hard shell of a turtle that is yellow, orange, and brown and that is used to make decorative objects, or an artificial substance made to look like this”如：glasses with tortoiseshell frames 玳瑁壳框架的眼镜。

assorted /əˈsɔː.tɪd/ 表示“各种各样的；混杂的；什锦的”，英文解释为“consisting of various types mixed together”如：a case of assorted wines 混装于一箱的不同品牌的酒。

emblem /ˈem.bləm/ 表示“象征；标志；符号；徽章”，英文解释为“a picture of an object that is used to represent a particular person, group, or idea”举个🌰：A rose is the national emblem of England. 玫瑰是英格兰的标志。

scapegoat /ˈskeɪp.ɡəʊt/ 表示“替罪羊，代人受过的人”，英文解释为“a person who is blamed for something that someone else has done”举个🌰：The captain was made a scapegoat for the team's failure. 队长成了球队失利的替罪羊。

When the 1980s backlash against women's liberation bled into the '90s, psychologists started raising the alarm over a crisis in girls' confidence in best-selling books like “Reviving Ophelia.” Anita Hill was explaining sexual harassment to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and women on college campuses were reporting an alarming incidence of sexual assaults. A new wave of feminism was cresting, and it was dragging Barbie under. There was the matter of her unnatural proportions, like a waist-to-hip ratio that could not exist in real life without sacrificing key internal organs. Later, it was her inescapable blondness and whiteness. Despite introductions of Black and Latina Barbies in 1980, along with special collections like the 1980s' Barbies of the World, everyone knew the real Barbie — the icon, the ur-Barbie, the one true Barbie — was a testament to the same Western beauty ideal inscribed into America's other institutions of ornamental femininity, from Hollywood to Miss America to Playboy.

当上世纪80年代的反妇女解放思潮蔓延到90年代，心理学家开始通过《拯救奥利菲娅》(Reviving Ophelia)等畅销书对女孩的自信心危机发出警报。安妮塔·希尔在向参议院司法委员会阐释何为性骚扰，大学校园里女性报告的性侵事件多到惊人。新的女权主义浪潮正在兴起，芭比也被卷入其中。她不自然的身材比例是个问题，现实中不可能有那种连重要脏器都无处安放的腰臀比。后来，她那无法无视的金发和白皮肤也成了问题。尽管黑人和拉丁裔芭比在1980年就已问世，还有上世纪80年代的“世界芭比”等特别收藏系列，但所有人都明白，真正的芭比——那个符号，原形芭比，唯一正宗的芭比——代表的是西方的理想审美，从好莱坞到“美国小姐”再到《花花公子》，这种审美已被刻入美国装饰性女性气质的习俗之中。

表示“强烈抵制，集体反对”，英文解释为“a strong negative reaction by a large number of people, for example to sth that has recently changed in society”如：the backlash against xx 对xx的强烈反对。

📺美剧《无耻之徒》（Shameless）第一季中的台词提到：There will be a backlash if people don't stop 字幕组翻译为：如果人们不停止...的话，迟早会出大事。

revive /rɪˈvaɪv/ 表示“（使）苏醒，复活；（使）复兴；（使）重新流行”，英文解释为“to become, or to make sb/sth become, conscious or healthy and strong again”举个🌰：The flowers soon revived in water. 这些花见了水很快就活过来了。

表示“比率；比例”，英文解释为“the relationship between two groups of people or things that is represented by two numbers showing how much larger one group is than the other”举个🌰：The school has a very high teacher-student ratio. 这所学校的师生比例很高。

1）表示“象征物；偶像”，英文解释为“If you describe something or someone as an icon, you mean that they are important as a symbol of a particular thing.”如：a fashion icon 时尚偶像。

