Why We Stan A Post-Racism Queen. A new essay on my new project, essaying. Live now. If you are an OG tressiemc.com subscriber - you got this delivered to your inbox along with a free Substack subscription as a thank you.
I have been in meetings recently where an ice breaker is 'what did you want to be when you grew up?' I have struggled to answer, I look back on my white southern girlhood and I can find no yearning to be something. This essay helped clarify why. Me wanting to be something was vulgar and I couldn't survive being vulgar. So I waited and watched and then, when no one was looking, I ran.
OMG this was the best thing I've ever read about Dolly Parton. And I have a couple of things to say about blondeness and Southern White womanhood.
Just before we started our Zoom session with my mom on Christmas day, I said to my wife, “I think I’m going to wear a hat so she doesn’t give me grief about how dark my hair is.” And then Mom asked me why I was wearing a hat, and I said, “I did it so you wouldn’t give me grief about how dark my hair is.”
My mom I-nevered, at which my sister rolled her eyes because she has seen the aforementioned grief being given.
As girls, my sister and I were both blonde enough to be called towheads. My sister remains (naturally) blonde. But my hair has darkened every year of my life, and by the time I was 45 or so, I wasn’t really blonde anymore (now I’m 57).
My mom was always nudging me to get it highlighted, even when it was still what you might call dark blonde. I did it for a while. But it was a pain in the ass and I hated spending that much time sitting still at the hairdresser’s.
Once, I had it done when I was home in Tennessee, and afterwards my dad said, “Oh, yes, that’s much more like your natural color.” !!!! Obviously my natural color when I was 5, or 25, was no longer my natural color.
To be fair, I can’t remember if that was before or after he was diagnosed with dementia. But here’s the thing. A lot of people who were blonde as children are not adults. Or not, as in my case, as middle-aged adults.
So in this way, blondeness signifies youth, even to the point of childishness, which is why so many more women than men lighten their hair. Childish qualities are valued in women. The stereotype of the dumb blonde supports this -- dumbness is a kind of innocence.
And of course, this also comports with why blondeness maps on to extreme Whiteness: because in a culture that relentlessly associates Blackness with criminality, Whiteness, its opposite, must be innocent.
Of course, there’s lots of evidence that Black children, both boys and girls, are often read as older than they are by White people.
I wonder if the pitch of her voice also contributes to the perception of innocence that shields Dolly? And her small stature? IIRC, the “girl singer” she replaced on Porter Wagoner’s show was a deep alto.
Also, can I just say that she looks surprisingly butch in the childhood photo?
Thanks so much for this beautiful essay, which is as entertaining as it is insightful.
Jeez, my sister and younger daughter have gone through the same thing with my mom, who has lived so long in the cult of Southern white femininity she can't see out. I about came over the dinner table when she stroked my daughter's hair and said with a frown, "oh, you're losing your blonde." Meanwhile, I'm well aware that I and my older daughter (both brown-haired) have always been the more problematic people for her in weird ways. The Dolly essay has connected a LOT of dots for me re: family cultural biography.
I totally understood you. Yes, blonde is associated with youth and also a history of white race-making. It isn't just innocence but a long historical trajectory of white having an ancestral home, somewhere around Greece or sometimes Norway or maybe its by way of Rome and so on and so forth. Blonde domination in modern culture legitimizes this historical myth-making. Oh, white people must be descendant from X because look at the blonde! Of course, there is also the fundamentally eugenicist idea of coveting recessive gene expression for social status.
I have a funny story about learning what "tow headed" even means! My whole life, until maybe a year ago, I thought it meant one with a cowlick. That's because I first encountered the word in the Dennis the Menace cartoon strip. LOL People on twitter told me that it means blonde. And in some ways, that exchange informed the start of this essay. Because people's feelings about having once been blonde (as you describe here) was so visceral for them. It was odd to me, a person who doesn't understand what even counts as blonde.
What prompted me to think about this recently was a question on FB from a dark-skinned Black friend of mine about hair. I said, this in no way compares to the trauma Black women -- and men, too -- have undergone about hair, but my hair color has been a minor source of vexation, and I told that story about my mom. My friend's niece, who is much lighter-skinned than my friend, had responded to her question with a comment about colorism, and I thought, hey, colorism exists within whiteness. Maybe a legacy of the one-drop rule and the hard color line is that it's difficult to see the distinctions on the other side of the line.
