This “scandal” may seem trivial (or, as one baffled Twitterer put it “ZOMG BEYONCE LIP SYNC SCANDAL!!! 48 million people on food stamps”), but the sheer number of people interested in discussing it—the story has been reported by nearly every major American news outlet—is telling. Why should it make so many people so angry to know that Beyoncé convincingly tossed her hair and widened her eyes and shimmied her head to the sound of her very own voice? If anything, her zeal for perfection does her credit and befits the grandeur of the occasion. Not to mention the fact that Beyoncé is as skilled at lip-synching as she is at everything else: it’s all part of her carefully trained, cultivated artistry.
这单“丑闻”看起来可能只是小事一桩（或者，正如一个迷惑的推友所说‘老天，碧昂斯假唱丑闻！四千八百万人正在靠食物券过活’），但有那麽多人有兴趣讨论这件事本身就很说明问题——几乎每家美国新闻媒体都报导了这件事。为什麽碧昂斯随著她自己的声音甩头发、瞪眼睛、晃脑袋让这麽多人如此愤怒？她对完美的追求难道不能为她辩护，并有利于那样一个庄严的场合吗？更别说碧昂斯的假唱表演并不亚于她在其他方面的功力：这也是她的才艺。
Beyoncé’s performance makes us nervous when juxtaposed with the earnest idealism of the inauguration. It is an event that Americans rightfully take pride in: a peaceful transfer of power; a chance to re-affirm the values of openness, freedom of speech, and egalitarianism that define us; a democratic ceremony symbolically attended by all citizens. Beyoncé’s fakery, it seems, implies some larger fakery at the heart of the whole enterprise. But, of course, the ceremony is itself a performance—how else can we explain that it is through the recitation of scripted words in a ritual call-and-response that the President assumes his position of power? We don’t want to be reminded that we’re watching mere mortals who might trip on their way to the podium, stutter through the oaths of office, shiver in the cold, or worse, err in judgment and lead the country on the wrong path. These are the people we are entrusting to enact America’s timeless values? Too bad. Beyoncé reminded us.
碧昂斯的表演跟就职典礼的理想主义摆在一起的时候，让我们紧张。那是一件美国人理直气壮地为之自豪的大事：权力的和平移交；重申开放、言论自由和平均主义之价值的机会；象徵式地由全体公民参与的民主仪式。碧昂斯的造假似乎意味著政府核心中更大的欺骗。不过，当然，这个仪式本身就是一种表演——不然我们怎麽解释总统登上权力宝座是通过读稿并且仪式性地一问一答完成？我们不想被提醒说，我们其实只是在看一群凡人：他们能在上台的时候滑倒，在读誓词时会结巴，在寒冷中会颤抖，甚至，更糟糕的是，作出错误的判断并把国家引上歧途。这些人就是我们相信能够高举美国永恒价值的人？糟糕，碧昂斯提醒了我们。
The lip-sync scandal—silly though it is, and short-lived as it will inevitably be—presents one of the bigger ironies of our moment. The more the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred by the anonymity of the Internet, the highly artificial reality of reality TV, and the easy availability and manipulability of images, the more stern we’ve become toward those exposed as frauds (or those, like Beyoncé, who approach fraudulence). This was an idea pointed out in an essay by the critic Daniel Mendelsohn about a different, but related, kind of fraud: the counterfeit memoir. Writing in the magazine in 2010, Mendelsohn sensed that there was “something distinctive about the current cycle of memoir proliferation and anti-memoir backlash.” He diagnoses a widespread reality problem:
假唱门——虽然很愚蠢，也必将短命——展现了一个属于我们的时刻的更大的反讽。梦幻与现实中的界限，因为互联网的匿名性、真人电视节目的高仿真、和图像极易获得和被修改而越模糊，而我们对于被揭穿的骗局（或者那些，像碧昂斯那样试图欺骗的个案）而越来越严厉。批评家丹尼尔曼德尔森（Daniel Mendelsohn）在一篇文章中提出的一种有关但有所不用的欺骗：伪造回忆。曼德尔森在2010本杂志中写到，他感觉到“有些很特别的东西，关于当下回忆录盛行的周期和反回忆的反弹。”他断中了一个很普遍的现实问题。
Reality itself is a term that is rapidly being devalued. Take reality TV: on these shows, “real” people (that is, people who aren’t professional actors) are placed in artificial situations … in order to provoke the “real” emotions that the audience tunes in to witness (disappointment, desire, joy, gratitude, terror)…. The premium placed by these shows on spontaneous expression of genuine and extreme emotions has justified setups that are all too obviously unreal—in a word, fictional.
“现实是一个正在快速贬值的词。就拿“现实电视”做例子：在那些节目里，‘真’人（即非专业演员）被防治在人造的情中……以引发“真实”的感情，让观众通过收看节目而亲眼目睹（失望、欲望、快乐、感激、恐怖）……这些节目对于真实而极端情感的自发表达的重视使其非真实的 ——即虚构的——场景设置变得合理。”
The inauguration itself is a made-for-TV spectacle starring real people playing scripted versions of themselves. Beyoncé’s sin was to inadvertently pierce the illusion of reality, reminding us of the theatrical nature of the proceedings. The bursting of this bubble filled many people with moral indignation. How could she fake her way through a highly emotional performance at the inauguration ceremony that is supposed to be expressive of our real American values, our real American story? Mendelsohn again: “An immoderate yearning for stories that end satisfyingly—what William Dean Howells once described to Edith Wharton as the American taste for ‘a tragedy with a happy ending’—makes us vulnerable to frauds and con men peddling uplift.”
就职典礼本身就是为电视而设的，星光熠熠的真人各自按脚本表演。碧昂斯的罪过就是不小心拆穿了西洋镜，提醒我们这个仪式本质上的戏剧性。这个泡沫的破碎让许多人充满道德愤怒。她怎麽可以在就职典礼上声情并茂地造假？这个仪式是应该表达我们美国“真实”的价值，“真实”的故事的！曼德尔森又说：“对于大团圆结局的过渡渴求——威廉迪恩豪威尔斯（William Dean Howells）告诉伊迪斯华顿（Edith Wharton）这是追求‘快乐收场的悲剧’的美式品味——让我们面对欺诈不堪一击，而四处兜售的骗子扶摇直上。”
Have you listened to the lyrics of the national anthem lately?
你最近有仔细听国歌的歌词吗？
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
火箭烈焰熊熊，炮弹凌空爆炸
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
穿越黑夜，力证我们的旗帜仍在
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
啊，星条旗还在飘扬
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
这是自由的土地，勇者的家园
They’re aspirational, they’re soaring, they represent a vision of American power that is mostly obsolete. It’s not the fiction of Beyoncé’s performance that angers us, but the fear that underneath the pomp and idealism our political leaders are con men, telling us a story about ourselves that may not be true.
它们充满雄心壮志，一路冲上云霄，代表著一种已被基本淘汰的美国力量的版本。并不是碧昂斯表演的虚假让我们愤怒，而是恐惧，对于浮华和理想主义之下，我们的领导者其实是骗子，跟我们说著关于我们的可能并不真实的故事，的恐惧。
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