德弗里维利

【题外话】 有的人资质本不差，受过不错的教育，有明辨是非的能力，志向远大，鉴赏力优于常人，经常思考人生，但是总把生活过得一团糟，当他们到了可以回忆人生的时候，往往感叹“我怎么就把生活过成了这个样子呢？我明明可以过不一样的人生，或许是我运气不好，或许是我生错了年代。” 维拉身处的时代很糟糕，经济萧条，物资匮乏，就连天气都经常很阴沉。她是社会底层的一个平凡的老太婆，估计也没受过啥教育，工作就是给人打扫清洁卫生。她特别勤快，身材矮小矫健，一天到晚忙忙碌碌，除了工作外就是缝缝补补，影片的前半段，她就是在不停的忙活这个忙活那个。这到也没什么，这种勤劳的妇女，我们随处可见，我们的姥姥、老妈、隔壁的阿姨，都是这种典型。维拉不仅勤劳，心肠也是极好的，周围的人由于各种原因，过得都很艰辛，她习惯性的照顾着他们，像个火把似的走到哪里照亮哪里。这个也没什么，这种善良，我们见得也不少。 维拉最让人喜欢的是勤劳善良之上的生活态度。 她那个矮小的身体里仿佛有无穷的力量，干活干得又快又好，从来不抱怨，总是生机勃勃，小眼睛里总是闪耀着光芒，在那种世道，都能把家庭经营得温馨美好。我见过很多中年妇人，边忙碌边抱怨，明明是勤劳善良的人，但总是一副苦大仇深的样子，或许叫人敬佩，但不愿亲近。她们像老黄牛一样，压抑又悲情，别说我们的中小学课本里经常出现劳苦式受难式的母亲形象，那个在生活中太常见了，而我们的文化往往倾向于欢迎歌颂拔高这种将苦难当崇高的悲壮形象，仿佛不如此，便不能显现母性的伟大。其实谁都知道，我们需要的不是苦难，而是苦难之中积极向上的健康力量。身在泥淖当中却能开出花，散发香气，触及旁人，这才是精神力量的伟大之处。 当一个人身处底层，每天湮没在无穷无尽的繁琐之事当中，还能尽力去帮助别人的时候，这人是完全配得上伟大二字的。 看过好多伊梅尔达斯汤顿的片子，她最擅长出演那种穷乡僻壤没见过世面又特别八卦的小老太太了。

The morality behind this movie is related to the problem of having unwanted babies. In fact, the United States has the highest rates of births to teenage mothers of all industrial nations, and the United Kingdom ranks the 2nd.

As far as I observe, some of the same people who complain about women delaying childbearing while they wallow in unbridled sexual consumerism, are also among the loudest critics of abortion. Some these concern stems from a disguised critique of feminism, which enables women to explore a healthy and safer sexuality. Efforts to stop unwanted motherhood have included, for example, increasing restrictions on access to birth control and even birth control information and restrictions on abortion, including parental consent and waiting periods.

Take, the statistics on rates of teenage motherhood for example. In the mid-1950s, 27 percent of all girls had sexual intercourse by age eighteen; in 1988, 56 percent of girls and 73 percent of boys had sexual intercourse by age eighteen. In 1991, the rate of adolescent childbearing-births to teen mothers per 1,000 girls — was 62.1, the highest rate since 1971, which was the year before abortion was legalized. This accounts for 9 percent of all births in the nation. Sixty-six percent of these young women were unmarried, compared with 1960, when only 15 percent were unmarried.

Such numbers can be "read" in several ways. For some, such numbers illustrate a calamitous increase in teen motherhood, attributable to wanton teenage sexuality and rampant immorality, an erosion of respect for the institution of marriage, and the growing crisis of fatherlessness. But for others, such numbers illustrate the erosion of access to adequate birth control information, the steady attacks on women's right to choose that restrict women's access to abortion and other means of birth control, and the increased freedom of young people from their parents' insistence on "shotgun weddings."

On these questions, the research is unanimous: Restricting access to information about birth control, access to birth control, and access to abortion has no bearing on rates of sexual activity. In fact, virtually all studies of the effect of sex education indicate a decrease in rates of sexual activity, greater sexual selectivity, and higher rates of safer sex practices. Young people will continue to become sexually active in their mid teens, whether or not they have access to birth control or information about it. In fact, restricting access is the surest way to encourage unwanted pregnancy. No wonder the highest rates of teen pregnancy occurred before abortion was legal.

The problem of “having unwanted babies” is also a way to blame women for men's irresponsibility. Politically, we are saying to young women that if they are going to dance (become sexually active), they will have to pay the piper (bear the consequences of unwanted pregnancies). But if, as we also know, it takes two to tango, perhaps the solution to the crisis of young motherhood lies in both increasing the abilities of these young women to become responsible (adequate health care, birth control information, and access to birth control) and in fostering a more responsible young manhood. In fact, casting the crisis as "having unwanted babies" masks another serious problem — girls' sexual victimization by men whose predatory sexual behavior goes unnoticed when the problem is cast in this way.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, over half (54 percent) the women raped in 2000 (a typical year) were juveniles under eighteen years old, and 21.6 percent were younger than twelve. Another study found that 96 percent of those female rape victims under twelve knew their attackers. In one of five cases, their rapist was also their father. Although there is some evidence that suggests that females under eighteen are also the most likely to file false reports of rape with the police (though virtually none of these allegations ever went to trial, and all the reports were retracted in the interview stage), these false reports seem to be the result of fears of pregnancy and the hope that declaring they were raped would permit the females to get an abortion, because in many states, abortion is legal only in cases of rape or a threat to the mother's health.

With those argument mentioned above, I prefer the translation "地下观音". And it could probably explain why people like Vera Drake was guilty but insisting never do things wrong.