I'm guilty of having feelings about having been blonde as a kid and young adult and now having brown hair. My partner and I joke about how our kid's first lethal attack on us was calling our hair colors "gray" and "brown" respectively. I did a lot of reflecting on what you lay out here when that happened, and what was going on with my previously-unacknowledged hair vanity.
I was completely delighted to see you back in my inbox, with an essay about Dolly no less! I have been drawn to Dolly the past few years and consider myself a newer but genuine fan, and have never been able to really explain the sudden and intense fascination. Is it her artistry? Her charm and effusiveness? Her philanthropy? I'm still not sure, but there are so many layers to her, her performance, and her fandom that I read just about every piece that examines her life and legacy that I can. I'm so happy that you have contributed your thoughts and analysis, and I just want to thank you for being so generous with us.
This was fascinating! I've been thinking a lot about Dolly especially when she said she didn't want the medal of freedom from Biden because it would be 'doing politics' (https://www.today.com/popculture/dolly-parton-turned-down-presidential-medal-freedom-twice-t207752). As a progressive it struck me as a no brainer but I was reminded of her other audience by this line, "Ever the artist of misperception, Dolly leaves unsaid what her core conservative country audience needs to never hear her say." Also didn't even know she was married, an invisible living husband has blown my mind.
Thank you! As an academic struggling to write in way that satisfies me aesthetically in the places I feel pressure to publish, this inspires me to write more for myself.
I am very happy to hear that. I do not "recommend" writing for the public, whatever that would mean. But if you have the inclination, you should have the path. That's been my motto.
I loved reading this. The work and writing has power in it (not sure that is the right word -- probably not...). And it feels necessary with white media figures holding up Parton as "Christlike." Not in the sense of taking anyone down, but in the work of understanding what is really going on in those perceptions and larger narratives.
One part that showed me my own blind spot was "Especially so given that she does not say that she believes that Black lives matter or that she supports the movement in any concrete way." I had to read, and re-read, and re-re-read that paragraph and Parton's quote. I was so stuck to the white liberal narrative that her quote was enthusiastic support of BLM that I could not see what she actually said and all its possible interpretations. But I got there.
I'm still thinking about that statement and how different white conservatives have reacted to it, dissected it, and even analyzed it according to different camps of thought. But I keep coming back to:
"Just 'white.' Of the two statements, that is the most politically radical."
And I'm thinking about what that means in terms of white identity politics and what seems like its entry into wide public media and discourse.
Eric, I'm thinking a great deal about white identity politics of late. These are great thoughts and questions. What Dolly experienced is part of a larger, forgive me, moment in white racial identity. White voters and audiences are asking for explicit racial framing from its white figures. That's a departure from the post Civil Rights Movement "colorblind" ideology, wherein white audiences demanding an a-racial identity from their white figures (all figures, really, see: OJ). I think she was taken aback but she also would not be as unfamiliar with the demand, rusty but not unfamiliar. White country fans have demanded this identity framing for decades, just in code. It took her a minute to read the room but I suspect she knows how to do this because she thrived in country music for so long.
I hope this effort is successful You write with verve. This is a densely informative, fun and fresh essay with many important insights. I really like it.
As I was reading this great essay, I started thinking about Loretta Lynn as Dolly's tragic counterpart -- the poor girl married at 13 to a man who then promoted her as the girl singer.
Laurie, you won't be surprised to hear that Loretta came up a lot in my research for this essay. Even when she isn't explicitly named (which she is often), the specter of Loretta is hanging out in the background. Loretta did not side-step the traps that Dolly manhandled to the ground. That's not a judgement on marriage or singledom or a woman's choices. As individuals, they are certainly free to make the complex life choices that we all make. (Hello, used to have a bad husband here.) But, as ideas, Loretta and Dolly really capture the marriage trap for poor white Appalachian girls in post-war America.
An earlier take is the Carter Family's "Single Girl, Married Girl," recorded in 1927. It's notable that A.P. Carter does not perform in this recording; it's just Sara and Maybelle. A.P. probably ed the song, but there's no telling who actually wrote it.
Someone I follow online once said that we will never know how many Black women, in particular, shaped popular culture because they were simply written out of the rooms where they worked. I wonder about that all the time. And, yeah, the Carter family owes Black musicians a tremendous debt. That has started to come out a bit, here and there. When I was at the Country Music Hall of Fame a few years back, they had a little side bar.