2）表示“图标；图符”，英文解释为“a small symbol on a computer screen that represents a program or a file”

ur- 前缀，表示“原来的;最早的”，英文解释为“original or earliest”举个🌰：He is not an actual historical person but represents the ur-man. 他不是一个真实的历史人物，但是代表了最早的人。

testament /ˈtes.tə.mənt/ 表示“证明；验证”，英文解释为“proof”举个🌰：The detail of her wildlife paintings is (a) testament to (= proof of) her powers of observation. 她画野生动物十分细致，这证明她有很强的观察能力。

inscribe /ɪnˈskraɪb/ 表示“题写;刻，雕”，英文解释为“to write words in a book or carve (= cut) them on an object”举个🌰：The prize winners each receive a book with their names inscribed on the first page. 每名获奖者都得到一本首页题有他们签名的书。

ornamental /ˌɔː.nəˈmen.təl/ 表示“装饰性的，装饰用的；装饰的”，英文解释为“beautiful rather than useful”如：a bowl of ornamental china fruit 一盘装饰性瓷制果。

femininity /ˌfɛmɪˈnɪnɪtɪ/表示“ 女性；女子气质（尤指温柔、娇小和美丽）”，英文解释为“qualities that are considered to be typical of women, especially qualities that are gentle, delicate, and pretty.”

masculinity /ˌmæskjuˈlɪnəti/ 表示“男子气概；男性；阳性”，英文解释为“the quality of being masculine”

As with every iteration of feminism, those of us in the third wave that rose in the '90s had to grapple with the missteps, misgivings and unfinished business of the previous generations. Barbie certainly wasn't the most important issue, but she was, after all, right there, nakedly and even proudly what we would come to term problematic. So we donned our hot-pink hair shirts.

正如每一次女权主义浪潮一样，经历了上世纪90年代兴起的第三波女权浪潮的我们不得不去面对前人的行差踏错、忧虑困扰和未竟事业。芭比当然不是最重要的议题，但她毕竟就在那里，毫无遮掩甚至是自豪地成为我们称为“存在问题”的物品。于是我们穿起粉色的刚毛衫折磨自己。

1）表示“反复（通常为了作出改善而重复做某事）”，英文解释为“the process of doing something again and again, usually to improve it, or one of the times you do it”如：the repetition and iteration that goes on in designing something 在设计某物时的重复与反复修改。

2）表示“迭代，叠代（数学里若干次使用一个数学法则得出的量）”，英文解释为“an amount that you get when you use a mathematical rule several times”。

1）表示“扭打；搏斗”，英文解释为“to take a firm hold of sb/sth and struggle with them”举个🌰：Passers-by grappled with the man after the attack. 袭击之后过路人便与这男人扭打起来。

2）表示“努力设法解决；尽力解决；设法对付；尽量克服”，英文解释为“to try hard to find a solution to a problem”举个🌰：The government has yet to grapple with the problem of air pollution. 政府还需尽力解决空气污染问题。

🎬电影《钢铁侠3》（Iron Man 3）中的台词提到：trying to grapple with something from some hard-crypt data files 希望能在一些加密的数据文件里找到线索...

表示“（对未来事件的）疑虑，担忧”，英文解释为“a feeling of doubt or worry about a future event”举个🌰：Many teachers expressed serious misgivings about the new tests. 许多教师表示对新的考试非常担忧。

表示“穿戴上”，英文解释为“to put on a piece of clothing”举个🌰： He donned his finest coat and hat. 他穿上了他最帅的外套，戴上了他最好的帽子。

📺美剧《权力的游戏》（Game of Thrones）中的台词提到：My father has donned the ancient crown of salt and rock 我父亲已戴上海盐与磐石的古老王冠。

Barbie's overlords were also being humbled. In 1992, Mattel introduced Teen Talk Barbie, which uttered, among other phrases, a chirpy “Math class is tough!” confirming that the historically trend-savvy brand was falling behind the times — and prompting criticism from the American Association of University Women. Mattel's litigious responses to things like the 1998 intersectional feminist body-image essay collection “Adios, Barbie” and Aqua's gratingly ubiquitous earworm“Barbie Girl” didn't help its P.R. Mattel celebrated Barbie's 40th birthday in 1999 with a brand overhaul that shifted focus from dolls to actual girls, debuting an ad campaign that exhorted its young audience to “become your own hero.”

