Dallas as a cultural icon of the 1980s

Although the show originally started in 1978, the peak of the show's popularity ran all the way through the 1980s until the show's end in 1991. As shown in last week's Yuppie culture, this decade played house to the greed and self-interest of those who aspired to be financially and economically successful. Of course, not everyone could simply be the mobile success story they dreamt of, and so escapism and desire could be located in television shows and movies. One online commentator of popular shows in this era states that Dallas had all the makings of a great soap opera: "characters that were larger than life, conflicts based on the struggle for money and power, and lots and lots of sex" - and this is certainly true of this Texas-based show.


The location is based upon the reputation Texas held in the 1980s, an economically stable state, but with major crises with regards to the banks and oil investments throughout this era. Dallas was able to keep afloat the previous reputation - that Texas was a well-off environment which could easily fund itself and remained self-reliant. The show cherry-picked aspects of the 1980s which it wanted to portray. For example, the patriarchal figure of J.R. Ewing overshadowed the Romeo-and-Juliet romance of Bobby Ewing and Sue Ellen; no doubt partially due to the public's admiration for the stern grandfather figure which embodied the president who served during the show's run, Ronald Reagan. David Jacobs of the New York Times described his character as a man with an "unapologetic commitment to self-interest, his unabashed belief in the corruptibility of others linked him to a generation that would soon be told that greed was O.K. and read on bumper stickers that Jesus wanted people to get rich". This notion that self-interest and greed were synonymous was evident through previous topics we had studied, such as Yuppie culture and the Reagan administration. J.R was the character who operated without defined ethics and was still the ultimate success of the story. That is, acknowledging success is defined by money and corporate ownership.


The opening sequence and theme of the show has also become a timeless icon of television history. Embedded within it is iconography and symbolism which can epitomise what the culture of 1980s Texas was like. The upbeat tempo of the track works in parallel to the positive connotations of the images presented: i.e. the Dallas Cowboys, modern buildings, the Texas state flag, expansive ranches, and the rise of oil industrialisation, extraction, and exportation. The opening and closing sequences are featured in the video below:

Dallas undoubtedly embodied the 1980s ideology of capitalist self-interest, the quest for money, and ambition for power and control in all aspects of life - home, the workplace, etc. The escapism it provided for people was un-paralleled in many senses as it proved audiences with the approval to root for characters to get away with despicable acts they themselves could never commit in real life by selling a fantasy that morals were for the lesser people of society. Ien Ang describes the legacy of Dallas perfectly - "Nevertheless, one this is certain. Not a single letter-writer is indifferent to Dallas" (Ang 1985: 14).




Notes
1. http://www.superseventies.com/tvshows_A-G.html
2. http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/15/investing/oil-prices-texas-jobs/
3. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/15/arts/tv-view-when-the-rich-and-the-powerful-were-riding-high.html?scp=10&sq=jr%20ewing%20dallas&st=cse
4. Ang, Ien. Watching “Dallas”: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. London: Routledge, 1985.