I loved this essay dearly - as I do so much of your work. I will confess to one disappointment. You so beautifully dissect every component of Dolly's identity - race, gender, class, sexual identity, marital status, regionalism/accent - and yet there is no discussion of her faith. While I know Dolly is more "spiritual" than institutional in her faith - it does appear to be formative for her, and she certain ascribes many of her own motivations and actions to it. I wish it had been brought into the piece - if only to further complicate your analysis about what we need from her, or her likability, or... As a progressive Christian, constantly looking (and often failing) to find role models in my faith, I struggle with the erasure of her Christian identity - not just here, but in so much that is written about her. I see a similar trend with Fred Rogers - in both cases a marginalization or erasure of a faith that is, for both of these cultural icons, central to their own narratives. I am open to hearing why this wasn't the place for that discussion...and thanks for the otherwise tremendously powerful piece.
That’s interesting. First, religion is not generally considered a vector of structural identity in the tradition I work in. So there’s that, which is perhaps 70% of the reason why. The second reason is that it would not add much to the analysis? I am interested to hear what it would add. Her faith can also be understood as an aspect of her personality (which is what I think you mean) or as a brand for her IP empire. But beyond that, I don’t know what it would do as an analytical framework. There is probably a larger argument about how her white hetero patriarchal Christianity is compatibility with country music’s role in pop culture. Maybe a critique of it as a business logic. But again all of that can also be explained in other ways.
First, thanks for replying! Second, I am out of my depths here as I am not a sociologist. But I think you're right in that a better comparison might be to your discussion of her ambition or confidence. Just as those traits allowed her to subvert normative gender roles or marriage, couldn't her faith be the motivation behind other subversions or critical choices (for good or for bad, though I'd probably argue for good...)? I don't know...I am mostly troubled by the general dismissal of her faith in the wider progressive cultural conversation about her as I think it misses something important. Which, I should add, says more about us than about Dolly - as you so rightly observe.
Maybe if the analysis was centered around Dolly's fanbase and the ways we project things like religion onto public figures to parallel them to our own lives... But that's an entirely different essay. I wonder if white American Christians are ready to accept that critique of her white hetero patriarchal Christianity = compatibility with country music's role in pop culture = business logic, as conversations seem to get spiral out quickly when the existence of capitalistic intentions within religion is brought up.
I was going to ask if you could give those of us who are untutored in sociology a reference that could explain what is considered "a vector of structural identity" in the tradition you work in. But then I saw on Twitter that you are planning a "light theory week." I'm on board for that!
LOL I have just the right person to discuss this with. But he is out of commission right now. But there are others across social media also interested in a religion read of Dolly. It's worth exploring what people think it would add.
Hi Dr. Cottom. Man, this beautiful essay really resonated with me, a sixty year old Black woman who secretly wanted to be a white girl until I was about ten years old. I grew up in the SF Bay Area and watched as men of all races turned themselves into Dolly Parton and Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean is another American “Blond” icon you can write about ANYDAY), and in doing so, reveal their own tether to the desire to be the all American Girl. Only one survived even though, they are both American legends. Thanks for this homage to Dolly Parton. She belongs to all of us.
"reveal their own tether to the desire to be the All American Girl" is good stuff. It resonates. I read a lot for this essay. Not surprisingly, a lot of it was written by and for LGBTQIA+ communities. I am sympathetic to what they find in Dolly's "trashy" aesthetic. It clearly speaks to freedom and expansion and the structural erasure of so many non-heteronormative lives. It is also a very...uncritical consumption of class and race that may not be as revolutionary as everyone thinks they are being when they don the Dolly costume/affect.
"I have found the radical [mostly Black] feminist and anti-capitalist narratives I need to make sense of myself. I had outgrown needing a blonde avatar to translate myself to my self. Still, I wanted Dolly to pull through this moment, as unscathed as her wigs are unruffled. I needed this one good thing."
Thank you for this necessary read. This particularly stuck out to me, after 2020TM and the following necessary realizations/breaking up with whiteness, particularly in the context of fandoms. Especially since it makes finding 'narratives I need to make sense of myself' so normal, when the narratives that are just thrown about lately really wanna chip away at us via whatever way race/gender/class can be used to do so.