芭比的主宰者也已经不能再肆无忌惮。1992年美泰推出了“会说话的少年芭比”，她的发言包括一句俏皮的“数学课真难！”，证明了这个历来紧跟潮流的品牌已经落后于时代，并招致美国大学女性协会的批评。美泰对1998年出版的多元交织性女权主义身体意象文集《再见，芭比》(Adios, Barbie)以及水叮当(Aqua)的洗脑神曲《芭比女孩》(Barbie Girl)做出的诉讼回应对公司的公关处境也没什么好处。1999年，为庆祝芭比诞生40周年，美泰对品牌进行了重塑，将焦点从玩偶转移到真实的女孩身上，推出了一系列广告宣传片，鼓励年轻观众“做自己的英雄”。

overlord /ˈəʊ.və.lɔːd/ 表示“（尤指旧时的）领主，大王，霸主”，英文解释为“a person in a position of power, especially in the past”

humble /ˈhʌm.bəl/ 作形容词，表示“谦虚的，谦逊的”，英文解释为“not proud or not believing that you are important”举个🌰：He's very humble about his success. 他对自己的成功十分谦虚。

作动词，表示“使…感到自惭”，英文解释为“to make someone understand that they are not as important or special as they thought”举个🌰：He was humbled by the child's generosity. 那个孩子的宽宏大量使他自惭形秽。

1）表示“短语”，英文解释为“a group of words that is part of, rather than the whole of, a sentence”。

2）表示“说法；用语；警句”，英文解释为“a short group of words that are often used together and have a particular meaning”

chirpy /ˈtʃɜː.pi/ 表示“快活的；活泼的；轻松愉快的”，英文解释为“happy and active”举个🌰：She seemed quite chirpy this morning. 她今天早上好像很开心。

作名词，savvy /ˈsæv.i/ 表示“常识；实际能力”，英文解释为“practical knowledge and ability”如：business savvy 专业知识。

savvy 作形容词，表示“有见识的；懂实际知识的；通情达理的”，英文解释为“having practical knowledge and understanding of sth; having common sense”，如tech-savvy指的就是懂技术，精通技术/科技的（knowing a lot about modern technology, especially computers），trend-savvy的意思是对当前流行趋势具有敏锐的洞察力和理解能力，紧跟潮流的。

🎬电影《爱情、婚礼和婚姻》（Love, Wedding, Marriage）中的台词提到：if you're gonna be gone for six months, you need to be internet email savvy. 如果你要离开半年 你得精通互联网电子邮件。

作名词，1）表示“（计算机屏幕上的）提示符（显示计算机已经准备好接受指令）”，英文解释为“a sign on a computer screen that shows that the computer is ready to receive your instructions”

2）表示“（给演员的）提词，提白”，英文解释为“words that are spoken to an actor who has forgotten what he or she is going to say during the performance of a play”

3）作动词，表示“促使；导致；激起”，英文解释为“to make sb decide to do sth; to cause sth to happen”举个🌰：His speech prompted an angry outburst from a man in the crowd. 他的讲话激起了人群中一男子的愤怒。

📺美剧《斯巴达克斯：血与沙》（Spartacus: Blood and Sand）中的台词提到：One cannot but wonder what would prompt such an act 不知他们为何遭此不幸。

4）作动词，表示“（尤指）给（演员）提词”，英文解释为“to help someone, especially an actor, to remember what they were going to say or do”举个🌰：I forgot my line and had to be prompted. 我忘词了，只好让人提词。

litigious /lɪˈtɪdʒ.əs/ 表示“爱打官司的，好诉讼的”，英文解释为“too often taking arguments to a court of law for a decision”举个🌰：The US is the most litigious society in the world. 美国是世界上最爱打官司的社会。

grating /ˈɡreɪ.tɪŋ/ 形容词性，表示“（声音）刺耳的”，英文解释为“A grating sound is unpleasant and annoying.”副词gratingly，可译为“使人急躁地；使人气恼地”。

ubiquitous表示“无所不在的”，英文解释为“If you describe something or someone as ubiquitous, you mean that they seem to be everywhere.”举个🌰：Coffee shops are ubiquitous these days. 如今好像到处都是咖啡馆。

