Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

I happened to watch this film on Netflix channel at a hotel room while staying in Okinawa. 

As a matter of fact, I was shocked and could understand why J.D. Vance made a very peculiar and derogatory comment that childless cat ladies such as Kamala Harris and Pete Buttiigieg are miserable and making the rest of the country miserable although he graduated from Yale Law School.

Recently along with his running mate, he spoke racially aggressive comments against Haitian immigrants in his state of Ohio, which was not based on the fact. 

He and his family’s life was very miserable due to the poverty and his mother had mental disorder and could be emotionally unstable. He had to go through domestic violence just like his mother experienced. 

They lacked ethics so his grand mother told him to do urinalysis for his mother who was drug-addicted but wanted to get back to nursing job, for which she was fired due to her misbehaving at a hospital.   

I know one of siblings who was raised in such family and became a surgeon but acted like a child due to mistreatment in his family. I cut off relationship with him and his wife because I was offended by him. 

It is very difficult to remove bad effects mounted in childhood. 

Scary thing is he’s been supported by such people because they can feel mutual with him. 

Sorry to tell, America is sickened. (I’m not saying Japan is not.) 

I just happened to know good advices to such people. 

1. Don’t look back on the past. The past is in the past. The best things are never in the past but in the future.

2. Family members are people you cannot choose to relate to. If you think that is the cause of your agony in life. Just cut them off. 

He seems to be dragged by his past although he made himself such a big person. 

So sad. 

I happen to watch this show while staying at a hotel in Okinawa. The hotel subscribed to Netflix so I could watch this American show on the hotel room TV. The TV show was remake of 1980’s popular soap opera of the same name. I watched that show while I was attending a university in the US. It was 1990’s so I watched the already re-runs of the show. I was addicted to the show, which helped me improve my English ability. The plot was not very much changed from the original version. A woman named Cristal was married to an oil tycoon Blake Carrington and joined his rich family but some people in the family such as her husband’s daughter and ex-wife were hostile to her and had quarrels with them. 

But there were some drastic changes in the drama, especially casting and setting of the characters due to the time difference. 

1. Normailised portrayal of gay characters; A son of the rich family, Steven was gay. In the original version, Steven and his family struggled with his sexuality and Blake even tried to cut off relationship with his son and removed him from successors of his family business. Cristal, his new wife dissuaded him from doing so because of her gentle character. Steven was married to a woman and had a child to another woman, Cristal’s niece, Sammy Jo. But Steven later got a love affairs with men and his family finally approved of his lifestyle. Although he was a gay character but no kissing scene of two men. 

In the new version, nobody questioned Steven’s lifestyle and he and his lover, Sam, Cristal’s nephew were happily married.

2. More characters of colors; in the original version, Cristal was a white woman but new Cristal was a Hispanic woman from Venezuela. Blake’s spoiled and flapper daughter, Fallon had a love affair with a chauffeur who was a white man but in this new version, the chauffeur was a Black man and had relationship with another Black man. Cristal’s nephew Sam who later became Steven’s husband is Hispanic as well. 

Sounds good but what is bothersome is these characters or their siblings had some criminal records due to the reality? 

In fact, even today, it is unrealistic that a rich conservative white parents would be happy to know their daughter had a love affair with a man of color. 

One more thing to note is more independent working female character setting than the original. In the new version, Cristal met Blake on the board meeting of his company as a board member, PR director. Fallon was a board member and later tried to take over her father’s CEO position. In the original Cristal was just Mrs. Blake Carrington and Fallon was just a spoiled child. 

Steven was not actively involved in his family’s oil business unlike the original version due to his liberal environmentalist thought. 

The new version indeed reflects the trend of 21st century such as more accepting of gay lifestyle and racially diverse demography. It was a good history and social study material for me who enjoyed watching the original.