It also might be the weed + whiskey combo that accompanied the read but her invisible living husband and how it tied up loose ends without sacrificing a meaningful partnership might've been my favorite thing. #genius
There is a constant negotiation with consumption, you are so very right. Part of this essay is about how I make sense of the pop culture that does me little good, more than a little harm but that still resonates with me. That's most of us although some of us more than others.
“To achieve those ends, white Southern womanhood is armed with charm. And charm is decidedly a weapon, one without which a proper Southern woman could not do her job. Her job is two-fold. She reproduces Southern culture and she makes non-southerners feel good about the violence necessary to do so.”
The fact that here in Charleston, SC, a television show aptly named “Southern Charm” embodies all of this and more makes the post racial lie even more glaring.
As always, excellent writing and observations/research that are unwavering in their lack of varnish. Brava.
Oh yes "Southern Charm". A delightful little piece of trash. LOL The laziest, most useless critters on God's green earth. What even IS Shep? Or, bless our hearts, Craig. I took note of the way the show tries to pivot post-BLM summer. The addition of the non-white secondary cast is...a choice.
I just retweeted that paragraph because whew. As a Black woman who has lived in NC my entire life it stopped me cold it was so very true.
White Southern woman charm is violence learned at an early age and gets honed to damn near murderous skill over time, and Black women have had to learn a very specific kind of charm to counter it. White women wield that charm over Black women for superiority while Black women wield Southern charm over white women for survival.
That is very well-said. So much of what the dominant culture reads as "Black woman sass" (a term I hate, by the way) is our resistance to white female southern charm.
Thick and Lower Ed are on my desks as I write this, you are such an inspiration for academics and PhDs writing for diverse audiences and have helped trail blaze the way for me and so many others. I've read Thick twice now, the first for what you say, and the second for how you write and every time I read it, I walk away with something more.
I have been in meetings recently where an ice breaker is 'what did you want to be when you grew up?' I have struggled to answer, I look back on my white southern girlhood and I can find no yearning to be something. This essay helped clarify why. Me wanting to be something was vulgar and I couldn't survive being vulgar. So I waited and watched and then, when no one was looking, I ran.
OMG this was the best thing I've ever read about Dolly Parton. And I have a couple of things to say about blondeness and Southern White womanhood.
Just before we started our Zoom session with my mom on Christmas day, I said to my wife, “I think I’m going to wear a hat so she doesn’t give me grief about how dark my hair is.” And then Mom asked me why I was wearing a hat, and I said, “I did it so you wouldn’t give me grief about how dark my hair is.”
My mom I-nevered, at which my sister rolled her eyes because she has seen the aforementioned grief being given.
As girls, my sister and I were both blonde enough to be called towheads. My sister remains (naturally) blonde. But my hair has darkened every year of my life, and by the time I was 45 or so, I wasn’t really blonde anymore (now I’m 57).
My mom was always nudging me to get it highlighted, even when it was still what you might call dark blonde. I did it for a while. But it was a pain in the ass and I hated spending that much time sitting still at the hairdresser’s.
Once, I had it done when I was home in Tennessee, and afterwards my dad said, “Oh, yes, that’s much more like your natural color.” !!!! Obviously my natural color when I was 5, or 25, was no longer my natural color.
To be fair, I can’t remember if that was before or after he was diagnosed with dementia. But here’s the thing. A lot of people who were blonde as children are not adults. Or not, as in my case, as middle-aged adults.
So in this way, blondeness signifies youth, even to the point of childishness, which is why so many more women than men lighten their hair. Childish qualities are valued in women. The stereotype of the dumb blonde supports this -- dumbness is a kind of innocence.
And of course, this also comports with why blondeness maps on to extreme Whiteness: because in a culture that relentlessly associates Blackness with criminality, Whiteness, its opposite, must be innocent.
Of course, there’s lots of evidence that Black children, both boys and girls, are often read as older than they are by White people.
I wonder if the pitch of her voice also contributes to the perception of innocence that shields Dolly? And her small stature? IIRC, the “girl singer” she replaced on Porter Wagoner’s show was a deep alto.
Also, can I just say that she looks surprisingly butch in the childhood photo?
Thanks so much for this beautiful essay, which is as entertaining as it is insightful.
Jeez, my sister and younger daughter have gone through the same thing with my mom, who has lived so long in the cult of Southern white femininity she can't see out. I about came over the dinner table when she stroked my daughter's hair and said with a frown, "oh, you're losing your blonde." Meanwhile, I'm well aware that I and my older daughter (both brown-haired) have always been the more problematic people for her in weird ways. The Dolly essay has connected a LOT of dots for me re: family cultural biography.
