MOUNTAINS OF CONTRADICTIONS:

GENDER, CLASS AND REGION

IN THE STAR IMAGE OF DOLLY PARTON

Manuscript
Pamela Wilson PSW@reinhardt.edu

First published as "Mountains of Contradictions: Gender, Class and Region in the Star Image of
Dolly Parton," South Atlantic Quarterly 94/1 (Winter 1995) pp.109-134.

She's been there, God knows she's been there,

she has seen and done it all.
She's a woman, she knows how to dish it out
or take it all...
She's a lover, she's a mother,
she's a friend and she's a wife...
Gentle as the sweet magnolia, strong as steel,
her faith and pride
She's an everlasting shoulder,
she's the leaning post of life....
And she's a sparrow when she's broken,
but she's an eagle when she flies.

Dolly Parton, "Eagle When She Flies," 1991

The country music industry, centered in Nashville, Tennessee, was almost exclusively

male-dominated until the 1960s.1 From its radio origins in the 1920s (broadcasting regional folk

music through barn dances, the Grand Ole Opry and other live programming), it has grown into a

nationalized media industry which now supports several cable television channels, networks of

country radio stations across the nation, a recording industry, a publishing industry, and a

collection of performers and personalities in a star system which is distinct from (though

sometimes overlapping with) that of the Hollywood film and television industries. In spite of its
 2

broader appeal, the country music industry has continued to align itself with perceptions of a

white, Southern, rural, working-class culture and associated cultural tastes (Malone 1979; Carr

1988); I suggest that it has subsequently had a role in constructing representations of such a

culture.

Dolly Parton has achieved broad popularity over the past twenty years as a country music

singer who also successfully "crossed over" into pop music, and is perceived as one of the most

prominant and prolific female singer/ songwriters in the country music industry. In addition to

her musical prowess and her associated roles in television and films, Dolly Parton has become

equally well known through popular media discourses as an icon for her hyper-feminine visual

image and as a popular hero or role model for women of varying class and cultural backgrounds.

Richard Dyer promotes an understanding of stars as intertextual constructions uniting all

aspects of the media industry. Stars, he argues, are semiotic constructions produced through the

intertextual interaction of media texts, publicity and promotion. Dolly Parton has fashioned her

star image visually to accentuate a voluptuous, ample, overflowing body, with particularly large

breasts, which she has embellished with showy, garish costumes and an exaggerated sculptured

blond wig. This persona is a caricature of both the most outlandish country singer (in a

predominantly male tradition of gaudy costuming) juxtaposed with the stereotypical "painted

woman" or prostitute whose sexuality is on display. In ironic contradiction to the parodic nature

of her visual style, the articulate Parton has perpetuated and maintained a respected image as a

wholesome, sincere person with traditional rural values (Christianity, family, rootedness, and

old-fashioned integrity) who has managed, through perseverence and resourcefulness, to

 3

transcend the economic and social circumstances into which she was born and to use her talents

to achieve many of her dreams. These "dreams," when materialized and activated, also provide

another set of contradictions since they represent a lifestyle which, on the surface, is decidedly

non-traditional for someone with any combination of her social identities: woman, Southern,

rural, Appalachian, working class. Yet, through the construction of her persona, Parton manages

and actively exploits the contradictory meanings surrounding social categories of gender, class,

ethnic and regional identity.

In popular magazines, Parton is often compared to Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, Bette

Midler and Madonna for her manipulation and burlesquing of femininity, yet there is something

unique about Parton which resonates with a more rural and/or working-class audience than any of

these other stars, and which seems to strengthen her appeal as a popular hero/role model rather

than a comedienne or mere visual icon. As a fluent and articulate promoter of her own image,

Parton provides a fascinating case study for the construction of a star image that mediates the

often contradictory ideals of gender, region and class.

THE PACKAGING OF DOLLY 2

This analysis is based primarily upon an examination of national magazine stories about Dolly

Parton.3 Different popular magazines, targeted at different market demographics, have

appropriated Parton into their own realm of discourse, portraying her in at least six different

ways. Music magazines and publications (e.g., High Fidelity, Stereo Review, Crawdaddy) depict

her as a musician and songwriter and tend to focus on her musical talent and her status in the

music industry. Men's magazines (e.g., Esquire, Playboy) claim her as an icon for the desiring
 4

male gaze and focus on her body and sexual image. Supermarket tabloids (e.g., Star, National

Examiner, National Enquirer, and Globe) variously depict her as an icon for the male gaze, a

potentially transgressive threat to patriarchal conventions, and as the object of occasional crisis.

They also focus on her body, the unconventionality of her long-distance marriage, and make

projections about potential scandals and crises just waiting to erupt in her life. Women's service

magazines (e.g., Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook) claim Parton as a fellow

woman and speak of her as a potential intimate friend, focusing on Parton's "private side": her

personal history, her family and her home, her nurturing motherliness, her self-esteem about her

body weight, her emotions, and her ability to balance an "ordinary" marriage and homelife with

an extraordinary career. Liberal feminist magazines (e.g., Ms.) claim Parton as a fellow feminist,

focusing with admiration upon Parton as an empowering agent for women and the working class:

"a country artist, a strong businesswoman, and a mountain woman with loyalty and love for her

roots" (Steinem 1987:95). Finally, mainstream news magazines (e.g., Newsweek, Time) discuss

Parton as a phenomenon of popular culture and focus on her economic accomplishments in the

entertainment and business world.

