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It was the same in Hungary. All the grandmas watched the Mexican and Brazilian soap operas throughout the 90s. The first classic was Escrava Isaura back in the 80s. Then in the 90s it was Esmeralda, La usurpadora, and so on. Today many watch Turkish soaps. In the 90s the series Dallas was also hugely popular. Surely my Eastern European peasant grandparents watched Dallas because they shared the culture of Texan oil magnates. And also Latin American culture, sure. Oh wait, no, it was because of skin tone (grandpa got quite tanned on the sun, working outdoors, so he surely identified with the Brazilians).
I think Americans don't quite get how absolutely normal it is in rest of the world that TV doesn't depict your own culture, cities, stories etc. People who travel to the US are often surprised that "wait, this is really like that, and it's not only the movies?", like yellow school buses, college football, high school lockers, doorknobs, whatever. It's all foreign but we are used to TV being a different world. When my grandma saw the skyscrapers in the Dallas opening sequence it was as foreign as watching some sci-fi. But she still liked the series because the human stories aren't all that different. Sure, you miss many cultural references but it's rarely crucial for the entertainment.
Let's not get carried away. Almost(?) the entire cast of Dallas was White. Most characters in Latin American soaps are White, and Black/Indigenous characters are there as essentially exotic tokens.
So it's not culture then. Back to skin color. Okay, then why was every little girl playing with black baby dolls ("négerbaba") during socialism? "That one was available" is not sufficient because as far as I heard first hand, kids and parents had no problem with it and liked it.
That's not my point. My point is that the characters in those series were still relatable to Eastern European viewers, racially speaking. Had, say, J.R. Ewing suddenly appeared in the business district of any local capital in his Mercedes-Benz and usual attire, he wouldn't have stood out, unless his cowboy hat was on. Everyone'd have assumed he's just another local big shot. With respect to negro dolls, I don't think their popularity, which I assume was real, somehow contradicts my point. Again, we're talking about stagnating socialist economies of shortage here. Seldom was any available product unwanted. People were also happy to watch trafficked Western movies on VHS, which were mostly crap even if one discounts the awful fandub, because at least it was different from anything on the two TV channels that were available etc.
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