Oops -- a lot of people who were blonde as children are not AS adults. That's what I meant.
I totally understood you. Yes, blonde is associated with youth and also a history of white race-making. It isn't just innocence but a long historical trajectory of white having an ancestral home, somewhere around Greece or sometimes Norway or maybe its by way of Rome and so on and so forth. Blonde domination in modern culture legitimizes this historical myth-making. Oh, white people must be descendant from X because look at the blonde! Of course, there is also the fundamentally eugenicist idea of coveting recessive gene expression for social status.
I have a funny story about learning what "tow headed" even means! My whole life, until maybe a year ago, I thought it meant one with a cowlick. That's because I first encountered the word in the Dennis the Menace cartoon strip. LOL People on twitter told me that it means blonde. And in some ways, that exchange informed the start of this essay. Because people's feelings about having once been blonde (as you describe here) was so visceral for them. It was odd to me, a person who doesn't understand what even counts as blonde.
What prompted me to think about this recently was a question on FB from a dark-skinned Black friend of mine about hair. I said, this in no way compares to the trauma Black women -- and men, too -- have undergone about hair, but my hair color has been a minor source of vexation, and I told that story about my mom. My friend's niece, who is much lighter-skinned than my friend, had responded to her question with a comment about colorism, and I thought, hey, colorism exists within whiteness. Maybe a legacy of the one-drop rule and the hard color line is that it's difficult to see the distinctions on the other side of the line.
I'm guilty of having feelings about having been blonde as a kid and young adult and now having brown hair. My partner and I joke about how our kid's first lethal attack on us was calling our hair colors "gray" and "brown" respectively. I did a lot of reflecting on what you lay out here when that happened, and what was going on with my previously-unacknowledged hair vanity.
I was completely delighted to see you back in my inbox, with an essay about Dolly no less! I have been drawn to Dolly the past few years and consider myself a newer but genuine fan, and have never been able to really explain the sudden and intense fascination. Is it her artistry? Her charm and effusiveness? Her philanthropy? I'm still not sure, but there are so many layers to her, her performance, and her fandom that I read just about every piece that examines her life and legacy that I can. I'm so happy that you have contributed your thoughts and analysis, and I just want to thank you for being so generous with us.
This was fascinating! I've been thinking a lot about Dolly especially when she said she didn't want the medal of freedom from Biden because it would be 'doing politics' (https://www.today.com/popculture/dolly-parton-turned-down-presidential-medal-freedom-twice-t207752). As a progressive it struck me as a no brainer but I was reminded of her other audience by this line, "Ever the artist of misperception, Dolly leaves unsaid what her core conservative country audience needs to never hear her say." Also didn't even know she was married, an invisible living husband has blown my mind.
The invisible husband might be my favorite Dolly thing.
When you said she has a husband I was a live reaction GIF. 😅
Thank you! As an academic struggling to write in way that satisfies me aesthetically in the places I feel pressure to publish, this inspires me to write more for myself.
I am very happy to hear that. I do not "recommend" writing for the public, whatever that would mean. But if you have the inclination, you should have the path. That's been my motto.
I loved reading this. The work and writing has power in it (not sure that is the right word -- probably not...). And it feels necessary with white media figures holding up Parton as "Christlike." Not in the sense of taking anyone down, but in the work of understanding what is really going on in those perceptions and larger narratives.
One part that showed me my own blind spot was "Especially so given that she does not say that she believes that Black lives matter or that she supports the movement in any concrete way." I had to read, and re-read, and re-re-read that paragraph and Parton's quote. I was so stuck to the white liberal narrative that her quote was enthusiastic support of BLM that I could not see what she actually said and all its possible interpretations. But I got there.
I'm still thinking about that statement and how different white conservatives have reacted to it, dissected it, and even analyzed it according to different camps of thought. But I keep coming back to:
"Just 'white.' Of the two statements, that is the most politically radical."
And I'm thinking about what that means in terms of white identity politics and what seems like its entry into wide public media and discourse.
