00:13:54.520I think that's one of the first things I think about.
00:13:56.600And I think she's also a song teller, you know, her famous coffee table book that came out in 2020 was called Song Teller. And that's what she is. She tells stories through songs, and she always has a song, and they always are relating to people and joy and love and the betterment of the world.
00:14:12.080And so this 79 year old woman has been doing this since, you know, I mean, her first album was Hello, I'm Dolly in 1967. So just think about that as we're talking about this woman in 2025, who like, just recently has announced, you know, she's opening a new hotel in downtown Nashville, she's opening a musical about her life on Broadway, she's has new partnerships and products coming out daily.
00:14:35.220So it's like, she has been actively working since 1967. So I don't think we can say she's just a musician. She's just a songwriter. I mean, she is a true celebrity in the biggest sense, but also that philanthropic arm and that humanitarian aspect about her, I think, really humanizes her to a place that she's everything. It's hard to describe her and define her as one thing because I think she is so all-encompassing.
00:15:01.520Oh, my God. And she is also such a hustler.0.99
00:18:57.300And so in Pigeon Forge in the late 80s, she opened a slew of attractions in town, including Dollywood and then the stampede, you know, at the time called the Dixie Stampede. And so both of these were family friendly attractions, you know, where you could bring your children on it to a destination, right? I think the interesting thing when you think of these geographies is that there really isn't like a major airport nearby. So these are real like road trip destinations.
00:19:26.260They really are. This is a road trip destination. Both times that I've been, I've been on a road
00:19:30.240trip. Yeah. And I think that's an important piece that you have to think about when you think about
00:19:34.740these parks and just like the tourist economy of Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, the Smoky Mountains
00:19:39.480in general. Like, yes, you have the National Park, but you also have this kind of Dolly Parton
00:19:44.820mecca, you know, in the offskirts of Pigeon Forge. And so there is this idea that like,
00:19:51.400you have to get the big, you can pack up a full van and take the whole family here, right? Like,
00:19:55.680there's something to be said about that, about like a road trip tourist economy rather than a
00:19:59.820place where you fly into. And so it affords that idea of the family-friendly environment that you
00:20:04.620talked about and the atmosphere that you get by visiting as a family. And so she really wanted to
00:20:09.980not only, you know, pay tribute to her town, her roots, but this created really great, you know,
00:20:17.380great economic advantage and opportunity for those in the community by hiring all these people,
00:20:22.180giving jobs to locals working in the park, but not only hiring folks to work in the park,
00:20:27.680but hiring these like craft artisans who would be able to show like what it is to do woodwork,
00:20:33.300what it is to be a blacksmith, what it is to do these kind of crafts from the past that maybe we
00:20:37.740don't have anymore. And so you get to see them live in action in Dollywood. And I think that's
00:20:42.600also one piece of the puzzle that's really important to think about is how she's empowering
00:20:46.520the community by way of not only like the commercial activity that these enterprises
00:20:50.760are creating, but also how it's paying tribute and it's really honoring these long lost kind
00:20:56.700of art forms of the past that you would see in these kind of mountain communities.
00:21:01.280Yeah. I mean, everything about Pigeon Forge, I just find so, so delightful. I mean, and also
00:21:06.400using it, we used it as a way to get into the Smoky Mountains too, right? And then explored
00:21:13.340the National Park. Talk to me a little bit about the Stampede, which I don't think a lot of people
00:21:17.440know about yeah absolutely so the stampede um it opened in i think it was 1987 and the stampede
00:21:25.880is an interesting dinner theater think like medieval times but think about medieval times
00:21:32.500a la the civil war so so you're signing up when you get there to get a ticket to sit on the north
00:21:39.620or the south and the stampede even today without the dixie in the title is still billed as like a
00:21:45.760friendly competition. And so the North and the South battle it out through pig races, different
00:21:51.600kind of like competitions throughout the evening. There's variety shows, there's singing, there's
00:21:57.180dancing, there's horse riding, horse racing, different things happening in like an arena pit
00:22:00.760where a lot of animals are just running while you're eating your like, you know, three course
00:22:05.280meal with like a Cornish hen and then there's soup. It's so weird. It's so weird and wonderful.
00:22:10.400There's so much going on. And you're like, why am I cheering for this pig? And I don't know.0.98
00:22:14.680Why not? I mean, at the end of the day, that is joy. That is just joy personified.
