大卫·贝克汉姆的成名之路 | 经济学人

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2023-11-11 09:11

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David Beckham's guide to celebrity

大卫·贝克汉姆的成名之路

英文部分选自经济学人20231021期文化板块

Back Story

背景故事

David Beckham's guide to celebrity

大卫·贝克汉姆的成名之路

Modern fame requires more than just a pretty face

仅有姣好面容，难铸今日功名

In 2004 this columnist visited a school near Basra in southern Iraq. The affable boys seemed to know four words of English. Two were obscenities. The other two were “David Beckham”.

2004年，笔者访问了伊拉克南部巴士拉附近的一所学校。那些和善的男孩似乎只知道四个英语单词，两个是脏话，另外两个就是“大卫·贝克汉姆”。

Not long before, recounts “Beckham”, a new documentary series, the Sun newspaper claimed to have found the only person on the planet who hadn’t heard of Mr Beckham: a shepherd in Chad. The four-part series on Netflix is a portal to the flighty years around the turn of the millennium when the footballer was in his sporting pomp. Watch closely and it is also, for the ambitious, a handy how-to guide to becoming a celebrity and ultimately a global brand.

不久前，在一部新纪录片《贝克汉姆》中，《太阳报》声称找到了世界上唯一一位没有听说过大卫·贝克汉姆的人：乍得的一名牧羊人。网飞平台上线的这部《贝克汉姆》共有四集，让公众得以一窥作为足球运动员的贝克汉姆在千禧之交风光无限的那段激情岁月。仔细观看，对于有志之士来说，这部纪录片也是一部如何成为名流乃至最终名扬四海的便捷指南。

It helps to be extremely good-looking. With his dirty-blond mop and impish smile, Mr Beckham had a boy-next-door charm when he hit tv screens in the mid-1990s. Kath Phipps, a long-serving receptionist at Manchester United, his first club, remembers all the knickers that were sent to him (“It’s not nice, is it, sending underwear to a boy?”). After that, as in a time-lapse photo, the sculpted sex symbol emerges. The tattoos spread across his torso, up his neck and down his arms; the haircuts become jazzier, the stubble better designed.

盛世美颜有所裨益。上世纪九十年代中期，贝克汉姆登陆荧屏时，留着一头脏乱的金发，面带顽皮笑容，散发着邻家男孩的迷人魅力。曼联是他效力的首家俱乐部，而为俱乐部工作多年的前台接待员卡斯·菲普斯仍记得人们寄给贝克汉姆的女士内裤（“给一个男孩子送内裤，那样不太好吧？”）。然后，有如延时拍摄的照片一样，这个精致的性感偶像逐渐显现了出来。从脖子到手臂，贝克汉姆的身体渐渐爬满了纹身；发型变得更加花哨，胡茬也设计得更有型了。

To bank it like Beckham, next find a beautiful and famous spouse with an equal yen for exposure. “It puts the heat factor way up,” Anna Wintour, the boss of Vogue, says on camera of Mr Beckham’s romance with Victoria Adams—also known as Posh Spice—who nicknamed him Golden Balls. “They were the new Charles and Diana,” says his friend and former team-mate Gary Neville, a perceptive description of a couple who, like the ill-starred royals, were both lionised and lacerated by the media.

要想像贝克汉姆那样赚大钱，下一步就是找到一位漂亮、知名、同样追求曝光度的配偶。时尚杂志《VOGUE》主编安娜·温图尔在镜头前谈及贝克汉姆与维多利亚·亚当斯的恋情时说道：“他们两人在一起令热度暴涨”。维多利亚戏称贝克汉姆为“金球”，自己又拥有时尚辣妹的称号。贝克汉姆的朋友和前队友加里·内维尔敏锐地将他们形容为“新一代的查尔斯和戴安娜”——就像这对不幸的王室夫妻一样，他们受到媒体的狂热追捧，也被媒体深深伤害。

But looks and a canny marriage are nothing without a plan that you make early and stick to. It is striking how quickly and clearly Mr Beckham saw his path from midfield to endorsements, fashion and beyond. “He wanted to be more than a football player,” says Mr Neville, and soon he was, hobnobbing with Tom Cruise and Beyoncé. The usual retirement gigs of coaching and punditry were not for him.Like many British stars he strove to crack America, on and off the field.

