Trump takes Miss Ellie’s name in vain

[Kenny Coyote]

I’ve seen discussions hijacked routinely so that praise can be lavished on Dallas

Is it surprising that people on a Dallas forum would praise it?

 

[James from London]

(Post removed cos it was in reply to a comment that isn't there anymore.)

 

[Laurie Marr]

Is it surprising that only part of a quote is presented so that the substantive point of the post is thereby obscured?

Alas, no.

 

[Brian Kinney]

I see lots of posts on this forum that espouse a political viewpoint - although they are unattached to party affiliation or dogma.

As a teen I didn't know too much about US politics when watching Dallas's early seasons. But somehow I thought (and still think) that Cliff and Donna (Culver then) seemed to be Democrats and J.R. and Jock Republicans. Wrong? I know it was only hinted but I assumed that was another reason why Cliff and Donna didn't get along with J.R. ?

 

[Frank Underwood]

As a teen I didn't know too much about US politics when watching Dallas's early seasons. But somehow I thought (and still think) that Cliff and Donna (Culver then) seemed to be Democrats and J.R. and Jock Republicans. Wrong? I know it was only hinted but I assumed that was another reason why Cliff and Donna didn't get along with J.R. ?

That's accurate. It's funny because Larry Hagman was a Democrat in real life, and Susan Howard is a Republican.

When Donna introduced Bobby to Senator Dowling, Bobby said he'd consider voting for him. Donna said "wrong party Bobby," to which Bobby replied "I remember when Reagan was a Democrat." So Bobby was a Republican too, albeit a slightly more ethical one. Like Cliff, Pam struck me as a Democrat. I think that's partly why she and Bobby clashed in the early years.

The ideological makeup of political parties often changes over time. These days, Republicans and Democrats are more alike than different as the Democrats have shifted towards the right.

 

[James from London]

I am very appreciative of my culture, in fact I consider myself very lucky that I was born here. All kinds of privileges given to me by the people who made that possible, so any hypothetical feelings of pride would only apply to them, not to myself. But like I said, I prefer gratitude.

I feel pretty much the same way. I guess if I were to take pride in the good things done in the country I was born in, it would logically follow that I should derive shame from the bad things, otherwise I'd be denying the whole picture, so the two would probably end up balancing each other out. (But I accept that feelings and logic don't always go hand in hand.)

 

[Kenny Coyote]

The word pride has an unpleasant ring to it, imho.

I feel pretty much the same way. I guess if I were to take pride in the good things done in the country I was born in, it would logically follow that I should derive shame from the bad things, otherwise I'd be denying the whole picture, so the two would probably end up balancing each other out. (But I accept that feelings and logic don't always go hand in hand.)

Really? You think pride is "unpleasant"? Suppose you had a relative who was a hero in WWII. It would be understandable if you had told him you were proud of him for what he'd done. If his response had been: "Why are you proud of me for what I did; you didn't have anything to do with it" I think he'd have been missing the point.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Suppose you had a relative who was a hero in WWII.

And even in that scenario I'd struggle to place feelings of pride. I would admire his bravery, but winning a war is not a goal it's a necessity, because the only other option is defeat of the worst kind.
The men (and boys!) who fought in the war didn't do it to show off, most of them didn't even want to be there. There's no "good" in this kind of conflict, only loss and sadness.
The only advantage is in the result of the conflict e.g. "winning" a piece of land or to enslave other people to your ideology or the omnipotence of your ruler.

I do have feelings of pride, but I reserve them for superficial things like, let's say, winning and Ebay bidding war. Or having a very obscure CD in my collection (eventhough most people wouldn't want to have it even if I'd pay them).
And all that silly pride about the world cup and football, that's fun, that doesn't mean anything. Perhaps a big part of the fun is to unabashedly revel in euphoria and superficial victory.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I prefer gratitude.
The word pride has an unpleasant ring to it, imho.

Gratitude is likely healthier because it implies greater perspective. Pride seems to have an ego-base to it, and even the Bible warns about it.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Gratitude is likely healthier because it implies greater perspective. Pride seems to have an ego-base to it, and even the Bible warns about it.

Pride in oneself does have two forms. There's the type that Aristotle described as "a crown all virtues" and there is the type the Bible warns about which is the type that is also called "hubris."

Pride in someone else or something someone is connected to (such as their country) does involve gratitude. I think it may be a combination of gratitude and admiration. In my example of someone who has a relative who was hero in WWII there would be gratitude for defending their country but also admiration for an action that went above and beyond the call of duty denoting exceptional courage.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Pride seems to have an ego-base to it, and even the Bible warns about it.