00:22:18.760It's so joy. And like in 2018, kind of coming out of what was happening with like the white supremacy rallies and things in 2017, Dolly was a bit under fire for having the word Dixie in the title of her stampede. And so she went ahead and dropped it and made it Dolly Parton's stampede. And there was some, you know, blowback in the community. There were some like small protests happening outside of her stampede.
00:22:43.320There's also, I should mention, a few other stampedes that have opened up around the country
00:22:47.780since. The only one still open today is in Branson, Missouri. That one opened in the mid-90s.
00:22:54.420So that one also changed its name. They're both now Dolly Parton Stampede. But she did a bit of
00:22:59.900an edit, not only on the title, but also on the content. So while it's still North versus South,
00:23:05.560there were some changes where it wasn't really glorifying kind of like the good old days or the
00:23:11.780you know the southern ways that that the previous version did um the costuming also changed the
00:23:17.740costuming used to really reflect like the the uniforms of the union and the confederate armies
00:23:23.000um with like the blue and the gray and those shifted to the new iteration of her stampede
00:23:27.980where um the south wears blue and the north wears red which i think is a bit of like a way to
00:23:33.520circumvent maybe political affiliation or associations that you might think um but like
00:23:38.560the pigs are still there the friendly competition still there like things are still happening and
00:23:43.040you're still rooting for the north or the south so i think it's hard to fully strip that away
00:23:47.400um but definitely some changes have happened and also with just like the storyline and the um the
00:23:53.500scenic design and things within the space have shifted a little bit since um just to be a little
00:23:58.180more mindful maybe of what's you know happening in the in the society right and in the world and
00:24:02.760and i think she is a good businesswoman and wants to make sure that she's not offending
00:24:06.660any of her fans. No, exactly. And I just think she towed the line really well of evolving how0.93
00:24:16.980we talk about history. Totally. And again, I mean, that's in Dolly's politics. We talked about this
00:24:23.480a little bit earlier. She, unlike a lot of celebrities, does not come out and wear her0.99
00:24:29.980politics on her sleeve. What do we know about Dolly's politics? You know, what we, you summed0.99
00:24:35.780it up that's kind of what we know is she does not like to really talk about it now she will often
00:24:40.540deflect it she often will say um pretty vague statements that are not necessarily leaning one
00:24:47.280way or the other but but kind of touch back to those themes that she cares about like love and
00:24:52.460kindness and respect um you know i think one of the most interesting interviews she's had in recent
00:24:58.820years was with billboard magazine in 2020 and she was asked a few different questions about like her
00:25:04.120choice to to remove dixie from the title um she also was asked a few other things about like what
00:25:09.000was currently happening with like the black lives matter movement in the country but a few quotes
00:25:13.820that i think might be worth thinking about um one of them is so when she was called out you know
00:25:19.040about the dixie stampede um so she told billboard in 2020 about her choice in 2018 to drop dixie
00:25:24.260she said quote uh there's such a thing as innocent ignorance and so many of us are guilty of that
00:25:29.800When they said Dixie was an offensive word, I thought, well, I don't want to offend anybody. This is a business. We'll just call it the stampede, end quote. And so you can see there a few things are happening. She doesn't want to offend anyone, but also this is a business. And so I think she realizes there's a piece of that that's important for the brand, right? She doesn't want to maybe dissuade any customers or any type of person who would be engaging with her enterprises.
00:25:53.940but she also said in this same interview um there was a bit of a question of black lives matter and
00:26:00.000where she might feel uh feel towards that movement and how she might relate and she said quote i
00:26:05.000understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen and of course black lives matter0.95
00:26:10.520do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter no end quote and so i think there0.95
00:26:16.640we get a little bit of that kind of touch of maybe what could be um politics right or what0.95
00:26:21.740folks might try to you know make assumptions about her politics but really what this comes back to
00:26:25.960is this idea of what she says wanting people to feel um seen and heard and known and that they
00:26:31.940can be appreciated for who they are and i think that is a universal quality of kindness and and
00:26:37.040love you know back to kind of the church of delhi parton thinking in those themes that people on
00:26:42.160both sides of the aisle people of any identity would care about and would appreciate um we've
00:26:47.200further seen other ways that politics have come up or she's been asked about it you know uh in
00:26:53.240recent years there was when when with the recent election she was asked you know oh will you run
00:26:58.320for president um there was an interview i want to say it was in i think 2023 with um with metro uh
00:27:06.960mega the metro publication and and she said something along the lines of like we have enough1.00
00:27:12.060boobs in the white house when they asked like if she would run for president and so she does this1.00
00:27:16.420thing where she tries to use humor to deflect from any sort of like political notion of how1.00
00:27:23.200she votes or how she feels. And so she often uses humor to kind of diffuse these types of questions
00:27:28.220when she's asked or probed about her politics. Right. But I mean, I do just love, and I said
00:27:35.060this before, but I'm a broken record. But, you know, Dolly's ethos of kindness and openness,
00:27:41.420I mean, when we have two political parties that are just at each other's throats all the time.