意思相近的一个形容词：

📍pervasive表示“到处存在的，到处弥漫着的，遍布的”，英文解释为“Something, especially something bad, that is pervasive is present or felt throughout a place or thing.”如：the pervasive influence of mobile phones in daily life 手机在日常生活中无处不在的影响。

字面意思就是“耳朵虫”，表示“常在耳边回响的歌曲；（因不断在脑中重复而恼人的）上口曲调”，英文解释为“a song that you keep hearing in your head”。

overhaul /ˈəʊ.və.hɔːl/ 可以作动词也可以作名词，表示“彻底检修，大修；改造；改进”，英文解释为“to repair or improve something so that every part of it works as it should”举个🌰：I got the engine overhauled. 我彻底检修了发动机。

exhort /ɪɡˈzɔːt/ 表示“激励；规劝；敦促”，英文解释为“to strongly encourage or try to persuade someone to do something”举个🌰：The governor exhorted the prisoners not to riot. 典狱长告诫犯人们不要闹事。

The “Barbie” movie is also about becoming your own hero or at least taking a hero's journey — one that leads Barbie into a real world that, for the most part, finds her either dangerous or irrelevant. It's a fitting approach, since the most interesting thing about Barbie has always been our reactions to her. Some reviews have said the film suffers from an attempt by the director, Greta Gerwig, to incorporate the breadth of the Barbie discourse, causing a narrative overload. But how could it not, given just how much discourse Barbie has inspired over 64 years?

电影《芭比》也是关于如何做自己的英雄，或者至少踏上英雄之旅的故事，片中的芭比被带入现实世界，她发现自己在其中要么身陷危险，要么无关紧要。这种情节编排恰如其分，因为芭比最有意思的一点从来都是我们对她的态度。有评论表示，由于导演格蕾塔·葛韦格试图将芭比的宽泛话题融入到影片之中，导致叙事过载。但考虑到芭比在过去64年里引发了多少讨论，叙事怎可能不多？

1）表示“论文；演讲”，英文解释为“a long and serious treatment or discussion of a subject in speech or writing”，如：a discourse on issues of gender equality 关于性别平等的论文。

2）表示“语篇；话语；对话；交流”，英文解释为“the use of language in speech and writing in order to produce meaning; language that is studied, usually in order to see how the different parts of a text are connected”。

1）表示“故事；叙事”，英文解释为“A narrative is a story or an account of a series of events.”如：a fast-moving narrative 一个快节奏的叙事。

2）表示“（对事件的特定的）陈述”，英文解释为“a particular way of explaining or understanding events”。

There's a different film — the 2018 documentary “Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie” — that, for me, helps put that discourse in context. “Tiny Shoulders” chronicled Mattel as a company in crisis: Faced with shrinking revenues and declining audience interest, the company was poised in 2016 to introduce a collection of dolls whose skin tones and body types tick a few diversity boxes. I was interviewed for the film, alongside the Barbie historians M.G. Lord and Amanda Foreman and the feminist authors Roxane Gay (a contributing Opinion writer) and Gloria Steinem, with each of us offering context and commentary on Barbie's place in the past, present and future of women's lives.

