I missed this Vox song about Dolly Parton when it was released last week, but a friend suggested I take a look. And yes, there is something very strange about this in a way that is hard to put on your finger. To really get the point, you probably need to read everything, but I’ll try to get you through it and give you some thoughts on what’s going on with it.
First, the play, entitled “How Dolly Parton Became a Secular American Saint,” is framed as a somewhat neutral explanatory piece. This is kind of true for Vox’s core mission, which is to put a somewhat neutral just explaining the news etiquette on what is almost always partisan advocates especially from the progressive left. In this case, the song starts pretty well. There really is something unusual about Dolly Parton. In an age of partisanship, he seems to be that rare person that everyone everywhere loves or at least respects:
Dolly is the living legend who sells tours in the arena in the 70’s. She is the genius of the composer who wrote “Jolene” and “I will always love you” on the same day. In recent decades, feminists have begun to claim her as a feminist icon. She is an impeccably dressed glamor queen, a business titan whose brand includes her own theme park, a philanthropist whose literacy program sent free books to millions of children, and in addition helped fund the Coverna-19 vaccine. at Moderna – and then refused to jump in line to receive an early dose. It is so popular that WNYC has dedicated an entire series of podcasts to investigating how a single figure could be adored by both blue and red states.
The play takes some time to explain how Dolly went from a “walking blood joke” to a feminist icon. Much of this seems to be related to her long-standing decision to dress in a way she liked, rather than trying to appeal to men (although you could say she had it covered). Then there was her ambition and skill in business. She wasn’t even shy about 40+ years ago, when she might have been seen as not being a lady. Part of the reason so many people like her is a sense of humor. She created this meme on Instagram last year with the caption “Get a woman who can do everything”.
Lots of celebrities, including Oprah, hurried to jump on the wagon. I don’t know if she has a social media staff that came up with this for her, maybe so. But at least she approved of it, and that alone shows an appealing sense of humor. She’s not a stuffy, rich old woman who can’t take a joke at her expense.
No matter what Dolly is about, many people around the world love her. Vox reports: “By 2006, Parton’s tournaments were selling again. In 2009, it began selling stadiums. In 2014, she was the title of the Glastonbury festival. “And the article goes on to suggest that there’s something kind of scary about how it has an impact on people, especially personally:
In 2008, Roger Ebert returned to his 1980 Dolly Parton profile, noting that he missed something he considered very important: her presence, which he writes “enveloped him.” “This had nothing to do with sex appeal,” he says. “Far from it. I was fascinated by benevolent power. I left the room in a cloud of common sense.”
Ebert adds that when he talked to his writing partner Gene Siskel about Parton the next day, Siskel reported the same feeling: “This is going to sound crazy,” he said, “but when I interviewed Dolly Parton, it almost that I felt powers were healing. ”…
“I say this humbly and as someone who is not a believer, ” Dolly Parton’s America host Jad Abumrad told Billboard in 2019, “There’s something very Christ-like about it.”
And then the article takes a dark turn, literally. Here is the following paragraph:
But 21st century America is not the time for a secular pop saint. And there is a dark side to Dolly’s ability to attract, like Christ, all people at all times.
Yes, it turns out that the whole construction was so that the author could spend the second half of the play trying to find the dark side of Dolly Parton. He spends a lot of his time refusing to take part in any political debate, even against President Trump. Does that mean she secretly supported him? Well, there is no evidence in any way, because Dolly is not taking part, but she is painted as very suspicious.
Then there is a section on Dollywood salaries and benefits, which are modest (but above the minimum wage). Vox acknowledges that none of this adds to the fact that he is a bad person or even a less than good person.
The idea that Parton’s theme park is not a work paradise is probably not enough to cancel out Dolly Parton. Nor the idea that he refuses to talk about politics in public or that he allows racists to like him or that he has rewritten his labor rights anthem to help sell Squarespace. But it’s the kind of thing that makes Dolly’s fashionable reflective worship – like a recent petition to replace all Confederate monuments in Tennessee with statues of Dolly, “” Jesus of Appalachia “- begin to feel a little lazy, even animated.
I’m not sure what’s going on here, but this is my idea based on too much time spent reading Vox over the years. Vox always jumps to write the columns “Ackshully …”, meaning the opposite takes any conventional wisdom. It’s no different. If people say that Dolly is wonderful and practically a saint (even if Dolly herself doesn’t say that), then Vox is ready and eager to take her down.
The fact that they don’t have much evidence to do so should probably make them reconsider their approach, but it never has. In this case, the author acknowledges that there is not even enough here to excite those who are easily aroused by cultural crowds on social networks. That’s a pretty low bar these days. If you can’t offend those people, then you should give up the test. But it’s Vox, so you’ll still get this formulaic removal attempt that no one wanted or asked for.
Read everything. You won’t leave thinking less about Dolly Parton, but you might come to think that Vox is probably a very strange place to work.