00:27:48.320I'm very here for this. I would vote for Dolly Parton for president.0.76
00:27:51.700I would too. I would too. And I think, you know, she's been quoted before in interviews and things
00:27:56.740saying like, you know, oh, I'm like not meant for politics. I think there was a great quote
00:28:01.620a few years back where she said something that was similar to like, I'm not smart enough to be
00:28:05.600in politics, or maybe I'm too smart. And I think that sums her up so well, because she
00:28:11.360often is too smart, I think, to make a claim, right? Or to say something that would be
00:28:17.820possibly detrimental to this community she's built across party lines. And I think it also
00:28:22.640then does create a division, right? Or create a sense of being divisive. And that detracts from
00:28:29.240these ideas of joy or of love or of kindness or of respect. She is so smart. And I think for so
00:28:36.660much of her career, Dolly was very underestimated as well, because she was a woman. She was an
00:28:42.160attractive woman with big blonde hair and big boobs. And she was written off by a lot of people1.00
00:28:48.140as kind of an airhead, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, there's1.00
00:28:52.700something else to be said about this, which is not even like the performance of Dolly Parton,
00:28:57.980right? Thinking about like the way she dresses and this character and this persona she's built,
00:29:01.620But just thinking about her position as a woman in country music is really important to know.
00:29:08.460There's a context here that I think matters that many people may not think about.
00:29:12.120But even still today, female artists getting airplay on country radio, the number is so small.
00:29:20.540The percentage wavers over the years from year to year, from anywhere from 8% to maybe 18%, I think, was a recent high, was like 18% or 19%.
00:29:29.540So like, these women artists are being played, you know, if you think about that, at best, at best, like one out of five songs are featuring a female artist. So the industry itself was not set up for her to succeed. And so I think that is still true today, right? And that's important that when we think about any woman in country music, but Dolly, you know, created this persona that has afforded her to not only laugh at herself and make fun of herself before others could,
00:29:56.440But it also created this character that I think she's been able to create this brand off of, right? And to create this idea of like, yeah, she often will say how she looks like a drag queen or she's fake, right? Or she says it costs a lot of money to look this cheap. And I think that is her way of being able to carry the narrative and write it as she wants about the way she wants to dress and appear and the persona she wants to emulate.
00:30:21.620there's one joke that i love so much i forget where she told it um tell me if you've heard
00:30:27.440this one which you probably have because you are such an expert in all things dolly
00:30:30.640it was where they were talking about the sheep that had been cloned oh yeah i love this one
00:30:37.800so much could you tell could you explain it to us yeah so she um you know dolly the sheep was
00:30:44.160cloned and parton was talking about how um like basically that the cell was named after dolly
00:30:51.280part and because the sheep's uh mammary gland was what was cloned essentially and and she was
00:30:56.900they were boob clones like they were boob cell clones yeah yeah and so that's you know why it
00:31:03.080was basically dolly um and she said something along the lines of like it was i think like i'm
00:31:08.760sorry when i that dolly the sheep died but i don't want to be cloned it was something like that and
00:31:13.460so it was like we have to use the sheep's mammary gland because we can't use dolly's and so she0.98
00:31:17.940again is making a boob joke to try to like create this way of diffusing any sort of tension or
00:31:24.420whatever might be in the way of the response when she's interviewed on these things. And you'll see
00:31:28.040she often resorts to joking about her breasts or about her persona or her character. And I think
00:31:34.080there's something in that humor that Dolly is a master of. She's a master when it comes to using0.85
00:31:39.400humor in an interview setting and being able to crack jokes and deflect and be able to make0.98
00:31:44.340everything be about, again, this persona she's created, and remind folks like how fun and funny0.67
00:31:49.500she is rather than actually having to make a stance on something. Yeah, exactly. I mean,0.97
00:31:54.200it's just it's a really great way to deflect criticism to write just to bring more joy into
00:31:59.600the world. Absolutely. And I think, you know, you just said it earlier, like, we're in a country
00:32:06.240where there are two parties, and they're both at each other's throats. And it is just so constant.
