Familiarity Breeds Contempt

[southfork88]

The friendship between J.R. and Ray ends after the dramatic story with Garnett McGee. She is a country singer who rejects Ray marriage proposal to focus on her career. Garnett eventually sleeps with J.R. to get a record deal, and when a heartbroken Ray discovers her infidelity, he ends their relationship after beating J.R. Obviously Bobby manages to stop Ray's violence.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

The friendship between J.R. and Ray ends after the dramatic story with Garnett McGee. She is a country singer who rejects Ray marriage proposal to focus on her career. Garnett eventually sleeps with J.R. to get a record deal, and when a heartbroken Ray discovers her infidelity, he ends their relationship after beating J.R. Obviously Bobby manages to stop Ray's violence.

That had a huge impact on the future of the show because it ended JR and Ray's friendship. That story is a great example of early Dallas. They didn't feel the need to have some spectacular storyline about blowing up Saudi Arabian Oil fields or going to the Soviet Union. They kept the action local in that it was close to where they lived, they were believable storylines and very relatable to viewers. It didn't diminish the importance of the stories by keeping them local; it actually made things more intense.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

This concept that can also be applied to the effect of having all the Ewings live together in Southfork. JR and Bobby loved each other but they had distinctly different philosophies. They had very different ideas on how Ewing Oil should be run. Those differences would have likely caused less disagreement and less stress between the two of them, had they not lived together. The longer JR and Bobby lived together, the more apparent their differences in thinking became to each other.

I think JR and Bobby would have had a much better relationship had they not lived together. When you're constantly around someone, every little thing about them you don't like becomes magnified. You learn more things about them, some of which you won't like. The more you're exposed to those qualities you naturally dislike, the more they grate on your nerves. Bobby realizes just how often JR and Sue Ellen argue and how often JR says mean things to Pam. JR realizes just how judgemental Bobby is. Bobby continually tells people to live up to the standards he has for them, et he can't live up to his own standards! This is part of why even families who love each other don't all live together in the same house. Familiarity breeds contempt.
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[Jimmy Todd]

The question you raise, @Kenny Coyote, about how much our career changes us is really profound. It can change us slowly and subtly, in ways we may not even realize.
Most of us choose our professions when we are in our twenties or even younger. We are making this decision for a lot of reasons, but experience is rarely one of them. We can also get so caught up in doing our jobs that self-reflection is not something for which we always have the time or energy.
Regarding JR, he seemed to be born into the Ewing Oil life. I'm sure doing anyhing else was never on the radar for him, and his relationship with Jock made his destiny at Ewing Oil seem a fait accompli.
Would very young JR be appalled if he saw his future and some of the things he would be doing?
One of the reasons Dallas became such a phenomenon is the layers in the characters, both seen and unseen. Your question about JR is intriguing because it's ultimately about fate and how much control we have over who we become. If Jock had blatantly favored JR over Bobby, would Bobby have become the ruthless, scheming one?
Your question makes me see the Jock, Bobby, JR dynamic as similar to the Willy, Biff, Happy relationship in The Death of a Salesman. Another reason Dallas was so popular. It touches on the human condition in a similar manner as great plays like DOS.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

The question you raise, @Kenny Coyote, about how much our career changes us is really profound. It can change us slowly and subtly, in ways we may not even realize.

Thanks @Jimmy Todd, and yes, it can change us in ways we may not realize, in ways that can be positive or negative.

Most of us choose our professions when we are in our twenties or even younger. We are making this decision for a lot of reasons, but experience is rarely one of them. We can also get so caught up in doing our jobs that self-reflection is not something for which we always have the time or energy.

That's a young age for making such a life-altering decision! I'd like to see schools get more involved in helping students with that decision. 13 years of education is a long time, and still there is an awful lot about life that school doesn't attempt or barely attempts to help students prepare for. Even at the college level, how many times does a kid sign up for pursuing a major that seems to interest them when they don't really have a good understanding of what a career in that field really entails? In some cases, students have the interest but not the aptitude for what they choose. The difference between the theory taught in school and the reality of working in a given profession can be extreme.

Regarding JR, he seemed to be born into the Ewing Oil life. I'm sure doing anyhing else was never on the radar for him, and his relationship with Jock made his destiny at Ewing Oil seem a fait accompli.
Would very young JR be appalled if he saw his future and some of the things he would be doing?

Well put. I don't imagine there was anything else "on the radar" for JR either. With his desire to please Jock and make Jock proud of him, what other career could he have chosen?

Great question as to would JR be appalled if he could have seen his future and what he'd end up doing. It's something that they could have very well ended the series with. Would you have preferred that type of scenario to "Conundrum" as the ending of the series?

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I loved the early episodes because the characters had more shades of gray. Later on, Jock was made out to be too upstanding, and he was practically considered a saint after his death.

But that's how family react when someone they love dies.

They only remember all their good points & any bad points they had get forgotten & pushed to the back of their minds.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

But that's how family react when someone they love dies.

They only remember all their good points & any bad points they had get forgotten & pushed to the back of their minds.

It's bad form to speak ill of the dead.

So no, families don't tend to talk about the bad things their dead family members did after they aren't alive anymore. In life, bringing up these negative things serves a purpose because you still have the ability to help hat person change their behavior. That's tied to the idea of redemption, that as long as you're alive you still have a chance to atone for your sins.

That's what was disturbing about Donna's book about Sam Culver and including Jock in it only for the purpose of saying that he was Sam's business partner at the time that Sam Culver wrongfully committed his uncle to a sanitarium. Sam did the committing of Jonas and Jock drilled the oil on the land that Sam had gained power of attorney over. Not only could Sam no longer atone for his sins, but Donna was actually profiting off of those sins by writing a book about them. That's a special type of greed to be willing to go that far to get money and fame, especially since she had claimed to love Sam.

It didn't look good that Jock was willing to be business partners with a man who did what Sam Culver did and they had that storyline right after Jock's death. If anyone though they tried to make Jock look like a saint after his death, how would you draw that conclusion when the very first revelation made about Jock's life after he died was of something of such a negative nature?