Eric, I'm thinking a great deal about white identity politics of late. These are great thoughts and questions. What Dolly experienced is part of a larger, forgive me, moment in white racial identity. White voters and audiences are asking for explicit racial framing from its white figures. That's a departure from the post Civil Rights Movement "colorblind" ideology, wherein white audiences demanding an a-racial identity from their white figures (all figures, really, see: OJ). I think she was taken aback but she also would not be as unfamiliar with the demand, rusty but not unfamiliar. White country fans have demanded this identity framing for decades, just in code. It took her a minute to read the room but I suspect she knows how to do this because she thrived in country music for so long.
I'm not finished yet but I don't have to be to say that this is truly outstanding writing. Would be lovely published in print as a little chapbook.
Christine, I loved this idea so much when I read it over the weekend that I spent Saturday night drafting a book proposal on my Remarkable... :D
If an essaying chapbook series ever comes to pass, I'll mark this comment as where it all began.
I hope this effort is successful You write with verve. This is a densely informative, fun and fresh essay with many important insights. I really like it.
As I was reading this great essay, I started thinking about Loretta Lynn as Dolly's tragic counterpart -- the poor girl married at 13 to a man who then promoted her as the girl singer.
Laurie, you won't be surprised to hear that Loretta came up a lot in my research for this essay. Even when she isn't explicitly named (which she is often), the specter of Loretta is hanging out in the background. Loretta did not side-step the traps that Dolly manhandled to the ground. That's not a judgement on marriage or singledom or a woman's choices. As individuals, they are certainly free to make the complex life choices that we all make. (Hello, used to have a bad husband here.) But, as ideas, Loretta and Dolly really capture the marriage trap for poor white Appalachian girls in post-war America.
I'm reminded of Lynn's songs that commented on that trap: "The Pill", "One's On the Way."
An earlier take is the Carter Family's "Single Girl, Married Girl," recorded in 1927. It's notable that A.P. Carter does not perform in this recording; it's just Sara and Maybelle. A.P. probably ed the song, but there's no telling who actually wrote it.
https://youtu.be/iJs0unmO5V8
Someone I follow online once said that we will never know how many Black women, in particular, shaped popular culture because they were simply written out of the rooms where they worked. I wonder about that all the time. And, yeah, the Carter family owes Black musicians a tremendous debt. That has started to come out a bit, here and there. When I was at the Country Music Hall of Fame a few years back, they had a little side bar.
I loved this essay dearly - as I do so much of your work. I will confess to one disappointment. You so beautifully dissect every component of Dolly's identity - race, gender, class, sexual identity, marital status, regionalism/accent - and yet there is no discussion of her faith. While I know Dolly is more "spiritual" than institutional in her faith - it does appear to be formative for her, and she certain ascribes many of her own motivations and actions to it. I wish it had been brought into the piece - if only to further complicate your analysis about what we need from her, or her likability, or... As a progressive Christian, constantly looking (and often failing) to find role models in my faith, I struggle with the erasure of her Christian identity - not just here, but in so much that is written about her. I see a similar trend with Fred Rogers - in both cases a marginalization or erasure of a faith that is, for both of these cultural icons, central to their own narratives. I am open to hearing why this wasn't the place for that discussion...and thanks for the otherwise tremendously powerful piece.
That’s interesting. First, religion is not generally considered a vector of structural identity in the tradition I work in. So there’s that, which is perhaps 70% of the reason why. The second reason is that it would not add much to the analysis? I am interested to hear what it would add. Her faith can also be understood as an aspect of her personality (which is what I think you mean) or as a brand for her IP empire. But beyond that, I don’t know what it would do as an analytical framework. There is probably a larger argument about how her white hetero patriarchal Christianity is compatibility with country music’s role in pop culture. Maybe a critique of it as a business logic. But again all of that can also be explained in other ways.
First, thanks for replying! Second, I am out of my depths here as I am not a sociologist. But I think you're right in that a better comparison might be to your discussion of her ambition or confidence. Just as those traits allowed her to subvert normative gender roles or marriage, couldn't her faith be the motivation behind other subversions or critical choices (for good or for bad, though I'd probably argue for good...)? I don't know...I am mostly troubled by the general dismissal of her faith in the wider progressive cultural conversation about her as I think it misses something important. Which, I should add, says more about us than about Dolly - as you so rightly observe.
Maybe if the analysis was centered around Dolly's fanbase and the ways we project things like religion onto public figures to parallel them to our own lives... But that's an entirely different essay. I wonder if white American Christians are ready to accept that critique of her white hetero patriarchal Christianity = compatibility with country music's role in pop culture = business logic, as conversations seem to get spiral out quickly when the existence of capitalistic intentions within religion is brought up.