Dolly Parton's appearance, the images of her body and especially her breasts, have

become in the popular press the terrain for a discursive struggle over the social meaning of the

female body and the associated ideologies surrounding the social meaning of "woman" in our

society.4 Parton has consciously and strategically created a star persona that simultaneously

incorporates and exploits many of the contradictions which circulate in society regarding gender.

Her complex encoding of these contested meanings, using multiply accentuated signifiers, defies

easy or uniform interpretation and categorization--in fact, her image encourages a multiplicity of
 5

conflicting readings, which she seems to relish playfully.

The Dolly persona embodies excessive womanliness, in any interpretation. Parton

displays this excess through the construction of a surface identity (i.e. her body and appearance),

and through the way she represents her interiority (i.e. her emotions, desires and `dreams'). As

one interviewer noted, "Dolly built overstatement into what she calls her `gimmick,' that is,

looking trashily sexy on the surface while being sweet, warm and down-to-earth on the inside"

(Jahr 1982:85). Parton openly discusses her strategies regarding the construction of her image in

almost every interview, and makes no secret that the external Dolly image is a facade she has

created to market herself. This `masquerade' which might be analyzed in psychoanalytic terms

theorized by Doane (1982) based on Riviere and Lacan, yet also, following Johnston (1975:118),

as a social parody using the excessive stereotype, a tongue-in-cheek critique which playfully and

affectionately subverts the patriarchal iconography of female sexuality. As Parton explained,

When I started out in my career, I was plainer looking. I soon realized I had to
play by men's rules to win. My way of fighting back was to wear the frilly clothes
and put on the big, blonde wigs. It helped that I had a small voice that enabled me
to sing songs of pain and loneliness and love and gentle things like butterflies and
children. I found that both men and women liked me.5

Parton's construction of the "internal" Dolly, though as carefully controlled, is not as

easily revealed. Parton attempts to elide this aspect of the Dolly persona with public perceptions

of the "real" Dolly Parton, diverting attention from the use of such strategies as marketing ploys

as well:6

I'm careful never to get caught up in the Dolly image, other than to develop and
protect it, because if you start believing the public persona is you, you get
frustrated and mixed up.... I see Dolly as a cartoon: she's fat, wears a wig, and so
on...Dolly's as big a joke to me as she is to others. (Jahr 1985:85,139)
 6

In many ways, it is difficult to deconstruct the issues of gender, class, regionalism and

ethnicity embodied in Dolly, since many of the signifiers which Parton uses connote and

interconnect two or more. Parton never decontextualizes herself from her rural working-class

and Southern Appalachian identity, and from her interviews it is clear that she does not separate

out the abstracted condition of being a "woman" from her personal experience as a Southern

Appalachian, working-class woman. Parton "plays herself," constructing her image around the

contradictions of her own culturally-grounded experience and social identity. However, many

popular discourses (particularly those targeted at a gendered audience, either masculine or

feminine) foreground gender issues. They focus on Dolly as a (more abstracted) "woman,"

reading her image without necessarily considering the interconnection with class and regional

ethnic culture.

A country music columnist addresses the issue of Parton's corporealization of

contradictions in a 1977 music magazine:

Inevitably, the recent national notice accorded Dolly Parton has focused more on
the improbability of her image than on her art. A voluptuous woman with a
childish giggle, she finger-picks the guitar, the banjo and the mountain dulcimer
with inch-long, painted nails. She composes delicate lyrics of Tennessee mountain
innocence and performs them in finery a stripper would happily peel. And through
layers of lipstick, she pushes a voice fervent with fundamentalist religion.... Today
she would like to be a little more listened to and a little less ogled. But the reams
of copy about her fashion and physiognomy can hardly be blamed on anyone but
herself; she donned the gaudy garb and high-piled hair specifically to make us
stare. (Hurst 1977:122)

A music publication also addresses the tactical design of Parton's self-marketing strategy:

Now, there is no doubt that the major reason non-country fans initially took an
interest in Parton was the outer package--"People will always talk and make jokes
about my bosom," was the way she put it with typical forthrightness. This,
combined with her Frederick's of Hollywood high heels...and cartoonish
hairpieces ("You'd be amazed at how expensive it is to make a wig look this
 7

cheap"), transformed Parton into the country version of Mae West, and made her a
highly telegenic figure. (Tucker 1988: 383)

The traditional masculine perspective which fetishizes the female body for the male gaze

(particularly valuing large breasts and an hourglass figure) has long been a visual staple for men's

magazines. However, the fact that Parton's appearance is such an excessive exaggeration of that

aesthetic (and, I suspect, the fact that she maintains an inaccessible mystique about her sexuality)

seems to make her male admirers uncomfortable directly addressing this fetish verbally, relying

instead on nervous puns, laughter, jokes and allusions to communicate their desire. For example,

an Esquire columnist writes:

Folks, I am not going to dwell on Dolly's bosom. I am just going to pass along a
vulgar story: "They say old Dolly's gone women's lib and burned her bra. Course it
took her three days." Dolly's bosom, horizontally monolithic in its packaging, is
every bit as imposing as her hair. And then abruptly her waist goes way in . . . .
And she wears very tight clothes over it . . . . I imagine you would have to know
Dolly a good while before you could say hello to her without suddenly crying,
"Your body!" (Blount 1977:131)

Prefacing an extensive 1978 interview in Playboy, interviewer Lawrence Grobel remarks:

Although she appears larger than life, she is actually a compact woman--dazzling
in appearance; but if you took away the wig and the Frederick's of Hollywood
five-inch heels, she'd stand just five feet tall. Of course, her height isn't the first
thing one notices upon meeting her. As she herself kids onstage,"I know that you-
all brought your binoculars to see me; but what you didn't realize is you don't need
binoculars." (Grobel 1978:82)

