JR and Laurel

[pete lashmar]

It's difficult, because we had already seen, in previous years, JR force himself on a number of women - including Sue Eleen. So there is no doubt about it, JR was a sexual predetor.

As for Laurel it was blackmail sex, which I would conclude to be a form of rape, she really wasn't given a good option to choose from, have sex or see an innocent man rot in jail for the rest of his life.

 

[Jimmy Todd]

Did Clayton ever find out what JR did?

 

[pete lashmar]

Did Clayton ever find out what JR did?

Yes he did and had a confrontation with him but nothing much happened really because JR still had the evidence that proved him innocent

 

[pete lashmar]

ignore

 

[Barbara Fan]

That's like saying if someone holds a gun to your head and demands sex you still have the option to say no, which technically you do but it still would the rape. The same is true for coercive control.

JR created a situation where Laurel felt isolated, threatened and intimidated and he convinced her there was only one option of getting out. In that situation, I can understand why she wouldn't have the presence of mind to explore every option available to her and felt she had to submit to the demands of JR. That's why it's rape. It's about controlling a women in a way to force her to act against her will and that doesn't have to involve physical violence.

Absolutley agree @Angela Channing - She was dire, more wooden than the Bonsais but it was a horrible storyline and I felt that JR forced himself on her and raped her. It was also the start of making JR seem like an old perv/dirty old man as not long after came Cally who was young enough to be his grandaughter and that also left a very bad taste. Some like Mandy or Kimberley Cryder I could accept but both stories were just wrong and with awful actresses (cough / splutter i use the term very loosely here) playing the roles (badly)

 

[Jimmy Todd]

Yes he did and had a confrontation with him but nothing much happened really because JR still had the evidence that proved him innocent

An interesting twist would have been if JR offered to have Clayton cleared if Laurel had sex with him, but he wanted her to meet him at a motel later. She has time to tell Clayton. Clayton is too honorable to let her go through with it. He tells Miss Ellie, but she is in denial and believes JR over Laurel. There could be possibilities here.

 

[Swami]

Absolutley agree @Angela Channing - She was dire, more wooden than the Bonsais but it was a horrible storyline and I felt that JR forced himself on her and raped her. It was also the start of making JR seem like an old perv/dirty old man as not long after came Cally who was young enough to be his grandaughter and that also left a very bad taste. Some like Mandy or Kimberley Cryder I could accept but both stories were just wrong and with awful actresses (cough / splutter i use the term very loosely here) playing the roles (badly)

Although ironically enough it was even worse when Granny Beaumont came along.

Swami

 

[Seaviewer]

That's not true. JR gave her an opportunity to free Clayton. She was free to accept or decline. In rape there is no freedom to decline.

I'm not competent to know the strict definitions but at a minimum it would surely have to be regarded as a form of extortion with menaces.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

I'm not competent to know the strict definitions but at a minimum it would surely have to be regarded as a form of extortion with menaces.

It's possible that it was extortion. I don't know for sure. Do we have any lawyers here?

According to U.S. law, extortion is the act of trying to get money, goods, property, or anything of value from another person by threatening or using violence, fear, humiliation, or any other unlawful threat.

Threatening to not help someone wouldn't generally be an unlawful threat. yet, that was the threat - to not help Clayton if she didn't provide the service he wanted. Under most circumstances, you're not legally obligated to help someone or someone's friend. Usually it's a favor if you offer to help someone - not an obligation. That's why it's silly to compare what JR did to pointing a gun at her head and threatening to kill her. You're not doing someone a favor by not taking away their right to life. So if he'd threatened her life in exchange for sex there is no exchange of value for value; he'd just be "allowing" her to keep what she already has - her right to life.

If he has a legal obligation to come forth with information to help a man who is about to be charged with a crime he didn't commit, then that negates the idea that it's a deal. He'd no longer be offering to do something for her if she does something for him. There would no longer be any offer of value for value. He'd be "offering" to do something he's already legal required to do.

If not helping Clayton can be classified as "an unlawful that' - then it looks to me look it would be classified as extortion.

 

[Toni]

It's difficult, because we had already seen, in previous years, JR force himself on a number of women - including Sue Eleen. So there is no doubt about it, JR was a sexual predetor.

As for Laurel it was blackmail sex, which I would conclude to be a form of rape, she really wasn't given a good option to choose from, have sex or see an innocent man rot in jail for the rest of his life.

Well, maybe she knew Greg Sumner for the bonsai thingie and could have called him for help. I would have loved to see the Hagman and the Devane together in one scene at least!!

Greg (answering the phone): Yo!
Laurel: Mr. Sumner, Laurel the Bonsai girl here.
Greg: Hello sweet Brit. What´s up?
Laurel: Know a J.R. Ewing from "Dallas"? He´s sex-blackmailing me...
Greg: Go to the airport right now, I´m sending my jet for you. And I´ll send my wife Abby to deal with that Texan! They are besties!

 

[Jon Ewing Jr.]

I personally always thought and was surprised JR did this. Simply because I would have thought he would have rather had Clayton in jail rather than "bed Laurel"

 

[Kenny Coyote]

I personally always thought and was surprised JR did this. Simply because I would have thought he would have rather had Clayton in jail rather than "bed Laurel"

Remembering the things JR said about Clayton, always referring to him as an outsider, saying "if he dies, he dies" in a telephone conversation when Clayton was in the hospital for a heart problem, you'd think so, wouldn't you? You'd think he'd prefer Clayton went to prison.

I think the reason they didn't go in that direction is they always tried to make sure that JR had a certain amount of likability, since the audience liking him, or at least liking certain things about him was one of the major factors that made Dallas such a success. As far as I know, TV shows having a central character like JR - "the cool bad guy" - was something that hadn't been done before at that time. It was a groundbreaking concept that lots of shows took and tried to apply to one or more of the characters in their shows, with varying levels of success but never to the level of success of what Dallas did with JR.

Usually the innovator in some particular style of art or entertainment remains the best. When a rock band with a unique style became tremendously successful, inevitably there would be lots of people who would come along and try to copy them to achieve that level of success. They almost never were able to achieve it though because nobody can do Van Halen better than Van Halen, nobody can do AC/DC better than AC/DC, nobody can do KISS better than KISS, nobody can do The Rolling Stones better than The Rolling Stones because they were the originals. In music, for a copier to do the same thing the original did, but as good or better than they did it is either impossible or damn near impossible. I don't know nearly as much about TV so I can't say for sure, but I'd think the same idea applies, at least to some degree.

 

[Laurie Marr]

JR was the conduit through which the audience enjoyed the vicarious thrill of being bad. This was assisted in no small part by Hagman’s lightness of touch and his often brilliantly counterintuitive portrayal of villainy: just the right calibration of charm, humour and menace. He disarmed the viewer in so many ways that went way beyond what the character was scripted to say. Hagman was often a dazzlingly good actor and that’s too often overlooked - especially by me.