然而，如果没有及早的谋划和始终如一的坚持，仅靠盛世美颜和精心安排的婚姻起不了什么作用。贝克汉姆能如此快速而清晰地看到从球场进军商业代言、时尚行业和其他领域的发展道路，这一点令人印象深刻。内维尔认为“贝克汉姆不想只做足球运动员”。他很快就做到了，和汤姆·克鲁斯以及碧昂斯打成一片。球员退役后通常会担任教练或评论员，但那并不是他的选择。像许多英国明星一样，无论是在场上还是场下，贝克汉姆都在努力融入美国社会。

First he conquered Spain, where in 2003 Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, welcomed him as “a symbol of post-modernity”. That suggests his success is an artefact of image and marketing; yet it also rests on old-fashioned qualities that are disappointingly hard to simulate.

首先，他征服了西班牙——2003年皇家马德里主席弗洛伦蒂诺·佩雷斯将他迎上了银河战舰，盛赞他为“后现代主义的象征”。这一赞誉意味着他的成功是（名人）形象效应和市场营销的产物；不过，他的成功也建立在难以模仿的传统品质之上，这也颇叫人沮丧。

One is the talent that made his profile marketable. George Best, a Manchester United winger of another generation, reputedly said that Mr Beckham couldn’t kick with his left foot, head the ball or tackle, but “apart from that he’s all right.” With his right foot, however, he struck corners and free-kicks, and launched passes and crosses, with magical whip and accuracy. In boyhood matches you see his technique develop: the distinctive diagonal body shape, windmilling arm and touchingly bow-legged gait.

这些品质的其中之一是令形象具有市场价值的天赋。据传，曼联老一代边锋乔治·贝斯特曾说，贝克汉姆不会用左脚踢球，不会头球，也不会抢断，但“除此之外，他还不错”。然而，贝克汉姆能用右脚踢出角球和任意球，发起传球和传中，有如神助，精准无比。你可以从他少年时期的比赛中知晓他的技术如何一步步精进：标志性的对角线侧身，手臂展开如风车，腿部弓至令人惊讶的弧度。

The most old-fashioned virtue of all—hard work—turns out to be grindingly important. A pushy father is useful in this regard. “Left foot, right foot, over and over and over again,” David recalls of Ted Beckham’s drills. If a corner went astray, “he’d kill me.” This tough love, he says, helped him cope with the abuse that followed his sending-off at the World Cup of 1998. (An island of discretion in a sea of self-publicity, Ms Phipps, the receptionist, declines to discuss the bullets that arrived in the post.) Sandra, his mum, thinks Ted was too tough but seems steely herself, deadpanning about her personal “hit list”.

勤奋是最传统的品质，也是至关重要的一点。在这方面，迫使儿子不断前进的父亲起到的作用十分关键。“左脚，右脚，一遍又一遍，” 贝克汉姆这样回忆父亲特德·贝克汉姆的训练；如果一个角球打偏了，“他会杀了我”。贝克汉姆说，这种严厉的爱帮助他克服了1998年世界杯被罚下场后遭受的谩骂（在一片人人自我标榜的海洋中，接待员菲普斯女士如同一座守口如瓶的孤岛，拒绝谈论随信件寄来的子弹）。贝克汉姆的母亲桑德拉认为特德太严格了，但她自己似乎也是个“虎妈”，谈论起自己的“严教清单”时面无表情。

Fisher Stevens, the director, was in the cast of “Succession”. There are echoes of that show in the trilling music and home-video footage of David doing keepie-uppies in the garden. Along with access to the family archive Mr Stevens secured big-name interviewees but few revelations, besides details of Mr Beckham’s domestic neat-freakery and his love of beekeeping. A tragic note sounds in his split with Sir Alex Ferguson, the coach who was his mentor until the Golden Balls glitz came between them.