Grobel continues with another anecdote about a little girl who came backstage with her father to

greet Dolly; it too reinforces the discourse of masculine desire:

The picture I'll always remember was of the father telling his wife to take a shot of
him behind Dolly. He had this crazy gleam in his eyes, his tongue popped out of
his mouth, and I was sure he was going to cop a feel. But he restrained himself, as
most people do around her. Because she is so open and unparanoid, she manages
to tame the wildest instincts of men. (Grobel 1978:82)
 8

What the Playboy interview reveals is Parton's complicity in (and ultimate control of) this

discourse of masculine desire. Several factors enter into the carefully constructed mystique that

Parton maintains. First, the subject of her long-distance and part-time marriage to Carl Dean, her

mysterious, never-interviewed husband in Tennessee, creates questions about outlets for her

sexual energy. There is an implicit assumption that since she appears to be hyper-feminine, she

must be hyper-sexual. One of the most prevalent topics in the popular discourse is speculation

about her relationship with this man, about how much time she spends with him, and, often

implicitly, about the conditions of their bond of marital fidelity (which is directly addressed but

evasively answered in several interviews). Tabloids try to link her sexually to a number of

singing partners and leading men; there are also suggestions of a lesbian relationship with her

best female friend and companion. This excessive concern over the intimate details of Parton's

sex life is represented primarily in the men's magazines and tabloids; the focus of the women's

magazines, when questioning the conditions of her marriage, is more on her interpersonal

emotional relationships.

Throughout the Playboy interview, Grobel interjects questions about her sexuality, and

Parton responds teasingly and unabashedly, stopping short of revealing any private insights or

information. Parton admits that she frequently flirts; however, the reader can observe her

flirtations with the interviewer as her way of tactically taking control of the situation, as witty and

manipulative comebacks which frequently take Grobel by surprise and successfully put the ball

in her court. A Newsweek writer comments on this aspect of Parton's persona:

What Dolly is, it seems to me, is more than the sum of her attractive parts. Aside
from her talent, she represents a vanishing natural resource--the mountain woman
who understood independence and manipulation of men long before the first city
girl got her consciousness raised. Dolly has a seldom-seen husband...she also
 9

employs a number of men to help build her career. But there is no doubt about
who's boss. "I need my husband for love," she says, "and other men for my work.
But I don't depend on any man for my strength." (Axthelm 1977:71)

Although some feminists have argued against the objectification of women's bodies as

fetishes of male desire on the grounds that such practices reduce women to passive victims, a

counterargument might be presented which attributes a power to the woman who controls the use

of her own image. Dolly Parton, by managing and manipulating her sexual image in such a way

as to attain the maximum response from male readers of her image while maintaining her own

dignity and self-esteem, is exploiting the channels of patriarchal discourse to her own advantage.

She is maintaining the upper hand at managing her own exploitation.

If Dolly's appearance seems to signify excessive femaleness in terms of the way it elicits

male desire, in women's service magazines it also embodies a very different set of meanings

associated with excessive womanliness. There, Parton's physical embodiment of excessive

womanliness is represented in two domains: that surrounding her attitudes about her weight and

body image, and that surrounding her reproductive capabilities and speculations about her future

motherhood. Both function to create an identificatory bond between Dolly and many female

readers. While the evocations of male desire construct a relationship of voyeurism and

aggressive sexual fantasy, the emphasis on female identification constructs Dolly as an ordinary

woman who has the same types of physical and emotional problems as anyone else. Rather than

the oddity of physiological excess constructed by the men's magazines, in the women's

magazines Dolly becomes "Everywoman," with efforts to minimize her exceptionalness.7

The first discursive domain deals respectfully with the imperfections of Dolly's body, as

noted by Parton herself, and the associated psychological aspects (ironically, a very different
 10

reading of the same physical `text' than the masculine reading of sexuality):

I look better fat, though, don't you think? Skinny, my face looks too long. I'm
just very hefty. People are always telling me to lose weight, but being overweight
has certainly never made me less money or hurt my career.... Besides, everybody
loves a fat girl... See, I know I'm not a natural beauty. I got short legs, short hands,
and a tiny frame, but I like the way I am. I am me. I am real. (Jahr 1982:142)

After an extensive illness and gynecological surgery in the early 1980s, Parton lost a good deal of

weight for health reasons. Following this was a surge of interest in women's magazines about her

body and her relationship to it:

Dolly admits she was overeating. Although she confesses, "I'm a natural-born
hog...I also eat when I'm happy," the protracted illness added more pounds to an
already overloaded five-foot frame. "See, I'd always had this eating problem. I'd
gain twenty pounds, lose it, gain it back the next week. In ten days I'd put on ten
pounds.... I'd binge, diet, gain, start all over again...Overeating is as much a
sickness as drugs or alcoholism." (Adams 1984:153)

To the suggestion she's too thin, that she looks anorexic, Dolly guffaws, "Honey,
hogs don't get anorexia." (Anderson 1988:186)

"Boy, it burns me up to see people look at a fat person and say, `Can you believe
anybody would let herself get into that kind of shape?' That's easy for someone
who looks like Jane Fonda to say. When I see a really overweight person, I feel
sorry for her, because I've been there.... I know I could gain the weight back any
minute, and it scares me to death." (Bendel 1987:120)

Through this admission, Parton both brings herself down from any pedestal on which her star

status might have placed her and allies herself with everyday concerns of ordinary women (a

common strategy among stars, according to Dyer). Yet she also aligns herself particularly with

working-class women, sarcastically criticizing the class-based aesthetic of thinness among the

upwardly mobile:

