I missed this Vox piece 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 your finger on. To really understand it, you’ll probably have to read it all, but I’ll try to go through it and give you some ideas on what’s going on with it.
First, the piece, titled “How Dolly Parton Became an American Secular Saint,” is framed as a somewhat neutral explanatory piece. This is true for Vox’s basic mission, which is to put on a bit of neutrality just tell the news etiquette in what is almost always in favor of the special plea of the progressive left. In this case, the piece starts pretty well. There really is something unusual about Dolly Parton. In an age of partisanship, it seems to be that weird person that everyone loves or at least respects:
Dolly is the living legend who sells tours in the arena at 70 years old. He is the genius of the songs he wrote “Jolene” and “I always love you” the same day. In recent decades, feminists have begun to claim her as a feminist icon. She is a flawlessly dressed glamor queen, a business titan whose brand includes her own theme park, a philanthropist whose literacy program has sent free books to millions of children and also helped fund the Modern Covid-19 vaccine – and then refused to skip the line to get a dose soon. It is so beloved that WNYC devoted an entire series of podcasts to researching how a single figure could be worshiped by both the blue and red states.
The piece takes some time to explain how Dolly went from the “walking breast joke” to a feminist icon. It seems like a lot of this has to do with her decision to dress in a way she liked instead of trying to appeal to men (although you could say she had it covered). Then there was his wisdom and business ambition. Nor was she shy even more than 40 years ago, when she could have been seen not looking like a woman. One of the reasons as many people as she is is her sense of humor. Last year he created this meme on Instagram with the caption “Get a woman who can do it all.”
Many celebrities, including Oprah, hurried to jump in the car. I don’t know if he has a staff of social media people who proposed it, maybe he does. But at least he approved of that and that just shows an appealing sense of humor. She is not a rich old lady who cannot joke at her expense.
Whatever Dolly is, a lot of people around the world really like her. Vox reports: “In 2006, Parton’s tours sold out again. In 2009 he started selling stadiums. In 2014 he was the headliner of the Glastonbury Festival. ”And the article suggests that there’s something a little spooky about his way of affecting people, especially in person:
In 2008, Roger Ebert returned to his 1980 Dolly Parton profile, noting that he had missed something he considered very important: his presence, which he writes “surrounded” him. “That had nothing to do with sexual appeal,” he says. “Far away. It was as if I was fascinated by benevolent power. I left the room in a cloud of good feelings.”
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 was interviewing Dolly Parton, I almost heard who cared. powers. ”…
“I say it with humility and as someone who is not a believer” America by Dolly Parton host Jad Abumrad told Billboard in 2019, “There’s something very Christ-like.”
And that’s when the article takes a dark turn, literally. Here is the following paragraph:
But America in the 21st century is not the time for a secular pop saint. And there’s a dark side to Dolly’s ability to attract, in a Christ-like way, all people at all times.
Yes, it turns out that all this accumulation was so that the author could spend the second half of the piece trying to find the dark side of Dolly Parton. He devotes much of his time to his refusal to take sides 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 does not take sides, but is painted as very suspicious.
Below is a section on wages and benefits in Dollywood, which are modest (but above the minimum wage). Vox admits that none of this adds up to being a bad person or even being less than good.
The idea that Parton Amusement Park is not a work paradise is probably not enough to cause Dolly Parton to be canceled. Nor is it the idea of refusing to talk politics in public or allowing racists to like it or rewriting their labor rights anthem to help sell Squarespace. But it’s the kind of thing that makes Dolly worship, thoughtfully, like a recent request to replace all of Tennessee’s Confederate monuments with statues of Dolly, “the“ Appalachian Jesus, ”” begin to feel a little lazy, even cartoonish. .
I’m not sure what’s going on here, but this is my opinion based on too much time spent reading Vox over the years. Vox always goes in to write the “Ackshully …” columns, meaning the opposite adopts any conventional wisdom. This is no different. If people say Dolly is wonderful and is practically a saint (even if Dolly herself isn’t saying it), Vox is ready and eager to bring her down.
The fact that they don’t have too much evidence to do so should probably make them reconsider their approach, but it never does. In this case, the author admits that it is not even enough to excite even the easily exciting cultural exciters on social media. This is a pretty low bar these days. If you can’t take offense, you might want to stop trying. But it’s Vox, so you still get this formulaic withdrawal attempt that no one wanted or asked for.
Read it all. You won’t come out thinking less about Dolly Parton, but maybe you’ll come out thinking that Vox is probably a very weird job.