Which reminds me of my deeply religious grandmother who, at the age of 80, was still scrubbing the floors in our church, on her 80 y/o knees.
Despite the grumbles of her children she obstinately refused to charge because she did it to secure a place in heaven. How clever!
Of course I don't know how that panned out, but she did receive a certificate from the Pope (!) for outstanding devotion or whatever, and she was so very, very proud of it.

She was also a diehard DALLAS fan and she was always telling what was happening on screen in a pearls-clutching kind of way.

 

[Seaviewer]

“I feel these political discussions are........tearing this website APAAAAAAAAART.”
-paraphrasing Miss Ellie

Unfortunately I can't remember her name but I once saw an impressionist do an excellent interpretation of both Pam and Ellie along the lines of - "Oh... Miss Ellie... Sue Ellen's being mean to me." -"Don't worry, Paaaaaaam. Everything's going to be all riiiiiight."

I thought Boris was a sexy name, but this is even better.

It's all the rage. Our Prime Minister Scott Morrison has inevitably become ScoMo.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Last week's Donna Reed debacle has been featured in Time Magazine in an article penned by her former screen daughter.

From the content, it struck me that there are parallels between Donna's experience on From Here To Eternity and on Dallas:

Doing From Here to Eternity... was a lesson she shared with me. Donna knew she was not the director’s first choice for the extraordinary role that she landed. That was a problem, but one she could live with since, after all, it was now hers to do. But as the filming progressed, she saw that there were shots of her character—close-ups and matching shots—that weren’t being done. The director, she realized, was minimizing the impact of her character by lessening her coverage. What to do? Should she do nothing and allow this wonderful character to become incidental? Should she say something and put the director on the defensive? Rather than make a scene, embarrass the director and become a “problem,” she began to make a careful list of all the shots that should have been done but had not been. When they got close to the moment when shooting in that set was to wrap, she went to the head of the studio, the infamous Harry Cohn, told him what was being done and presented the list of missed shots. Was she dismissed as “angry” or a “nasty woman”?

The shots turned up on the next day’s call sheet and all were completed. The result: an Academy Award.

As I remember, there was a similar undercurrent during her time on Dallas, with Donna's concerns over her key light and the way Ellie was written.

It's interesting to see how strong and proactive she'd been in shaping the role that gave her an Academy Award. The pragmatic way in which Donna overcame the not inconsiderable problems also suggests how knowledgeable she was when it came to the technical aspects of filmmaking. It makes me wonder if Donna would have been an asset to an ongoing series other than Dallas in which cast were encouraged to be more involved. Something more akin to Knots, perhaps.

Perhaps, too, there are also echoes of Donna's experience on Dallas in Trump's dismissive comment. Perhaps in the wake of her TV housewife image producers expected their second choice to be more submissive and malleable than the woman who had fought her corner in 1953. Suing Lorimar and trying to hold up production on Dallas is perhaps right in character for the fiery actor who went to Harry Cohn armed with the cold, hard facts.

Maybe Weijia Jiang and Paula Reid, when all is said and done, are Donna Reed.

 

[Kenny Coyote]

Last week's Donna Reed debacle has been featured in Time Magazine in an article penned by her former screen daughter.

From the content, it struck me that there are parallels between Donna's experience on From Here To Eternity and on Dallas:


As I remember, there was a similar undercurrent during her time on Dallas, with Donna's concerns over her key light and the way Ellie was written.

It's interesting to see how strong and proactive she'd been in shaping the role that gave her an Academy Award. The pragmatic way in which Donna overcame the not inconsiderable problems also suggests how knowledgeable she was when it came to the technical aspects of filmmaking. It makes me wonder if Donna would have been an asset to an ongoing series other than Dallas in which cast were encouraged to be more involved. Something more akin to Knots, perhaps.

Perhaps, too, there are also echoes of Donna's experience on Dallas in Trump's dismissive comment. Perhaps in the wake of her TV housewife image producers expected their second choice to be more submissive and malleable than the woman who had fought her corner in the 1953. Suing Lorimar and trying to hold up production on Dallas is perhaps right in character for the fiery actor who went to Harry Cohn armed with the cold, hard facts.

Maybe Weijia Jiang and Paula Reid, when all is said and done, are Donna Reed.

I haven't read about that. What were her concerns over the way Miss Elie was written?

I'm in favor of the cast having some creative input over their characters. Sometimes the actors know their character better than the writers do. That's why Larry Hagman ad libbed so many of his lines - the writers didn't fully understand the way JR would say something. Larry would take his lines and make them into something that he believed was credible for his character. He figured if he didn't believe in what JR was saying or how he was acting, then why would the audience?

 

[Knots Blogger]

Gratitude is likely healthier because it implies greater perspective. Pride seems to have an ego-base to it, and even the Bible warns about it.