"My doctors would tell me, `Okay, you have about twenty pounds to lose, but you
can do that easily. Just eat right.' Well, that's easy to say. I just love those
beautiful people who tell you, `I cahn't see how anybody could let themselves get
in that awful shape. Oh, my dear. That's gross,'" says Dolly, aping a fancy society
 11

voice. (Adams 1984:153)

The other focus upon Dolly's body in women's magazines has been the intense interest in

her potential for motherhood, which has included early speculation about her interest in and

possible future plans for childbearing:

Dolly doubts whether they'll have children because of the demands of her career.
"I'm not saying women can't do both, but I'm on the road so much that it wouldn't
be fair to the child. I love children so much that I'd want to be a mother all day
long if I was going to be one.... But remember, I was one of the oldest in my
family. I've been raising babies all my life...there's no shortage of kids around our
home." (Maynard 1977:60)

This interest in the nurturing, maternal side of Dolly continued after Parton's surgery,

transforming into sympathetic grieving and compensatory rationalization:

Dolly had a partial hysterectomy and can no longer become pregnant. "Carl and I
wanted children for years," she says. "I used to grieve after the hysterectomy, but
since I turned forty, it doesn't bother me as much. I think God meant for me not to
have children. My songs are my children, and I've given life to three thousand of
them." Had she had kids, Dolly admits most of those songs would never have
been written. (Bendel 1987:182)

Recent tabloid articles, which tend to work toward trying to place Dolly back into a more

normative patriarchal structure, have created scenarios such as this one:

Dolly Parton wants a baby. The country music star, who's pushing 43, always
insisted motherhood wasn't for her. But now she's pining for the patter of little
feet. Though she knows she can't become pregnant--surgery has eliminated that
possibility--she wants to tear a page out of 44-year-old Loni Anderson's book and
adopt a child. (Graham 1989:6)

One of the contradictions between Parton's persona and her "real-life" existence is the fact

that in spite of her excessive wealth and fame, she maintains a persona of a humble Tennessee

housewife who does just what she has to do to put up with fame and fortune until she can get

back to her private life, which is just like everyone else's--almost. Parton has strongly allied
 12

herself with working class women's culture. As a popular hero for women, she has served as a

representation of the modern, non-repressed woman with traditional roots, a woman who can

"have it all"--marriage, strong family ties and friendships, and a successful self-managed business

and career which has brought her financial independence and accompanying social power. The

discourses in women's service magazines reflect a strong interest in how she manages to balance

all of these aspects of her life, resulting in the focuses on the private, emotional side of the star:

her domestic life and marriage, her family circumstances, history and relationships, her

relationship with her hometown community, her religious beliefs, her personal problems and

struggles, and so on.

Other types of publications focus more on how Parton has learned to operate successfully

in the traditionally masculine world of capitalism. Such articles, found particularly in

mainstream news and music magazines (and Ms. magazine), chart the non-traditional economic

accomplishments of Dolly Parton as a woman. There is particular interest in her business

acumen, which has resulted in her overcoming institutional and social obstacles to achieve career

milestones as a country music singer and songwriter, a Hollywood actress, a television performer

with variety series and specials, and an extremely successful entrepreneur (Leehrson 1987:73-

74). She is the owner of several production companies, publishing companies, music studios

(Hurst 1977:122), toy companies (Grobel 1978:108), and the developer of Dollywood--a theme

park, developed to strengthen the economy of her native Tennessee county, which celebrates both

her own personal success story and the culture of her native mountain region (Nash 1986:12-14).
 13

CLASS, REGION AND GENDER

Dolly Parton's star image is the terrain for a struggle over meanings not just of gender, the social

meaning of "woman," but also of intricately interwoven issues of class, regional culture and

ethnicity.8 The Dolly persona, as an intersection of multiple social categories, encourages a

contestation over what it means to be Southern, Appalachian, rural, working-class and female--or

any combination of the above.

In today's cosmopolitan and rapidly globalizing society, the construction of cultural

identities is increasingly becoming a symbolic process and decreasingly a result of geographic

positioning. Although the role of the media in this symbolic construction needs further

explorations, I suggest that the country music industry contributes to this symbolic process by

constructing notions of "Southernness" or "country-ness" to which consumers are able to

subscribe.

Today, there are many cultures geographically situated in and associated with the

American South. For example, the cultures of black rural working-class Southerners, white rural

working-class Southerners, the "old South's" white aristocracy, urban black Southerners, urban

Southern Jews, Southern Appalachians, urban/suburban white Southerners, Louisiana Cajuns,

Southern Mennonites, and Cherokee, Choctaw and Seminole Indians are all distinct, but the

cultural boundaries are permeable and social agents may be associated with more than one of

these subcultures. Class, race, ethnicity and place are the most significant markers of cultural

group identity. As a result, the "South" is clearly a generic construct rather than a label for a

distinct culture. It is used as a classificatory and stereotyping term by outsiders; the signifiers of

Dolly Parton's distinctive white Southern Appalachian culture are collapsed into a non-specific
 14

"Southernness" and "country-ness" by the popular discourses.

"Southernness," as a symbolic and discursive construction, carries distinct and specialized

connotations and cultural referents, and it usually is perceived to be associated with the white

Southern cultures in the popular discourse.9 The political history of the Southern states, from

their secession from the United States during the Civil War period (accompanied by such volatile

economic, social and political issues as slavery and states' rights) to the stark Depression-era

images of impoverished sharecroppers, continuing through the black civil rights movements of

the 1960s, has left a legacy of internal and external discourses and stereotypes about the "South,"

which are fueled by contradictory and conflicting images and representations of the "South" in

literature, media and popular culture.

