nally

這個星期，英國出現了全國矚目的年輕女性。

牛津大學生吉兒．川波（Gail Trimble）因為在電視益智節目中表現超優，
被喻為英國最聰明的女孩，並成為男性們新偶像。

現年廿六歲，牛津大學（Corpus Christi學院」博士班學生吉兒．川波，
與其他三位同學代表學校參加英國益智性節目《大學挑戰》時，
在總計一千二百卅五分中，個人獨得八百廿五分，創下該節目開播近半世紀來的紀錄。

吉兒的表現，不僅令觀眾看的目瞪口呆。
就連平時以伶牙俐齒見長的節目主持人、
「英國廣播公司」夜間新聞主播帕克斯曼（Jeremy Paxman）也為之語結。

「我的問題還沒問完，她已經知道問題是什麼了？」帕克斯曼說，
他主持該節目以來，見過太多聰明優秀的學生，但吉兒反應之快，
在於不但知道答案，且能在他唸完問題前，就已捉住問題。

吉兒的表現，令她一夕爆紅。媒體封她為「英國最聰明的女孩」。
以男性讀者為主的流行雜誌《Nuts》，則相中長髮披肩，相貌清秀的吉兒，
邀請她拍攝「有品味的性感照片」。

「我很高興知道有人認為我長的並不難看。」吉兒大笑，
但毫不考慮地拒絕了成為性感偶像的邀請。
許多人好奇，吉兒的智商有多高？她怎麼可以那麼厲害，
從古典到現代、天文到地理，似乎什麼都知道。

「我只是從小就很喜歡閱讀而已」。
吉兒說她和弟弟兩人從小就在家裡建立了一個小圖書館，
從事科學工作的父母總是鼓勵他們讀書觀賞不同的節目，參與各類活動。

吉兒說，她九歲的時候做過一次智商測驗，但她不記得分數是多少了。
「我知道自己頂聰明，但正因為如此，我反而很小心不讓自己聰明外露」，
吉兒坦承，她怕比別人聰明，會交不到朋友，所以花費更多氣力，學習與人相處。

吉兒講話的速度比一般人快，但總是笑容可掬。
她說，因為一個電視節目把她封為「英國最聰明的女孩」，實在是件「荒謬」的事。

「在節目裡，我只是快速的反應事實而已，並不是什麼了不起的學問」，
她說，大眾應該注意到的是整個團隊的勝利，
「別忘了，在節目的前十分鐘，我只是坐在那裡發呆」。

吉兒在節目中一夫當關萬夫莫敵的表現，也讓她受到妒嫉。
網友們攻詰她的腦袋「令人厭惡」，有人則說她是「厲害的臭婆娘」。
而攻擊者幾乎全是女性。「我對女性無法接受我，感到十分驚訝！」
一如拒拍性感照片，吉兒帶著笑容不卑不亢地說。

牛津大學生吉兒．川波（Gail Trimble）照片

 







 

  





  外電全文

MELANIE PHILLIPS:
What the mob really hates about Gail Trimble is her glowing self-confidence

Last updated at 3:22 PM on 24th February 2009

If anything demonstrates Britain’s steady descent into baying brutishness, it is surely the treatment meted out to Gail Trimble.
Ms Trimble is the phenomenon who led her team from Corpus Christi College, Oxford to triumph on BBC TV’s University Challenge last night, achieving victory almost single-handedly by displaying in each round an extraordinary degree of general knowledge and answering more correct questions than any one contestant in the history of the programme.

For this she has been vilified across the blogs in an eruption of spite and malice - for no reason other than that she is highly intelligent, attractive, confident and demure.
It is surely the latter two qualities that have provoked this bitter onslaught against her. Thus she’s been called ‘horribly smug’ and ‘immensely annoying’, ‘a hateful know-it-all’ and an ‘annoying bitch’.
One said she was a ‘horse-toothed snob’ who ‘ruins University Challenge every time she is on it with her 'better than thou attitude’. Another said she was ‘so brain-rupturingly irritating and smug’ that they hoped science would come up with ‘a screen that you can reach through and punch those inside’

What explains this horrible, bullying, violent reaction?
It’s not that people can’t bear success. After all, they lionise stars of sport, film or popular culture. It’s not even that she is clever.
No, what they can’t bear is surely what shines out of Ms Trimble - the glowing self-confidence of a girl who is secure in her place in an orderly world. That is not their own world. She seems therefore to be different from everyone else. Dammit, she doesn’t even dress like other girls her age - her clothes are the opposite of revealing or titillating. It is that which makes them so uncontrollably jealous

People would rather see someone who is broken, flawed, a wreck, one of life’s victims. That’s because they themselves feel like that.

Anyone who is not, and who is successful, brings home to them just what they are lacking. So they blame such people for being arrogant, toffee-nosed or holier-than-thou.
It’s like a giant national inferiority complex that makes people lash out at those who are not just successful but wholesome - precisely because they are wholesome. Only Victims of Life can be national icons.
It’s the Princess Diana syndrome all over again. That’s much of the reason why there was such a circus around the wedding of dying Jade Goody, the archetypal stupid gobby chav - and now the ultimate victim since she is about to die of cancer, heart-breakingly leaving behind two little boys and taking poignant solace in a fantasy wedding to a convicted criminal let out from jail for the event.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1154145/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-What-mob-really-hates-Gail-Trimble-glowing-self-confidence.html