在我看来，另一部影片——2018年的纪录片《迷你肩膀：再造芭比》(Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie)——有助于为这些话语提供语境。片中的美泰是一家危机重重的公司：面对营收缩水和顾客兴趣的丧失，公司准备在2016年推出一个肤色和体型都符合一些多样性标准的玩偶系列。我与研究芭比发展史的M·G·罗德和阿曼达·福尔曼、女权作家罗克珊·盖伊（时报观点作家）和格洛丽亚·斯泰纳姆都在片中接受了采访，对芭比在女性生活的过去、现在和未来扮演了怎样的角色提供了背景和评论。

chronicle /ˈkrɒnɪkəl/ 1）作名词，表示“编年史；年代记；大事记”，英文解释为“a written record of historical events”。

2）作动词，表示“记述，记录（大事）；把…载入编年史；按发生时间顺序编写或播放”，英文解释为“To chronicle a series of events means to write about them or show them in broadcasts in the order in which they happened.”举个🌰：The series chronicles the everyday adventures of a girl. 这部丛书按时间顺序记载了一位女生每天的奇遇。

shrink /ʃrɪŋk/ 作动词，表示“（使）缩小，（使）变小”，英文解释为“to become smaller, or to make something smaller”举个🌰：The market for their products is shrinking. 市场对他们产品的需求在减少。

表示“平衡的；作好准备的，摆好姿势的”，英文解释为“If an object or a part of your body is poised, it is completely still but ready to move at any moment.”举个🌰：The cup was poised on the edge of the chair. 杯子放在椅子边上（随时可能掉下来）。My pencil was poised over the page, ready to take down her words. 我的铅笔对准了本子，随时准备记下她的话。

表示“多样性，多样化”，英文解释为“the fact of many different types of things or people being included in something; a range of different things or people”举个🌰：Does television adequately reflect the ethnic and cultural diversity of the country? 电视节目能充分反映出这个国家民族和文化的多样性吗？

作动词，1）表示“（钟表）发出嘀嗒声；滴答地走”，英文解释为“When a clock or watch ticks, it makes a sound every second.”举个🌰：In the silence we could hear the clock ticking. 寂静中，我们能听到钟表滴答作响。

2）表示“进展，进步；正常运转”，英文解释为“to operate as a functioning mechanism”

3）表示“给…标记号，打上钩”，英文解释为“to mark something with a tick”举个🌰：Tick (off) each item on the list as you complete it. 每完成一条就在清单上把这一条划掉。

作名词，表示“核对号，钩号（✓）”，英文解释为“a mark that shows that something is correct or has been done”举个🌰：Put a tick by/against the names of the people who have accepted the invitation. 在接受邀请的人的姓名上打钩。

✓ tick box /ˈtɪk ˌbɒks/ 表示“勾选框”，英文解释为“a small square on a paper form where you can put a tick to show that you want something or that something is correct or has been dealt with”

✓ 动词短语 tick all/a lot of the boxes，字面意思就是所有勾选框都打勾了，指的是“符合一切条件，满足所有要求”。

I didn't realize the film's narrative would essentially serve as a Mattel redemption arc. When I saw the finished film, I realized that in the course of my life I had gone from a guileless Barbie consumer to an enlightened Barbie renouncer to an unwitting Barbie P.R. booster.

没想到那部影片的叙事最终会变成美泰的洗白。看完全片后，我意识到自己的人生道路就是从一个天真质朴的芭比消费者成为觉醒的芭比厌弃者，再变成了一个不明真相的芭比公关推动者。

redemption /rɪˈdemp.ʃən/ 表示“（尤指基督教的）拯救，赎罪，救赎”，英文解释为“(especially in Christianity) an occasion when someone is saved from evil, suffering, etc.”

arc /ɑːk/ 1）表示“弧；弧状；弧线；弧形”，英文解释为“the shape of part of a circle, or other curved line”举个🌰：The ball rose in a high arc and fell behind the boundary line. 球在空中高高地划了一条弧线落在边线外。

2）熟词僻义，表示“情节（或主题）的发展”，英文解释为“a complete story or the story of one character, especially one that is part of a larger story in a film, book, or television series”。

guileless /ˈɡaɪl.ləs/ 表示“诚实无欺的，老实的”，英文解释为“honest, not able to deceive”举个🌰：She regarded him with wide, guileless blue eyes. 她瞪着一双纯真无邪的蓝色大眼睛看着他。

unwitting /ʌnˈwɪt.ɪŋ/ 表示“不知情的；无意的”，英文解释为“without knowing or planning”