The specific subculture that Dolly Parton most directly represents (that of the Southern

Appalachian mountain region) has also been subject to stereotyping in popular culture, from the

hillbillies of the "L'il Abner" comic strip and films to the violent and aberrant villains of the film

Deliverance (1972), and Parton directly parodies therse popular images in her persona. Yet she

also incorporates cultural elements reflecting her heritage. Historically, kinship has generally

been the central principle of social organization in Southern Appalachian or "mountain" culture,

and a matrilocal orientation has resulted in strong affective ties among women in a kinship

group.10 Each independent rural community historically formed a kinship-oriented egalitarian

social group, without clear social class differences (most group antagonism stemmed mainly

from tensions between the social group and the outside world--since the mid-nineteenth century,

the hegemony of the northern industrial society--as well as minor tensions between communities

or between families). Relationships between women have been primarily kin- and neighbor-
 15

oriented, and a strong women's culture has been maintained. Members of a traditional mountain

community have shared a common history and ideology; their code of morality has been

informed primarily by localized fundamentalist inflections of Christian ideology.

In the traditional pre-industrial economy, there was a division of labor such that the

woman's domain was her household: raising food and children and maintaining control of

cultural knowledge (history, kinship and the moral code). As industrial capitalism replaced the

agrarian mode of life in this century, mountaineers have progressively been assimilated into this

structure as working-class laborers, and both men and women now participate in the wage labor

force.11 Though appearing to be strongly patriarchal (particularly as the culture has been

inflected in the descriptions of male ethnographers such as Campbell), studies by women which

have examined the women's culture have challenged that assumption and suggested a gender-

based duality of culture with co-existing models of cultural practice. Through this dual system,

Appalachian women maintain a great deal of power and control working within and through the

facade of the patriarchal system (Hagood 1939; Wilson 1984, 1991).

A dualism also exists in the relationship between Southern Appalachian culture and the

dominant social order (the same holds true for many of the other subcultures). There are many

points of theoretical comparison between the relationship of Southern Appalachian culture to the

dominant capitalist social system and the relationship which Antonio Gramsci describes between

rural and urban societies in Italy earlier in this century.12 Gramsci describes rural intellectuals as

"for the most part `traditional', ...linked to the social mass of country people and the town

(particularly small town) petite bourgeoisie, not as yet elaborated and set in motion by the

capitalist system" (Gramsci 1971:14). Sassoon's explanation is significant:

 16

These intellectuals are considered traditional from . . . the point of view of the
dominant, capitalistic mode of production. They are still linked to a world which
is pre-capitalist. In this terrain they weld together a sub-bloc which has its own
particular coherence. Although they are traditional vis-a-vis the dominant bloc,
they can at the same time have organic links to surviving pre-capitalist modes and
classes. They live, as it were, in two different historical times. (1987:144)

This dualism of historical worlds in Southern Appalachian culture--one inscribing mountaineers

as residual remnants of an historical past and one transposing them to lower, working class

status--is an important key to understanding the multiple sources of oppositional sentiment

represented in forms of Southern Appalachian cultural expression: the traditional agrarian

economic mode vs. the capitalist system, and the identification as low, popular, or working-class

culture vs. the bourgeoisie and aristocracy.

This cultural description directly corresponds to the cultural context constructed in the

discourse about Dolly Parton. A great deal of attention in popular magazines has been given to

authenticating her "country" life history and cultural roots, particularly the conditions of poverty,

rural isolation, and familial heritage in which she developed.13 Such articles stress her working-

class background:

"I can think like a workingman because I know what a workingman goes
through.... Where I came from, people never dreamed of venturing out. They just
lived and died there. Grew up with families and a few of them went to Detroit
and Ohio to work in the graveyards and car factories. But I'm talking about
venturing out into areas that we didn't understand." (Grobel 1978: 88, 102)

Parton also discusses the farming/working-class mentality of her husband Carl Dean, an asphalt

contractor, in the Playboy interview:

"He's really bright. He's not backward at all. I just really wish that people would
let him be. He's a home-lovin' person. He works outside, he's got his tractor and
his grader, he keeps our farm in order. He wouldn't have to work no more,
because I'm making good money now, but he gets up every morning at daylight.
If he ain't workin' on our place, he'll take a few jobs, like grading somebody's
 17

driveway or cleaning off somebody's property, to pick up a couple of hundred

bucks.... He'll say, `Well, I ain't in show business, I got to work...'." (Grobel
1978:88)

Many of the articles stress Parton's refusal to be assimilated into a Hollywood celebrity lifestyle,

preferring to maintain a home in Tennessee. It should be noted, however, that this brings up the

complex issue, which needs to be explored more fully, of subcultural hegemony represented by

the Nashville-based country music industry.

