The end of the bitter decade of the 1970’s (i.e. US defeat in Vietnam, rise of OPEC, Watergate, massive inflation, Iran hostages, Soviet Afghan War, et al), saw the emergence of a wildly popular TV series that was amazingly prophetic.
Lorimar first aired its new series Dallas, on April 2, 1978, right in the middle of the Iranian revolution, Soviets in Afghanistan, another spike-up in oil prices, Euro-schizophrenia, and the continuing “how-are-we-getting-screwed-next?” domestic ethos of the era. The show was all glitz and glamour, about a conniving family of Dallas oil barons, led by its wily progenitor of deceit, one John Ross Ewing, a.k.a. ‘J.R. Ewing’, played by Texas native Larry Hagman.
Dallas gave people the vision of another world in which you actually had to do something with all the money you made to stay at the top of the food chain. “Accomplishment” was the subtext here, and while JR’s devious schemes were entertaining, it was a 1-hour TV escape, without the ‘sturm und drang’ of that crap decade. Dallas stayed at, or near the top of the ratings for 357 episodes.
What made Dallas such an instructive proto-analog for today …is the Reagan economic-political-technological boom that followed it. In retrospect, that show portrayed an “active zeitgeist” vs. the passive, victimized zeitgeist the 1970s decade offered America. And I’m not the first who has mentioned the contrast of the 2 shows (although my angle here is different).
Fast forward to present day: the leading TV series is now Dallas’ inverse-doppelganger, Yellowstone. Set on the largest working cattle ranch in Montana, it details a powerful family of multi-generational landholders, fiercely determined to hold onto their gigantic pile, in the face of numerous, equally powerful interlopers. Led by ranchboss John Dutton, who’s played by Kevin Costner; he’s every bit J.R. Ewing’s nemesis and then some. Unlike Dallas, there’s a minimum of glitz & glamour in Yellowstone.
I submit the subtext in Yellowstone is “endurance”; and having a personal level of mental toughness & action, that transcends and obliterates the “Woke” ethos of the last 2 decades. And along the way…the weak, stupid, disloyal, and incompetent get a “ride to the train station”. They’re eliminated in the best [grisly] Montana ranching traditions, without any remorse whatsoever. J.R. Ewing would be envious.
If Dallas in 1978 predicted the following 2-3 decades to come; and my premise that Yellowstone is every bit as predictive, we’re in a Helluva mess. Already the Hollywood establishment hates the runaway success of Yellowstone; it’s been banned from major awards like the Emmys. They understand their own power; but it’s too late. In today’s techno-distractia, Hollywood’s creations are far more successful as reflective entities, than overt Goebbels-style propaganda.
Yellowstone as a breakout, shunned, ‘predictive analog’ to what’s coming… screams, “big changes ahead!”
Honestly looking at the colossal messes our entrenched political classes have made, and ARE MAKING as you read this, you’d be ‘dumb-as-a-Demshevik’ to think otherwise. Stay away from that train station.
Sellers is a Southpark Republican living in incorporated Oro Valley; his background is federal technology commercialization