J. R. Ewing subterfuges to plunder his foes' wealth. The original series concept was a blend of "Bonanza" with a rich, western patriarch and his three dissimilar sons, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with its rival brothers, and their scheming wives, and "Romeo and Juliet" with two star-crossed lovers whose families are sworn enemies. The focus of the series was initially the feuding families, with J.R. just a supporting character, but his popularity grew and the producers acknowledged he became the breakout character. Two highly rated 1980 episodes became part of a cultural phenomenon that year known as "Who shot J.R.?". In
Their Eyes Were Watching God Renaissance authors. Novelist and essayist Richard Wright condemned "Their Eyes Were Watching God", writing in a review for "New Masses" (1935): Miss Hurston seems to have no desire whatsoever to move in the direction of serious fiction… [She] can write; but her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality that has dogged Negro expression since the days of Phyllis Wheatley... Her characters eat and laugh and cry and work and kill; they swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears. Ralph Ellison said the