Dr. James Pennebaker, a professor of psychology, has for years studied the dark effects of history on Dallas, which was stigmatized as the “city of hate” after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
According to some, Dallas once again has become a dateline of infamy — the first American city where a patient in one of its hospitals died from Ebola, whose infectious web then ensnared two nurses.
Is Dallas once again nursing a black eye, unfairly or otherwise?
Pennebaker, of the University of Texas, says no. “There’s no black eye at all. It’s so beyond anybody’s control. We’re in this insane world now where we’re trying to find a victim to blame. It’s ridiculous. This is the cost of being a human being, for crying out loud.”
And yet, Dallas has long been a city that spends a lot of time looking in the mirror — and wondering if it measures up.
Pennebaker, who lived here from 1983-97 while teaching at Southern Methodist University, agreed that Dallas is consumed with its image. “I don’t see that with other cities nearly as much. Here’s some bad news: Nobody thinks much about Dallas,” he said.
And yet, Dallas has gained a pop culture reputation over the years that casts a higher profile than most cities and isn’t always positive.
Pennebaker said Larry Hagman’s delicious portrayal of bad boy J.R. Ewing on the hit show Dallas did much to divert international attention from Dallas being synonymous with JFK’s death.
In Errol Morris’ 1988 film, The Thin Blue Line, Randall Dale Adams calls Dallas “hell on Earth.” A Dallas County jury convicted and sentenced Adams for a murder he didn’t commit. It took Morris’ film to win his release from death row in Huntsville.
Dallas, and by extension Texas, became a slow-moving target this week on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.
Stewart poked fun at the Cleaning Guys, the Dallas company whose Hazmat Emergency Response team descended on the neighborhood where an Ebola patient resides.
“ 'Bros With a Hose' was not available?” Stewart asked.
He then used three cases of Ebola in Dallas to focus on larger issues. He quoted David Corn of Mother Jones as saying that, “Texas has the largest number of uninsured Americans in the country.” He quoted another who noted that Texas had refused the Medicaid expansion, “turning away” $100 billion in federal funds.
“All right, Texas, here’s the deal,” Stewart said. “We can build that border fence you’ve always wanted. We’re just gonna do it a little farther north” — isolating the state from the rest of the country.
Even Steve Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants, who play the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, used Dallas’ Ebola connection to poke fun at the Pokes.
“I think the Cowboys are going to get it first,” Tisch said, not exactly showing the keenest sense of political correctness.
All kidding aside, Dallas may be courting some real consequences, however irrational. Some visitors say they are scared to travel here. Some schools have closed for overnight cleaning even though they had no direct links to Ebola.
But artist-actor Kevin Page, who played J.R.’s henchman Bum on the TNT remake of Dallas, said the city has been bitten by bad luck.
“There’s a disease that could have landed anywhere, and it happened to land here,” Page said. “We should be proud of the people who put themselves at risk to protect the public health. No, I don’t think we have a black eye — I think we deserve a medal for courage.”