I was going to ask if you could give those of us who are untutored in sociology a reference that could explain what is considered "a vector of structural identity" in the tradition you work in. But then I saw on Twitter that you are planning a "light theory week." I'm on board for that!
LOL I have just the right person to discuss this with. But he is out of commission right now. But there are others across social media also interested in a religion read of Dolly. It's worth exploring what people think it would add.
Hi Dr. Cottom. Man, this beautiful essay really resonated with me, a sixty year old Black woman who secretly wanted to be a white girl until I was about ten years old. I grew up in the SF Bay Area and watched as men of all races turned themselves into Dolly Parton and Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean is another American “Blond” icon you can write about ANYDAY), and in doing so, reveal their own tether to the desire to be the all American Girl. Only one survived even though, they are both American legends. Thanks for this homage to Dolly Parton. She belongs to all of us.
"reveal their own tether to the desire to be the All American Girl" is good stuff. It resonates. I read a lot for this essay. Not surprisingly, a lot of it was written by and for LGBTQIA+ communities. I am sympathetic to what they find in Dolly's "trashy" aesthetic. It clearly speaks to freedom and expansion and the structural erasure of so many non-heteronormative lives. It is also a very...uncritical consumption of class and race that may not be as revolutionary as everyone thinks they are being when they don the Dolly costume/affect.
Oops. *men and women of all races...
"I have found the radical [mostly Black] feminist and anti-capitalist narratives I need to make sense of myself. I had outgrown needing a blonde avatar to translate myself to my self. Still, I wanted Dolly to pull through this moment, as unscathed as her wigs are unruffled. I needed this one good thing."
Thank you for this necessary read. This particularly stuck out to me, after 2020TM and the following necessary realizations/breaking up with whiteness, particularly in the context of fandoms. Especially since it makes finding 'narratives I need to make sense of myself' so normal, when the narratives that are just thrown about lately really wanna chip away at us via whatever way race/gender/class can be used to do so.
It also might be the weed + whiskey combo that accompanied the read but her invisible living husband and how it tied up loose ends without sacrificing a meaningful partnership might've been my favorite thing. #genius
There is a constant negotiation with consumption, you are so very right. Part of this essay is about how I make sense of the pop culture that does me little good, more than a little harm but that still resonates with me. That's most of us although some of us more than others.
I suppose it was naïve to believe we’d be able to take away what resonates with us as it does a little good, without the more than little harm.
As someone said on Twitter, I'm totally saving this for an end-of-day treat. Thank you so much for sharing this with us OGs :)
So happy that this newsletter is back!!
Thank you so much. What a great surprise to begin the day. Thank you.
“To achieve those ends, white Southern womanhood is armed with charm. And charm is decidedly a weapon, one without which a proper Southern woman could not do her job. Her job is two-fold. She reproduces Southern culture and she makes non-southerners feel good about the violence necessary to do so.”
The fact that here in Charleston, SC, a television show aptly named “Southern Charm” embodies all of this and more makes the post racial lie even more glaring.
As always, excellent writing and observations/research that are unwavering in their lack of varnish. Brava.
Oh yes "Southern Charm". A delightful little piece of trash. LOL The laziest, most useless critters on God's green earth. What even IS Shep? Or, bless our hearts, Craig. I took note of the way the show tries to pivot post-BLM summer. The addition of the non-white secondary cast is...a choice.
I just retweeted that paragraph because whew. As a Black woman who has lived in NC my entire life it stopped me cold it was so very true.
White Southern woman charm is violence learned at an early age and gets honed to damn near murderous skill over time, and Black women have had to learn a very specific kind of charm to counter it. White women wield that charm over Black women for superiority while Black women wield Southern charm over white women for survival.
That is very well-said. So much of what the dominant culture reads as "Black woman sass" (a term I hate, by the way) is our resistance to white female southern charm.
I'm so excited to read even more of your work, thank you for the free Substack subscription <3 <3 <3
Thank you, Allison. I look forward to seeing you in the subscriber threads.
Thick and Lower Ed are on my desks as I write this, you are such an inspiration for academics and PhDs writing for diverse audiences and have helped trail blaze the way for me and so many others. I've read Thick twice now, the first for what you say, and the second for how you write and every time I read it, I walk away with something more.