00:32:10.460and it's like some laughter is so welcome right now and I think the joy and the laughter that
00:32:16.500she brings is contagious and it's fun and and so it's like I get why she uses it I get why she
00:32:23.380centers it when she's pressed on her politics you know um I think that that's something we can all
00:32:29.160just like lean into and take a breath when she cracks a joke even if it's a joke about her boobs
00:32:34.400we've heard a hundred times it's like well you know she's bringing some levity to the situation
00:32:38.840in this moment instead of just continuing this very divisive discourse that continues to happen
00:32:44.500day after day, hour after hour. Yeah, I'm never going to get sick of Dolly Parton telling jokes1.00
00:32:48.380about her own boobs. I'm not. Okay. No, it's great. She should. She should. She should. Okay,1.00
00:32:54.220let's take one more quick break. And then I want to hear a little bit about what the students have
00:32:57.940had to say. I want to hear about their reactions to this class. Sounds good.
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00:33:56.700is made to help. We are back. What are some of the projects that the students have been working on
00:34:06.140around Dolly? So their final project was able to be a creative project where they got to
00:34:12.560bring in kind of their own experience and knowledge of what they're studying at the
00:34:17.280university. And so these ranged, as you can imagine, they were as diverse as the disciplines
00:34:22.980in the room were one was an architecture student who imagined what if dolly's imagination library
00:34:30.600became sort of like a presidential library like what would that building look like and made all
00:34:35.920the plans made like a small 3d model like basically showed us what dolly's imagination
00:34:41.040library would look like as an actual construction if it was like based a presidential library and
00:34:46.260i thought that was just fascinating and they were able to bring all of that technical expertise and
00:34:50.200knowledge into their craft which was great um another student who was a bit unfamiliar with
00:34:55.960dolly coming in made this amazing like board game about dolly parton and it was all about like some
00:35:02.320trivia of her life but also choices and like how would you if you were dolly like how would you
00:35:07.460make the choice in this scenario and it was very much like the game of life but it was uh all about
00:35:13.040dolly and i thought that was just fabulous uh other students did everything from you know a
00:35:17.960traditional kind of research poster looking at survey data that they did within the washi community
00:35:22.940surveying students on dolly parton and where they think her politics may lie i thought that was a
00:35:28.220very interesting project um and we also had other ones where you know students made videos they made
00:35:33.820songs one reimagined the stampede another time you know what would be the third iteration of
00:35:38.860the stampede if we were truly to make it not be the north versus the south how might we finally
00:35:43.400Yeah, remove the civil war entirely from this, this piece. So yeah, I mean, they clearly had love for Dolly and love for what she's doing and all of her enterprises. And I think, you know, we landed on this idea of kind of what you and I were chatting about today, where she is someone who really uses humor, uses love, uses kindness, as these values that are her North Stars. And that's how she makes her choices, right?
00:36:10.780Those are how she makes her decisions and all of her enterprises. And like, I can't fault her for wanting to think about the brand when she's worried about, you know, making certain statements. Because I do think it's like when the time comes for her to have to do something, she does it. She does it. She says what she needs to say.
00:36:26.940when there was anti-trans legislation happening in Tennessee,
00:36:29.980she spoke about how she has, you know,
00:36:46.680which is some are preachers, some are gay, you know?0.76
00:36:49.160So she has talked about how her family, you know,
00:36:53.060encompasses all of these folks as well.
00:36:54.840And so she tries to be inclusive because she cares about her family.
00:36:59.100Right. And she genuinely cares about all human beings, to be honest, is really the Dali ethos in so many ways.
00:37:06.660And I also think about Dali, despite not leaning into one or the other political party, as being one of the very early influencers, because the different kinds of influence that she's had on our culture have been so profound.
00:37:23.920I mean, particularly starting with the movie Nine to Five, which which was built out of the work of the women's union movements, trying to showcase and give better visibility to women in the workforce and their issues facing women in the workforce.