Yet for all the ways Barbie has evolved, so have our expectations for her. As Michelle Chidoni, Mattel's P.R. chief (or, as she describes herself, “Barbie's publicist”), said, inspiring the documentary's title, Barbie holds the weight of several generations' worth of beauty standards and feminist analysis on her tiny shoulders. Those shoulders might get the occasional refashioning — to make them more athletic or fleshier or more diverse in hue or, in the case of this new film, more self-aware of the weight they've been tasked with carrying — but that doesn't change the fact that we keep adding standards for her to live up to. As a symbol, Barbie is so complicated as to be useless. But as a vessel, she's proved remarkably durable.

虽然芭比早已面目全非，但我们对她的期待也是一变再变。正如美泰公关负责人米歇尔·奇多尼（她自称“芭比公关”）所说，这部纪录片片名的意思就是，芭比小小的肩膀承载了几代人的审美标准和女权解构的重量。这些肩膀可能时不时被重塑——变得更健壮、更丰满、有更多样的肤色，或是像这部新电影一样，更能自主意识到它们负担的重任——但这并不能改变一个事实，即我们一直在为她增添需要达到的标准。作为一个象征符号的芭比是如此复杂，以至于失去了实际用途。但作为一种载体，她被证明是经久不衰的。

表示“颜色；色度；色调”，英文解释为“a colour; a particular shade of a colour”举个🌰：His face took on an unhealthy whitish hue. 他的脸上透出一丝病态的苍白。

🎬电影《恶老板2》（Horrible Bosses 2）中的台词提到：就因为我的肤色 我就知道从哪儿拿到...？Because of the hue of my skin I know where to get ...?

I'm willing to acknowledge — even mock — my once-reflexive feminist rejection of everything Barbie: She never had to be a zero-sum figure, a thing you were either with or against. Many of us definitely saw her that way. That we did speaks only to the continuing challenges of a world that, even now, isn't sure whether women can be free of stereotypes or expectations and be allowed to simply exist.

我愿意承认——甚至是嘲讽——我的女权主义立场曾令我不假思索地拒绝关于芭比的一切：她从来都不是个非黑即白的人物，不支持就得反对。我们中的许多人肯定是这样看待她的。这种现状只能说明困难依旧存在，即使到了现在，这个世界还是不确定女性能否摆脱刻板印象或期望，能否就那么简简单单地存在着。

作形容词，表示“假的；仿制的；假装的”，英文解释为“not real but appearing or pretending to be exactly like something”如：mock cream 人造奶油，mock leather 人造革，mock surprise 假装出来的惊讶。

作动词，表示“嘲笑；（为了取笑）模仿”，英文解释为“If someone mocks you, they show or pretend that they think you are foolish or inferior, for example by saying something funny about you, or by imitating your behaviour.”举个🌰：I thought you were mocking me. 我以为你在嘲笑我。

🎬电影《消失的爱人》（Gone Girl）中的台词提到：If you need to mock somebody, mock me. 如果你们要嘲弄什么人，嘲弄我。

类似的一个词：

📍imitate 表示“模仿，仿效”，英文解释为“to behave in a similar way to someone or something else, or to copy the speech or behaviour, etc. of someone or something”。

mock作名词，熟词僻义，表示“模拟考试”，英文解释为“an exam taken at school for practice before a real exam”

zero-sum /ˌzɪə.rəʊˈsʌm/ 表示“一方得益一方受损的；得失所系的”，英文解释为“used to refer to a situation in which any win by one person always means a loss to another person involved”举个🌰：The stock market is now a zero-sum game, in which one party gains what the other loses. 股市现在是一种零和游戏，有人赚就有人赔。

stereotype /ˈster.i.ə.taɪp/表示“模式化形象；成见；刻板印象”，英文解释为“A stereotype is a fixed general image or set of characteristics that a lot of people believe represent a particular type of person or thing.”举个🌰：There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen. 对成功的商人们总有一种成见。

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