In relationship to the mainstream music and entertainment industries centered in

Hollywood and New York City, the Nashville industry represents a successful regionally-

oriented cultural force that has gained a national mass audience, yet remains somewhat rebellious

in its advocacy of Southern white working-class culture. As it has been expressed nationally

through radio, and most recently cable television, the "country" meanings have been appropriated

by a generalized working-class audience, both urban and rural, and representing various racial

and ethnic backgrounds.14 Growing out of its folk music beginnings,15 country music has long

provided an opportunity and freedom for oppositional voices, as a proponent of self-defined

"ordinary folk," with a sense of humor which has often resulted in both oppositional satire and a

somewhat self-mocking tone (often read straight by outsiders but viewed as ironic and self-

parodic by insiders). Previously male-dominated, an increasing number of women have

infiltrated its ranks since the 1950s, providing a voice for women aligning themselves with rural

and working-class identities.16

However, country music has changed, leaving its folk roots (though still incorporating

them into the construction of "country-ness") and moving into the postmodern popular music

marketing apparatus. In an insightful essay, Patrick Carr discusses the changing social image,
 18

characteristics, and audience of country music in the 1980s:

Historically in America, the rural working class has been the object of prejudice,
of stereotyping amounting to contempt, on the part of the urban population.... Not
long ago, to "be country" meant that you had been cast by a geo-socio-economic
accident of birth with an almost automatically adversarial relationship with the
dominant urban/suburban culture; in effect, you belonged in a cultural ghetto.
Now it's a matter of free consumer choice. (Carr 1988:484)

Carr's argument is that the country music industry today, as part of the capitalist system, has

structured its place in the entertainment industry in such a way as to commercialize those

adversarial voices, thereby economically insinuating them into the capitalist order to which they

are ideologically opposed.17 This is a major paradox of country music, and specifically of stars

like Parton. It serves to perpetuate those traditional and popular working-class values while

enticing its audience to participate in the culture of capitalist consumption.18

I find Williams' insights on "residual" cultural elements helpful in analyzing how these

Southern Appalachian and rural Southern subcultural elements are incorporated into the

dominant economy and culture:

The residual, by definition, has been effectively formed in the past, but is still
active in the cultural process, not only and often not at all as an element of the
past, but as an effective element of the present. (1977:122)

This provides insight into the active role that elements of the historical past play, not just in the

subcultures, but as they have been incorporated into the dominant:

A residual cultural element is usually at some distance from the effective

dominant culture, but some part of it, some version of it...will in most cases have
had to be incorporated if the effective dominant culture is to make sense in these
areas.... It is the incorporation of the actively residual--by reinterpretation,
dilution, projection, discriminating inclusion and exclusion--that the work of the
selective tradition is especially evident. (1977:123)

In the construction of her star persona, Dolly Parton plays with and exploits stereotypes of
 19

style--not only of femininity, but also of Southern Appalachian, rural or working-class culture,

often exaggerating them in her persona or emphasizing them in her interviews:

"I always liked the looks of our hookers back home. Their big hairdos and makeup
made them look more. When people say that less is more, I say more is more.
Less is less; I go for more." (Jahr 1982:85)

Dolly, who commands $350,000 a week in Las Vegas--making her the highest
paid entertainer there--says she prefers shopping at K-Mart or Zayre's, where she
can get several articles of clothing for the price she'd pay for one at a more upscale
establishment. (Kingsbury 258).

"I'd much rather shop in a mall and buy some cheap clothes than go into some fine
store and buy something that costs a fortune.... I want to design something for the
average woman, something that could be sold at Sears or Penney's." (Bendel
1987:182)

As mentioned above, many aspects of her image are understandable as signifiers of

cultural taste in some combination of "ruralness," "hillbilly-ness," "working-class-ness,"

femaleness and Southernness which have generally carried a devalued connotation in dominant

society. By foregrounding the stereotypes, she celebrates not only working-class tastes and

values, but also parodies her male predecessors in the country music world of the fifties and

sixties, particularly her former partner Porter Wagoner and others who perpetuated country

music's most distinctive visual symbol--the extravagantly expensive, gaudy, spangled-and-

rhinestoned stage costume, which became the haute couture of the male-dominated country

music world in that era (Carr 1988:494). The "down-home" Dolly advocates `authenticity,' and

Parton promotes this quality by making fun of the superficial stylistic mannerisms that have

encrusted the dominant society's image of (and become internalized as identificatory values by)

women on display, country music performers, Southerners and the rural working class. As

Gloria Steinem describes her:

 20

Her flamboyant style has turned all the devalued symbols of womanliness to her
own ends. If feminism means each of us finding our unique power, and helping
other women to do the same, Dolly Parton certainly has done both. (1987:66)

If we expand Steinem's statement to include the other categories of social identity and oppression

which the Dolly image enunciates, Dolly Parton can be understood as a self-empowered woman

whose image challenges social stereotypes through parody and provides for empowering and

counterhegemonic readings.

ORGANIC FEMINISM

Throughout this paper, I have stressed the ways by which the Dolly star image is constructed,

both by Parton herself (in the popular press) and by the various popular discourses which

appropriate her image and reconstruct it to fit their own agendas. I have been particularly

interested in the way that the Dolly image has become the arena for a contestation over

meanings--of the various inflections that images of woman, of Southerner/Appalachian, of

working class may signify in American popular culture. However, my main interest is in the

synergistic combination of these categories in the image of Dolly Parton, and in particular the

type of feminism which she represents which seems to be "organically" rooted in and intertwined

with the conditions of multiple oppression of class, regional ethnicity and gender. Through her

practice and her discourse, Parton has made public what have previously been tacit or private

strategies used by rural, working-class, Southern Appalachian women for negotiating power for

themselves within patriarchy and the capitalist class structure.

Literature on Southern Appalachian women suggests that Parton is not an anomaly but

rather is working within a native cultural framework, drawing her femenist strength from within
 21

her culture.19 Parton uses a model of feminine action based upon women subverting and gaining

strength through and within the dominant patriarchal system. The apparent purpose of this

subversion is not to overthrow patriarchy altogether, but just to carve opportunities for women to

control their lives.