00:37:40.880that's right that's right and i think you know that is that is work that she's doing when you
00:37:47.360think about like the arc of feminism right and what this film and the story of this film was
00:37:52.260about and and how it still is questioning i mean it's we we watched it as part of the syllabus and
00:37:57.740it was amazing hearing the students say wow this feels like it could be set today it really holds
00:38:03.300up i i recommend for everyone to re-watch it uh yeah what was the student's reaction to nine to
00:38:10.060five you know there were a certain there are certain um like moments of the film i think that
00:38:15.880are like definitely showing their time of like being from the 1980s where you're like oh i don't
00:38:20.460know like if you can say that today or do that today um but they were very much like yeah these
00:38:26.520issues are still real like this film i so many of them loved it and so many of them had not seen it
00:38:32.460but they were like this film still holds up today it's still important and we looked a bit at you
00:38:37.680know she uh made a musical adaptation of nine to five and so we watched some clips of that and
00:38:44.440talked a little bit about what does that look like you know it moving it into a musical space
00:38:48.360where she's bringing her original music into the story of the film that she starred in right and
00:38:52.700kind of that started her film career but you know the story is still important and the story still
00:38:58.520matters today and i think that that's why we still care about it we still watch it it still comes up
00:39:02.500documentaries are still featuring it and talking about nine to five you know and the musical is
00:39:06.600still running, right? Like people are still producing it all around the country at regional
00:39:10.500theaters. So there's something about that story that clearly is still resonating with today.
00:39:16.040There really is. I'm actually excited. I'm not ready to show it to my five-year-old daughter.
00:39:21.480Although girlfriend has been watching the Marvel movies lately. So I'm like,
00:39:24.440what am I so afraid of? What am I so afraid of? Because there is some stuff that there's a few
00:39:29.320things that don't hold up, but I'm excited to show it to her because I think it was a landmark
00:39:32.940moment that got culture talking about the women's movement in a way that they hadn't been talking
00:39:39.020about it before. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, you have Lily Tomlin and Jane
00:39:44.920Fonda, right? Like you have folks who even today are very, I think they're very squarely in like
00:39:52.440social activism today, right? We see them for different things that they're believing in and
00:39:57.880standing out and speaking up for. And so I think it's interesting to think about not only the
00:40:02.860film, but also like how the influence of the actors of the film is still moving forward in
00:40:07.380that direction today. Here's the big question. Does Dolly know about the class? I don't,
00:40:14.020I honestly don't know. I don't know. I was just like excited to do the class and thrilled that
00:40:20.260I had the opportunity to do so and had students interested in it. So I'm not sure. I don't know
00:40:24.900if like the university reached out or anything like that, but you know, we did our work as like
00:40:29.580many scholars, like many academics, you do your work kind of in a vacuum in the lab, right? And
00:40:34.420so, you know, we were happy to have such an amazing subject to study and to have so much
00:40:40.280just valuable insight into her life through all of these. She's a very generous woman when you
00:40:45.620think about it, not only in her philanthropy, but she is constantly doing interviews. She's
00:40:50.200constantly giving media appearances. She's constantly giving reactions, responses to1.00
00:40:54.800certain requests. And so there's so much out there that she's provided us with an insight into who
00:41:00.500she is. And I think, you know, she doesn't have to do that. There are a lot of celebrities who
00:41:04.600don't do that. And that is something that has, she's made herself so accessible to so many of
00:41:08.940us. And I think that that also plays into this idea of like, why all of us can connect to her,
00:41:13.060because she doesn't feel so foreign to us. She almost feels like a friend.
00:41:17.380She really does. I got to say, my friend Regan is a travel journalist. And she,
00:41:22.020I think she's interviewed Dolly a couple times when Dolly was opening the new hotels in Pigeon
00:41:27.620Forge. And she got invited down there. They also invited her whole family down there. They were so
00:41:32.700generous about this trip. And Regan interviewed her. And she's got this great picture of her and
00:41:37.500Dolly. And Dolly is so teeny tiny that she does not even look like a real person. And Regan's like,
00:41:42.920oh my gosh. She's like, I just cried afterwards. I cried and cried because she was the kindest,
00:41:47.800nicest person I'd ever met. Regan's been interviewing celebrities for 20 years.
00:41:52.780And she's just like, I just, she just exuded everything you think she's gonna be. And she
00:41:58.400was also so real and authentic. And I think about that a lot. Also, I have the picture of Regan and
00:42:02.880Dolly saved on my phone. And I look at it sometimes, which is creepy.
00:42:06.260No, I love that. It's like, I bet it's the perfect way to like boost the serotonin.