纪录片导演费舍尔·史蒂文斯曾参演美剧《继承之战》。片中颤抖的音乐声和贝克汉姆在花园里做颠球练习的家庭视频片段都令人联想到《继承之战》。史蒂文斯不仅获取了贝克汉姆的家庭档案，还采访了一些大人物，但除了有关贝克汉姆的居家整洁癖和养蜂爱好的细节外，几乎没有什么新发现。讲到贝克汉姆与导师亚历克斯·弗格森爵士因名利走向决裂时，片中响起悲凉的配乐。

And on the main take-home lesson of hard work, “Beckham” misses a trick. The series opens on the career-defining day in 1996 when Mr Beckham, then 21, scored a goal from the halfway line.“I looked up, and I thought, ‘Why not?’” he says, leaving the impression that a shot seen around the world was an act of instinctive genius. In “The Class of ’92”, a previous documentary, his pal told it differently. “He practised that in training”, said Mr Neville, “every single day.”

可是，《贝克汉姆》错失了“勤奋”这个核心要点。纪录片从1996年那场奠定贝克汉姆职业生涯的比赛里那脚中场吊射讲起，当时他21岁。他说：“我抬头看，然后我想，‘为什么不（试一把）呢？’”给世人留下这样的印象：那脚全球目睹的进球是一次天才的灵光一现。但在之前的纪录片《曼联92班》中，他的朋友却给出了不同的说法。“他在训练时练习过这一招，”内维尔说，“每一天都练习。”

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Alex，不务正业的理工男

Jemma，一手抓吃饭，一手抓学习

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Shulin，女，热咖啡+保温杯，慢慢来er

UU，允许别人做别人，允许自己做自己

Nikolae，新手人民教师，声优探索者，乃木坂47与AKB49

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成名之路

在时代进步的洪流中，我们见证无数人物的崛起与辉煌，而大卫·贝克汉姆无疑是一位独特的存在。贝克汉姆的成名之路被描绘得如此精彩，他的故事是迷人的、充满魅力的，也是勤奋和坚持的体现。这位英国足球明星通过出色的球技和极强的个人魅力，迅速跻身于世界的焦点，并最终成为一个“全球品牌”。

贝克汉姆出类拔萃的足球技艺无疑是他成功的基石。从曼联的青年队到一线队，再到皇马和英格兰国家队，他的表现一直让人眼前一亮。精准的传球、出色的盘带、强大的任意球，这些都是他独特的标签。而背后的付出，则是他日复一日、坚持不懈的训练。他对自我极其信任，而对于足球，也无比热爱。

贝克汉姆的形象也是他成功的关键。他的面容、身材和气质都是天然优势。从一头脏乱的金色头发，到渐渐显现的纹身和时尚的打扮，他每一次的转变都恰好符合了公众的审美。

然而，这些只是冰山一角，真正让贝克汉姆在商业、时尚和其他领域获得成功的是他的聪明头脑和敏锐的洞察力。他能够看到足球运动员背后的商机，并迅速利用自己的知名度和影响力拓展事业。这种商业眼光是他成功的关键。他对自我定位清晰，明白自己的目标并不仅仅是成为一个优秀的足球运动员，而是要成为一个影响力的公众人物。他精心打造人设，通过各种方式提升自己的知名度，比如与好莱坞明星和音乐界巨星建立联系。同时，他也积极开拓商业领域，将自己的名气转化为商业价值。这种清晰明确的战略规划使得他在足球界之外也获得了极大的成功。

贝克汉姆的成功并非偶然，而是日复一日的勤奋累积而成。从小到大，他的父亲对他极其严厉，时刻督促他努力训练。这样严格的家庭环境培养了他的勤奋和坚持不懈的精神。他的母亲也是一个强势的人物，对他的教育要求同样严苛。而家庭教育背后的坚持和努力也逐渐形成他追求卓越的动力。

贝克汉姆的故事告诉我们，成功背后是艰辛与付出。而他的经历，也激励着人们追求自己的梦想。无论在何种领域，只有真正的努力和明确的目标才能带来真正的成功。

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