Michel de Certeau's theories of practice and resistance by working classes within a

capitalist class structure, or by subcultures resisting assimilation into dominant culture, provide

analogous insights if extended to considerations of gender negotiations of power within

patriarchy:

[She] creates for [herself] a space in which [she] can find ways of using the
constraining order of the place . . . . Without leaving the place where [she] has no
choice but to live and which lays down its law for [her], [she] establishes within it
a degree of plurality and creativity. By an art of being in between, [she] draws
unexpected results from [her] situation. (1984:30)

De Certeau's model is based upon a subversion from within an order of power, not by

overthrowing or necessarily transforming it, but by exploiting its resources (time and materials)

for one's own purposes, by constructing one's own space and strategies for action within the

boundaries, by tactically seeking out and exploiting the loopholes in the structure of dominance

to acquire power for oneself.

Both de Certeau's examples and the case of Southern Appalachian women illustrate the

existence of dual understandings of a power situation--a top-down assurance that the legitimately

powerful are fully in control, and a bottom-up wink that the ruse is working: though "they" think

they are in control of "us" (and "we" are generally supporting their claim in appearances), "we"

are in effect manipulating the structure to our uses--"we" are taking advantage of every

opportunity to informally (and quietly) exploit the system. In the coalescence of oppressions of
 22

gender, social class, economic class, and so on, these mechanisms are operative at multiple levels

and against a variety of "systems" of power.

Feminism, class and regional/ethnic consciousness become personal, lived issues rather

than political, rhetorical or structural ones for women like Dolly Parton. Gramsci's notion of the

"new" organic intellectuals of the working class provides theoretical insights and validity to this

model:

The mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence,
which is an exterior and momentary mover of feelings and passions, but in active
participation in practical life, as constructor, organiser, `permanent persuader' and
not just a simple orator.... (1971:10)

Parton represents this type of popular feminism, having little knowledge of or use for the

political rhetoric of the women's movement, although she never opposes the goals of the

movement, and aligns herself with other strong and self-sufficient women. On a May, 1991

appearance on the Tonight Show (the week of Mother's Day), Parton introduced the song "Eagle

When She Flies" with these comments:

Anyway, I wanted to do a song for all the mamas out there. This is a song I
actually wrote about my own mother, and about myself--about people like Mother
Theresa, Amelia Earhardt, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ann Richards, and
all the great women who've helped make this world more wonderful. I hope
maybe you guys will appreciate this, too.

In spite of this association with women humanitarians, politicians and adventurers, Parton

dissociates herself from the rhetoric of mainstream feminism as she personalizes and

individualizes the feminist ideology into lived experience:

Grobel: Do you support the Equal Rights Amendment?

Parton: Equal rights? I love everybody....
Grobel: We mean equal rights for women.
Parton: I can't keep up with it.
Grobel: Do you read any books on the women's movement?
 23

Parton: Never have. I know so little about it they'd probably be ashamed that I
was a woman. Everybody should be free: if you don't want to stay home, get out
and do somethin'; if you want to stay home, stay home and be happy. (Grobel
1978:110)

And in another interview, Parton says:

"I think if women, or people in general, would just listen and not think they're still
listening to their father or to their mother or their husband, or to this or to that, but
listen to what they think they can do...I always said, with my accountants, with my
managers, or my bankers or agents: `Look, I don't need advice, I need information.
I will make my own decisions.'" (McHenry 1986:14)

Parton exhibits the practical application of her belief system through her management of

her own life and career. She openly discusses her stubborn control over constructing her image,

even as she also chooses to use a language style that marks her by class and region:

"People have thought I'd be a lot farther along in this business if I dressed more
stylish and didn't wear all this gaudy get-up. Record companies have tried to
change me. I just refused. If I am going to look like this, I must have had a
reason. It's this: if I can't make it on my talent, then I don't want to do it. I have to
look the way I choose to look, and this is what I've chose." (Grobel 1978:82)

She also exhibits a strong-willed mastery and engineering of the social codes and conventions of

the patriarchal and capitalist systems, and manipulates these codes to her own advantage without

transgressing them.20 This is a key to her acceptance as a nonthreatening but simultaneously

powerful influence. Parton, like Gramsci's organic and rural intellectual, but with a feminist

twist, is forging new traditions from old ones and serving as a model for others to do the same.

As the popular press describes her, she is "a woman taking possession of her destiny" (Hurst

1977:124).

Basing her feminist ideology and class-consciousness on intuitive cultural knowledge and

emotion rather than educated intellectual rhetoric, Parton's impassioned and popular feminism

reaches segments of the working-class population who are probably beyond the effective
 24

influence of the rhetoric of liberal feminism. It is also significant, I belive, that she reaches this

population through the vehicle of musical expression (and its accompanying discourses) rather

than political rhetoric. As Gramsci expressed the dichotomy:

The popular element `feels' but does not always know or understand; the
intellectual element `knows' but does not always understand and in particular does
not always feel....The intellectual's error consists in believing that one can know
without understanding and even more without feeling and being
impassioned....One cannot make politics-history without this passion, without this
sentimental connection between intellectuals and people-nation. (1971:418)

As a popular feminist and rural working-class advocate, Parton's counterhegemonic rhetoric is

sentimental, emotional and nonthreatening to those in the dominant group, who perceive it as

comical and lacking in potential effectivity. Dolly Parton presents an example of the use of

powerful subversive strategies. Rather than providing a vehicle for the dominant ideology, such

a star image provides a rich, multidimensional configuration of signifiers that exploit the inherent

contradictory meanings of the sign. Such a star image, by using parody, irony and excess to

foreground social tensions and cultural contradictions, may serve to activate readers' (or fans')

awareness of their own social positioning and so encourage alternate readings and practices.
 25

NOTES

Many thanks to Lynn Spigel, Julie D'Acci, John Fiske, David Morley, Greg Smith, and Chad
Dell for their insights and suggestions at various stages in this paper's development.

