Much has been said about the denseness of Dallas by critics. Nevertheless, it used to be very popular in the USA for years and nowadays it is very popular also in Hungary. The question has been raised a lot of times whether this program has any literary value at all.
Dallas, as a soap-opera, is one of the major money-earners, nonetheless it is rarely praised. The audience of Dallas is assumed to be naive, stupid and mainly female. Critics universally condemn it since nothing happens in it. It has also been suggested that many women use it to talk about their own lives, attitudes and thoughts. However, it is watched by a great number of male viewers.
The high rate of viewers may be contributed to the fact that there is a lot of gossip, confession and speculation in it. Furthermore, exchanges of confidences and a great amount of intimate conversation is typical of Dallas. It also tends to show the domestic part of life while the working part is seldom shown. The dominance of problem solving can be observed in the case of Dallas. Great emphasis is put on the discussion of private feelings and long, intimidate conversation. It avoids narrative closure and the emphasis is on the process and not on the end product as it can be observed in some other soap operas. This can be noticed in how crimes are treated: a lot of it happens off screen and it is the source of conversation. Dallas has multiple plots and a lot of characters. The setting of Dallas is usually in homes, communities - in the private sphere. Presumably, it also responded to real time quite well, when it was on in the USA. Probably it dealt with many current issues of that period. A lot of segmentation is also associated with Dallas, it is typical to jump from one action to another. It is also characteristic of Dallas that women celebrate their sexuality in the program since middle-aged women are portrayed as desirable and they use their sexuality to achieve their aims. The male characters are quite sensitive and not so aggressive in this soap-opera and domestic violence is usually not illustrated in it. Dallas tends to be not so dogmatic with its judgments about questions raised in the program and the episodes are open-ended in contrast to some other series such as Kojak.
The elements of fairy tales can also be detected in Dallas. The positive hero is Bobby. He is handsome and clever and always does good things. He is faithful to his wife and the wife is the one who breaks up their marriage. He fights for his son when a girl threatens him with taking away his son. He does everything for his family. He is the one, who understands the problems of other people and tries to help them. He is also very successful with women. He is a good son, husband and father and many times he also tolerates his brother, JR. Furthermore, he tends to be honest in business as well, which does not promote financial success. Whereas JR. is apparently the villain in the program. He uses his charm and his intelligence for evil deeds. He cheats his wife as often as possible and he would be able to divorce her in order to take revenge for the loss of his father's company. Yet, it should be kept in mind that it was lost as a result of JR.’s devious and cunning character. He uses women most of the time as a device to achieve his goals and does not treat them as equal human beings. He also handles the business according to his own set of rules and does not know the meaning of fair play. Nonetheless, this type of management is apparently more successful than Bobby's fair play. He also takes care of his family and he is deeply concerned about his son and his son's future. He also has a good humour and is able to laugh at difficult situations. Many times his goals are good but he uses the wrong tools.
There are different helpers in the film. Some of them help JR. and others help Bobby. However, the positive and the negative heros do not fight against each other. Sue Ellen is a strange character. She is supposed to help JR. Since she is his wife . Nevertheless, she is against her husband because JR. humiliated her regularly throughout their marriage. First, she became an alcoholic for she was not able to bear the brunt of JR. 's character. Later, she overcame the difficulties and turned into a successful businesswoman. Nonetheless, she is not faithful to her marriage either. She has quite a few boyfriends, mainly younger ones as to prove to herself that she is still desirable sexually. She is a very human character, she makes many mistakes and fails sometimes but she also has a strong will to overcome difficulties. She loves her son dearly and tries to help those who are judged by her as good people. She also attempts to harm JR. Because he hurt her so many times. Nonetheless, she is not a stable personality and she can be easily hurt. She mainly helps Bobby.
Another helper in the story is Ellie. She is the grandmother, the mother of Bobby and JR. She is the one, who keeps the family together, no matter what happens. She loves her husband dearly and also her sons. She is the only one, who has some influence on JR. as well. However, she forgives him many things. Sometimes she appears to be a stable person, other times she seems to be quite weak. She is strongly determined to protect her family. Yet, when a man appears and says that he is her former husband , she does not show great strength to resist the temptation. She is also quite biased towards her sons. She shows great affection towards South fork, the ranch. There are some other helpers in the story such as Sly, JR.'s secretary and April.
There are some people who obstruct the main characters' actions. Such a character is Cliff. Cliff is in constant opposition with JR. He always fights against JR., and usually he is the one who is the underdog in this fight. He is driven by his feelings most of the time which can be one of the reasons why JR. wins in the majority of the cases. He appears to be sometimes as a person who cares about only himself but sometimes he shows some kind of responsibility towards others.
The high rate of viewers can be attributed to the fact that the characters in Dallas have everyday problems just like an average citizen. They have problems at home in the private sphere: arguments about small things, problems at work - fight for better positions, these characters also have successful and unsuccessful moments just like anybody else. However, the family is very rich which makes the whole story more interesting since ordinary people are always longing to become rich. At the same time, it also shows that rich people have similar problems as average citizens. These people also have financial problems but on a different scale.
Certain values also appear in the story and they are emphasized. The most important value is the love of the family and the protection of the family members from the outside world. The central character who controls this responsiblity and also strenghtens it is Ellie. She always fights for the members of the family even if they are guilty of what they are accused of. JR. also has a very strong feel of responsibility towards his son, his son is one of the few things in his life which is sacred. The same can be said about Cliff as well. Seemingly he is a selfish person but he loves his sister dearly. Bobby also very much concerned about his family and so most of the times he tolerates JR. 's encroachments. The female characters also spend lot of time with charity work, which is a good example for the members of the society.
To sum up, Dallas does have some literary value. It is a record of the given period, it shows the way how people thought about the world in the US in the eighties. It also exhibits some basic human values and the characters are typical human beings. These characters change through the story, so some character development can be observed as well. However, it should be also mentioned that this soap opera aimed to entertain a wide range of audience and it remained a popular program which never had artistic ambitions.
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