We should strive to live up to Dolly Parton’s vision for what the country can be.
We should strive to live up to Dolly Parton’s vision for what the country can be.
W hen we lose someone we love under the age of, say, 60 years old, we often eulogize them by saying they were “gone too soon.” The further past that line they get, the more likely we are to say that we are just happy we had them for as long as we did.
Dolly Parton died this week at the age of 80. And yet still, she is gone too soon.
For her entire adult life, Parton has been the American ideal of grace and decency, coupled with a singular talent for singing and songwriting. She didn’t shy away from her challenges; she faced them head-on with a cheerfulness and optimism that consistently made her one of the world’s most beloved people for over 60 years.
Parton’s easy-going style and aplomb represented the best of what citizens believe America can be. It’s a place where a poor child can grow up to be a mega-star, then return the favor by spreading joy wherever she can. It’s a place where people can find connections in agreement rather than division — just as everyone in America believed Parton to be a treasure.
Yet Parton’s brand of celebrity is one that few aspiring stars seek to emulate today. For one, her talent is virtually unmatched; she often told the story of writing the massive hits “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” within days of each other. When Whitney Houston covered the latter song in 1992, Parton took the proceeds from her songwriting credit and bought a building in the black area of Nashville in an effort to revitalize the neighborhood.
When celebrities dive into political issues today, they often do so to appeal to the most rabid partisans. Yet Parton managed to hover above strident ideology, allowing all those who admired her to believe she was secretly on their team. Republicans and Democrats, men and women, and people of all races equally felt she represented their ideals.
She was primarily relatable because of what she sang about. Death, jealousy, and poverty were common themes in her music, and yet she was living proof that such obstacles could be overcome. Ironically, the best salve to hearing about her death is listening to much of the sad country music she recorded.
Instead of insults and dyspepsia, Parton navigated the world with cheer and understanding, often showcasing a wit on par with some of the country’s most famous humorists. As she once said, “a positive attitude and a sense of humor go together like biscuits and gravy.” Accordingly, her willingness to poke fun at herself is now rare in an era when few celebrities are inclined to admit weakness. Yet Parton’s observation that “it costs a lot of money to look this cheap” will live on as the model of winning self-deprecation.
Many people who say they want to make America great again should strive to make America great again in Dolly’s vision. Not the one that features cantankerousness as a governing philosophy. One that emphasizes upward mobility, not personal attacks and self-aggrandizement. Dolly’s power lay in her magnanimity and charity. She seemed indestructible because everyone in her orbit knew they could count on her.
Even in death, Parton pulled off a magic trick no other public figure can manage anymore: getting the entire country to agree on something. Flags were ordered to half-staff. Musicians who agree on nothing else — country traditionalists, pop titans, actors who spend most award shows lecturing America about its failures — all found themselves saying the same thing, more or less, in the same breath. It wasn’t performative grief. It was recognition that something genuinely irreplaceable had left the room.
Fittingly, she stayed in character until the end. For months, Parton had waved off concerns about her health with the kind of self-mocking humor that made her impossible not to love, chalking up her ailments to kidney stones and joking that doctors were “digging more stones out of me a year than the rock quarry in Rockwood, Tennessee.” She wasn’t hiding a cancer diagnosis so much as she was simply being Dolly about it — deflecting sympathy with a punchline. Even her exit was on-brand: no self-pity, just one more joke on the way out the door.
For over half a century, Dolly Parton has been exactly what the world needed, and that is still the case. With her death, the world is a less vibrant, optimistic place. There may never be another American as American as Dolly Parton.