Millions
of people around the globe tuned in from 1977 to 1991 to watch the TV show Dallas and the celluloid life of the
fictitious Ewings, the oil rich tycoons, the detestable J.R., his alcoholic and
co-dependent wife Sue Ellen, his honest brother Bobby, and all his sordid
affairs.
I
am not sure why the tyrant Ceausescu allowed us to watch Dallas. Perhaps he thought or was advised that this soap opera
represented everything that was bad about capitalism and we needed one more
reason to hate capitalism. Instead, we loved it!
Every
weekend we tuned in faithfully, escaping for one hour from our imprisoned
lives, glued to black and white TVs. The streets were empty, whole blocks would
get together to watch the soap opera on the one TV screen that was larger and
newer, and we prayed that the local government did not turn our electricity
off. It was common occurrence to have
blackouts – we had shortages of everything else, all the time, due to poor
centralized planning by uneducated communist bureaucrats.
The
ranch at Southfork became larger than life; its palatial surroundings made our
concrete block apartments seem so small, that one could easily fit into Sue
Ellen’s well-appointed closet. I was disappointed when a Texan friend told me
that the Southfork ranch was rather small. We had imagined a massive mansion
with beautiful bedrooms and a huge kitchen stuffed to the brim with food.
Southfork became a metaphor for freedom and success through the opulent
lifestyles of the Dallas characters.
We
thought all Americans were rich like the Ewings and money grew on trees. We longed
for and saw freedom through the eyes of a badly scripted soap opera that kept our
poor and miserable proletariat mesmerized.
There
was a love-hate relationship with the character of J.R., the all-around bad guy
without a conscience who tortured his wife with his blatant infidelity.
When
J.R. was shot by Kristen, everybody asked me who did it since we were watching
episodes distributed ahead of everyone else in the world. My relatives, whom I
was visiting, were quite disappointed when I did not know at the time the
answer to the question of the day - who
shot J.R.
Larry
Hagman told the Associated Press, “I think we were directly or indirectly
responsible for the fall of [communism.]” “They would see the wealthy Ewings
and say, ‘Hey, we don’t have all this stuff.” (reason.com)
I
don’t think J.R. Ewing helped overthrow communism at all, directly or
indirectly, but it gave us hope that someday we could make it to America, the
land of the free. Our dreams could come true, and success would be within reach
through hard work if only the communist party, its brutal regime, and the
dictator Ceausescu were gone.
It
took a long time to topple communism, from its initial creep after the forced
abdication of the king in 1948, until 1989 when the dictator and his wife were
executed for treason and other crimes against humanity. There were many who
emboldened the millions suffering under the Iron Curtain to break the chains of
communism – among them the Polish Pope, John Paul II. When people could hunger and
suffer no more, the barbed wire fences and concrete walls were demolished, and
justice was served.
Sadly
today, people who were born, raised, and grew old under the welfare-dependent,
freedom robbing communism, never learned how to cope on their own and be self-reliant.
Those Romanians are now the pro-communism voices, joined by neo-communist and pliable
youth who are naïve enough to believe in a failed and miserable utopia. The
lessons of history fall by deaf ears.
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