Why Who Shot J. R. Matters: Dallas as the Pinnacle of Human Evolutionary Television

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryanne L. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Sibling Rivalry ◽  
Soap Opera ◽  
Prime Time ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
Adaptive Value ◽  
Literary Darwinism

The TV series Dallas remains one of the most popular shows to ever have been broadcast on American TV. It was a serialized prime-time soap opera with weekly 45 minute episodes that ran from 1978 until 1991. This long-running show is one of the few to have been entirely released in DVD format; all 14 seasons are available as of 2011, and reruns are still aired internationally. Hundreds of thousands of visitors still tour the Southfork Ranch used for filming, outside Dallas, Texas. I will argue that the reason for this show's success is because it routinely depicted themes that align with our evolved psychology. Using arguments that have been created to discuss literary Darwinism and gossip, I propose that this show depicted topics that have adaptive value; Dallas both exploits our evolved interests but also may act as a learning device for solving adaptive problems. Over the course of human evolution, it may have increased individual fitness to know who is wealthy or owns plentiful resources, has power and status, cheats on or poaches mates, engages in sibling rivalry, enhances their attractiveness, and so on. Dallas depicts these topics, and others, and thus, it is sensible that it would have been so successful among international audiences, and across decades.

Transformation and Glamour in the Cross-Cultural Makeover: Return to Eden, Khoon Bhari Maang and the Avenging Woman in Popular Hindi Cinema

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Plastic Surgery ◽  
Soap Opera ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Prime Time ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Hindi Cinema ◽  
Transnational Film ◽  
James Dobson

Rakesh Roshan’s Khoon Bhari Maang (Blood-Smeared Forehead, India, 1988) is closely modelled on the iconic Australian television 3-part, mini-series Return to Eden (Karen Arthur, Kevin James Dobson, 1983), itself a self-conscious appropriation and strategic indigenisation of the melodramatic conventions and “feminised address” of the prime time American soap opera. In Return to Eden, a treacherous tennis champ marries a meek and dowdy heiress, Stephanie Harper, and throws her into alligator-infested waters; she survives, has plastic surgery, becomes a supermodel, and returns to exact revenge on her husband. In the transnational film remake, Khoon Bhari Maang, the heroine’s transformation is more extreme – in accordance with her revenge, which is more violent – and also more complex, in terms of cultural identity, since her journey, from frumpy Aarti to the sultry Jyoti, necessitates a negotiation of traditional/modern and Indian/non-Indian modes of womanhood (and this also resonates with the ‘reinvention’ of its star, Rekha, in the late 1970s). Drawing on recent discussions of the anxious “assemblage” of femininity in popular Hindi cinema this chapter focuses on issues raised by Khoon Bhari Maang’s presentation of the make-over conceit.

A Soap of Our Own: New Zealand's Shortland Street

2003 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trish Dunleavy
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Soap Opera ◽  
Prime Time ◽  
Export Markets ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Genre Conventions ◽  
Television Market

Shortland Street is a prime-time soap opera that launched on New Zealand television in 1992 and was created to meet a combination of commercial and ‘public service’ objectives. Shortland Street is institutionally and culturally significant as New Zealand's first attempt at daily drama production and one of the first major productions to follow New Zealand television's 1989 deregulation. Placing Shortland Street in the context of national television culture and within the genre of locally produced TV drama, this paper explores several key facets of the program, including: its creation as a co-production between public and private broadcasting institutions; its domestic role in a small television market; its relationships with New Zealand ‘identity and culture’; its application of genre conventions and foreign influences; and its progress — as a production that was co-developed by Grundy Television — in a range of export markets.

The “Dope” on Soaps

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick T. MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Soap Opera ◽  
Prime Time ◽  
Drug Usage ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Entertainment Television ◽  
Public Drug

Entertainment television has recently been at the center of a raging controversy concerning its effects on the viewer. Prime time television has been analyzed and dissected in almost every imaginable way. This zeal to reveal the hidden lessons being taught on prime time has not, however, been carried over to the daytime arena. While we now know the intimate details of nighttime drug usage, there has been virtually no investigation of daytime drug taking. This study, utilizing a sample of long-time soap opera viewers, examines the context, motives and consequences of drug use in the daytime serials. An indepth analysis of the various portrayals of eight separate drug categories — alcohol, tobacco, tranquilizers, amphetamines, marijuana, LSD, cocaine, and heroin — are presented. Finally, the potential effects of these television portrayals upon public drug awareness, and education efforts are hypothesized.

scholarly journals Køn og genre i TAXA: Følsom maskulinitet og mødre under anklage

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vibeke Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Soap Opera ◽  
Prime Time ◽  
Entire Family ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Female Figures ◽  
Sunday Evening

The article looks at the new Danish prime-time soap opera "Taxa", asking why a usually devaluated women's genre as the soap opera has succeeded in addressing the entire family in prime time on Sunday evening. The serial is discussed in the light of Christine Gledhill's statement that in the new prime-time soap "melodrama and realism, women's and men's culture, intersect (...) in a particularly productive way". I conclude that while it is true that the male characters in "Taxa" are multi-dimensional personalities, women in this Danish soap opera are not only almost absent as writers and directors, but the female figures are also highly mythologized. Thus the costs of the soap genre going mainstream are marginalization and trivilization of women.

Women and Soap Opera: A Study of Prime Time Soaps.

1992 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 263
Author(s):  
Muriel G. Cantor ◽  
Christine Geraghty
Keyword(s):  
Soap Opera ◽  
Prime Time
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