How the ‘backwoods Barbie’ Dolly Parton turned self-aware artifice into authentic artistry

Rosemary Overell, University of Otago

Scrolling through the tributes to Dolly Parton this morning – from the Grand Ole Opry, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, queerfluencers and others – I thought to myself: that’s her real name?

Yes. The “Queen of Country”, who died overnight aged 80, was born Dolly Rebecca Parton. My surprise at the authenticity of her name says something about the contradiction within the figure of Dolly.

A sometime figure of ridicule and satire, the opening image of Dolly – in interviews, send ups and even her own branding – was often related to her apparent “fakeness”.

Her literal figure – breasts, face, hair – was obviously artificial. And often these synthetic additions to her body were transposed into an assumption she herself was, if not inauthentic, at least somewhat superficial. Dolly’s first hit on the country charts was Dumb Blonde in 1967.

But what a name! Not a diminutive of a serious name, not a stage name, but a real name that moves us towards her celebrity image as one: dressed-up, made-up, an object with which the entertainment industry played.

But the fact it is her true name pushes us into the performative savviness with which Dolly herself played. Her blondeness became a trademark, as did her pride and tongue-in-cheek irreverence for her “plastic” image.

Playing with contradiction

In the same year as Dumb Blonde charted, she released her first LP – Hello, I’m Dolly. This potentially self-conscious insertion of agency (I am) into a familiar 1960s musical title (Hello Dolly) might point us to an early positioning of herself as a “Dolly”.

In a genre where (apparent) sincerity is paramount – the top charting country song in her debut year was the conventionally sentimental All the Time by Charles Greene – Dolly made artifice her signature.

Again, we have a contradiction. To be fake, to push into the sentimental performative aspects of the country genre, became her true autograph – a trace of Dolly’s originality.

Of course, the sincerity of country music – or any form of popular music – is arguably spurious. But in the late 1960s, with the rise of experimental rock, folk-poet pop and even Motown, country’s claim to speak from an authentic position was a selling point, particularly for conservative audiences.

Consider the psychedelic country of the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds erupting from the American West Coast at the time.

Their entrée to the Grand Ole Opry was foiled, not only due to the louche behaviour of the Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, but also because the doyennes of Nashville recognised something of a send-up in their pitch perfect performances of the country style.

Instead, Dolly was welcomed into the country fold. Her backstory and roots affirmed an authentic and marketable country commodity. Unlike most of her contemporaries, she wrote original hits.

‘Hot pink, shimmering’ style

Yodelling through the 1970s, Dolly worked the country circuit with the song Jolene breaking into the mainstream in 1974. But in the 1980s, with her rise as a film star and fixture in entertainment media, Dolly began to seriously play with the dynamic between real and fake.

Her acting talent and wit were also regarded as more than credible, at odds with her “looks”. Reviewing 9 to 5 in 1980, Roger Ebert wrote with astonishment that Dolly “hardly seems to exist as a sexual being” in the film. Rather, her “unstudied natural exuberance” made her the star.

Implicitly (and Ebert’s review was typical), her excessively feminine body was at odds with talent, depth and (Ebert again) “presence”. Interestingly, for Ebert, the only way to explain such a capacity was to imply a lack of smarts – natural, untrained, authentic talent.

Dolly’s self-conscious and made-up womanliness also propelled her into becoming an icon for queer audiences. Despite her resolute straightness (she was married to the same man for nearly 60 years), rejection of feminism and continual appeal with conservative country audiences, she also became unreservedly “Mother” to many LGBTQ folks.

Writing in 2021, Cory Albertson discussed how Dolly’s over-the-top “hot pink, shimmering” style was crucial to many coming up, and out, in the 1990s and 2000s.

Ebert’s assessment that Dolly oddly lacked onscreen sex appeal reminds us that we can think of her – again – as a figure who plays with “sexed” bodies, rather than being an (authentic) sexed body herself.

When Dolly pronounced herself the “Backwoods Barbie” in a 2013 60 Minutes interview, her witticism moved at once to the real (she was born in poverty) and the façade of being, well, “Dolly”.

Watching the interview this morning I misheard her remark as “Backwards Barbie”. I like this better. In hyping up her figure, her look as the iconic doll, she moved the “ideal blonde” plaything into reverse. Inversions are also “queerings”. I think maybe Dolly might have appreciated my mishearing.

Correction: an earlier version of this article said Parton was married for 47 years, this has been amended.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.