1. Malone (1979) and Lomax (1985) both note that women were involved in family groups at an
earlier period, but that individual women singers did not emerge as commercial stars until Kitty
Wells in the 1950s, followed by Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton in the 1960s.

2. As a terminological clarification which carries potential political meanings: I use the name
"Dolly" to refer to the constructed persona or image, and use "Parton" to refer to the social agent
who is doing the constructing. I realize, however, that even this distinction is problematic, since
Parton's construction and presentation of her "authentic" self is just as much a media persona.
Admittedly, it is difficult to refer to her as "Parton," since almost all of the literature (with the
exception of three articles: two music magazines and Ms.) refers to her as Dolly with a familiarity
that I surmise would not be journalistically acceptable if writing about a man.

3. The magazine discourse represents only a small portion of the available media coverage of the
star, which also includes recordings of her musical performances, film performances, two television
variety series and numerous specials, as well as other promotional coverage.

4. Consider the dual cultural meaning of women's breasts in our society: as ornaments of sexual
attractiveness for the male desire, and (related to biological functions) as symbols of maternal life-
giving, nourishment, nurturance and mother-child bonding.

5. "Love Secrets That Keep the Magic in Dolly's Marriage," Star, 27 November 1990: 12.

6. For example, regarding the emphasis on family and traditional rural roots in much of the popular
discourse about Parton, Tucker (1988: 386) notes that "the invocation of family is an emotional
button that country stars like to push--it seems to produce instant sympathy among tradition-minded
fans."

7. See Dyer (1979) regarding "ordinariness" as an important aspect in constructing star images,
especially among women.

8. I use the term "ethnicity" in the anthropological sense set forth by Barth (1969) and De Vos and
Romanucci-Ross (1975), as a term referring to cultural groups within a pluralistic and hegemonic
society who define themselves (through a sense of common origin, common beliefs and values) as
culturally distinct from the dominant, and use a variety of mechanisms to maintain symbolic
boundaries and delineations from other groups. In this sense, I perceive Southern Appalachian
culture to be a regional ethnicity, but do not perceive "Southernness," as an external construction of
regionality and not an self-defined cultural group, to be an ethnicity in itself, though it incorporates
many.
 26

9. Helpful overviews on Southern cultural issues are provided by Hill (1977), Pearsall (1966), and
Reed (1974). In the working-class South, the races (white, black and Indian) have lived in relative
isolation, maintaining fairly separate but parallel cultures with minimal interaction. The black
population in the Appalachian region has been extremely small compared to that of the lowland
South (Obermiller and Philliber 1987:11).

10. Relevant works specifically on the Southern Appalachian culture of Parton's region are
Campbell (1921), Durrance and Shamblin (1976), Matthews (1965), Weller (1965). For literature
on Southern and Appalachian women see Hagood (1939) and my previous work (Wilson 1984,
1991). Obermiller and Philliber (1987) provide insights into issues of Appalachian ethnicity.

11. With the increasing economic dependence upon capitalism in this century and the breakdown
of the agricultural economy, many farmworkers have been integrated into the dominant capitalist
system as working class, and tend to fill that slot in the social and economic structure (although it is
important to point out that this rural working class society exhibits extremely different
characteristics from that of an urban/industrial working class society). In addition, from 1940
through 1970 over three million people migrated from the Southern Appalachian area to industrial
urban centers in the Midwest (primarily Cincinnati, Detroit and Chicago) to work as unskilled
laborers; some returned after a few years, though many stayed and created cultural ghettos of urban
Appalachians in these cities (Obermiller and Philliber 1987).

12. My understandings of Gramsci come from Sassoon (1987), as well as the interpretations
through Raymond Williams (1977), John Fiske (1987) and Dick Hebdige (1979).

13. Family history and biographical photos visually documenting Parton's rags-to-riches success
story are amply provided in women's magazine articles: Parton (1985), Berman (1979), Anderson
(1988), and Jahr (1982). Grobel's 1978 Playboy interview also extensively investigates the details
of Parton's life growing up, and the two articles in Ms. (by Nash and Steinem) focus on the
rootedness of Parton's life and image in her region and hometown community.

14. See Bufwack and Oermann (1987: 92-93) for more on the predominance of working-class and
women consumers in the composition of country music audiences, as well as the prevalence of
working-class backgrounds of country music performers.

15. Hurst (1977:123) traces Parton's musical style to the convergence of three components:
Elizabethan ballads preserved for centuries by isolated Appalachian mountaineers, the wildly
emotional religious music of the fundamentalist churches, and the country music on radio in the
early 1950s.

16. For more on women and country music, see Bufwack and Oermann (1987), Malone (1979),
Lomax (1985: 108ff) and Dew (1977).

17. See also Lipsitz (1990) and Bufwack and Oermann (1987).
 27

18. This is particularly true of country music videos, discussed by Fenster (1988).

19. Parton's sister Willadeene tells of vacations all the women of the Parton family take together
each year ("It's so secret that not even our husbands and children know what we do"), and
articulates the patriarchal myth: "For the first years of their life together, we were sorry for Mother
because Papa's word was law; and the last years, we were sorry for Papa because Mother keeps
breaking the law" (Parton 1985:125).

20. For comments on Parton's tenacious hold on her own business decisions, see Coppage (1979:
82), Isler (1978: 74), and Leehrsen (1987: 73-74).