Log Lady: You wear shiny objects on your chest.

Major Briggs: Yes I do

Log Lady: Are you proud?

Major Briggs: Achievement is its own reward;
Pride obscures it.

 

[James from London]

Perhaps in the wake of her TV housewife image producers expected their second choice to be more submissive and malleable than the woman who had fought her corner in 1953.

Very interesting. I never thought of it like that. We never got The Donna Reed Show over here (that I'm aware of), but I can see how having such a strong image as "the archetypal 1950s and ‘60s housewife" could make an indelible impression on people, if only subconsciously.

Maybe Weijia Jiang and Paula Reid, when all is said and done, are Donna Reed.

Haha perfect! By getting it completely wrong, Trump ends up being right by mistake!

I'm in favor of the cast having some creative input over their characters. Sometimes the actors know their character better than the writers do.

It's tricky. An actor may know their character backwards, but be less aware of the bigger picture, of the purpose they serve as one small cog in the overall story-telling machine.

Also, on a long-running series, there's the potential pitfall of an actor being so closely identified with their character that they don't wish to be seen saying or doing something on screen that could lose them the audience's sympathy. The cliched argument, "My character wouldn't do something like that" might really mean, "I don't want to be seen doing something like that."

Larry Hagman ad libbed so many of his lines - the writers didn't fully understand the way JR would say something. Larry would take his lines and make them into something that he believed was credible for his character.

I'm not aware of Hagman doing much ad-libbing on Dallas, save for those rhubarby bits at the beginning or in the background of scenes.

He figured if he didn't believe in what JR was saying or how he was acting, then why would the audience?

The counter-argument is that it's the actor's job to find a way to make what they're saying believable. When we interviewed David Jacobs (clang), he said that while he welcomed input from the cast of Knots Landing, Julie Harris, the most experienced actor on the show, only questioned one line of dialogue in seven years. He happily changed it for her, but then she went with the line as originally written anyway -- because (and I'm paraphrasing from memory here) she believed that the text was sacred and that it was the actor's job to breathe life into it.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I haven't read about that. What were her concerns over the way Miss Elie was written?

There have been a number of threads about Donna's time on Dallas over the years, but in a nutshell, it seems she was unhappy at being given less to do as time went on, and at being lit in an unflattering way, both of which were apparently viewed as attempts to sabotage her success in the role.

I just thought it interesting to see that she'd been in a similar position decades before Dallas, and resolved it in such a dynamic way. Which in turn raises the question of why she was less successful at resolving the issues on Dallas.

We never got The Donna Reed Show over here (that I'm aware of), but I can see how having such a strong image as "the archetypal 1950s and ‘60s housewife" could make an indelible impression on people, if only subconsciously.

Dallas would have been my first awareness of Donna, but I'm struggling to remember details of the surrounding publicity in UK papers and how they summarised her. I do seem to remember her housewife image being mentioned, but that's could simply be a case of a bio being lifted from one place and pasted into another.

Haha perfect! By getting it completely wrong, Trump ends up being right by mistake!

God loves a trier.

Also, on a long-running series, there's the potential pitfall of an actor being so closely identified with their character that they don't wish to be seen to saying or doing something on screen that could lose them the audience's sympathy. The cliched argument, "My character wouldn't do something like that" might really mean, "I don't want to be seen doing something like that."

Susan Howard balking at Donna's potential abortion is along those lines. The writers are forced to change their story to accommodate the actor, and the result is a different tonal path for the character the actor knows so well. It can go either way, I suppose.

Because of being so closely identified with their character, I always appreciate when an actor is willing to go ugly.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Which in turn raises the question of why she was less successful at resolving the issues on Dallas.

Paulsen said they quickly came to the realization that Reed had been miscast. You can see how quickly she is cut back in the scenes (once publicly complaining she was in only nine seconds of one episode).

I'm not sure what Reed could have done to resolve that.

 

[James from London]

Dallas would have been my first awareness of Donna, but I'm struggling to remember details of the surrounding publicity in UK papers and how they summarised her.

From Here to Eternity was a very famous film -- for Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr's legendary snog on the beach if nothing else -- so that would have been the main recognition factor for me.

Susan Howard balking at Donna's potential abortion is along those lines.

A flip side of that scenario is Sue Johnston as Sheila Grant on Brookside. The actress is strongly pro-choice but her character was a staunch Catholic and twice she found herself passionately arguing against her own beliefs on screen.

 

[Willie Oleson]

It's all the rage

Well in that case I don't like it anymore, I thought the nickname was given by BarbaraFan.
But BoJo also reminds me of John Boy so maybe I still like it a little bit.