Vox wants to cancel Dolly Parton. Why? Multiple reasons, but mostly because she supposedly has a dark side.

Yes, I know. It’s Vox, so why do we need to give them air time whether they are trying to cancel Dolly or engage in their usual hit pieces on conservatives? The answer is, if we don’t push back, they gain more ground. 

Now, on to Vox’s hit piece on Dolly. It seems that she’s authentic, but fictional according to a long ago interview with Roger Ebert. Her accent, according to him is “cornball Southern.” Helloooo… Dolly came from the back hills of Tennessee, her accent is definitely not fake. 

Oh but Vox didn’t stop there. Since Dolly didn’t know any differently, her dressing as the town tramp is part of her kitsch and evidently has dark undertones to it. Her style of outrageous femme and her daring to have an unacceptable “so what” attitude about cosmetic surgery is now supposed to be problematic. You see, dressing for herself is totally against feminist norms or something. 

Furthermore, how DARE Dolly market herself. How DARE she become mainstream, refuse a statue and help fund the Moderna vaccine ,and donate to those impacted by fire while continuing to hide things from the public?? 

There must be something dark and sinister about the fact that her husband Carl Dean is rarely seen in public! How dare she refuse to discuss politics! Every other musician, tv, and movie star does – how come Dolly doesn’t walk the line??

I thought her response was brilliant, especially in light of Lily and Jane’s snottiness. Furthermore, while Vox is here to tell us that Dolly’s boob jokes are tiresome and anti-feminist or something. Evidently the writers at Vox don’t understand self-confidence nor do they understand that Dolly is, in my opinion, poking fun at everyone else who has or does make a big deal out of her boobs. 

In regards to politics, when she does engage, by canceling Dixie out of the Dixie Stampede, the progressives aren’t appeased. No, Vox. Dolly’s use of Dixie in the Dixie Stampede was working just fine until the asinine cry babies of cancel culture started rearing their ugly heads just a few years ago. The misguided outrage that is canceling all history because of FEELINGS isn’t Dolly Parton’s problem, it is the problem of the Vox writers and all those who are happily engaged in canceling everything that “might” offend them. 

But this is where Vox really went off the deep end in their long-winded attempt at canceling Dolly. According to some scold named Jessica Wilkerson, Dolly’s whiteness is not worthy of celebrating. 

““Dolly Parton has built her empire on and with the debris of old, racist amusements and wrapped it in working-class signifiers and feminist politics,” Wilkerson concludes, nodding to Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede. “I ignored that fact for a long time because it didn’t fit the script of the feminist, working-class heroine I had conjured. But I also ignored how others’ attachment to Dolly is exactly because of her embrace of Dixie and her complex celebration of whiteness. And I have ignored how whiteness clings.””

Oh my dear dear Jessica, bless your sweet heart. Can you be any more snide? Can you be anymore of a scold than you are? You must be such a joy to live with. Oh, but that’s not all. 

“The idea that Parton’s theme park is not a labor paradise is probably not enough to get Dolly Parton canceled. Neither is the idea that she refuses to talk politics in public, or that she allows racists to like her, or that she rewrote her labor rights anthem to help sell Squarespace. But it is the sort of thing that makes the reflexively trendy worship of Dolly — like a recent petition to replace all Confederate monuments in Tennessee with statues of Dolly, “the ‘Jesus of Appalachia’” — start to feel a little lazy, even cartoonish.

First, No matter what Vox wants, Dolly is not obligated to you nor anyone else. If she doesn’t want to talk politics, she doesn’t have to. Also, 9-5 wasn’t a freaking labor rights anthem, it WAS. A. MOVIE! Vox and so many others completely missed the freaking point about her rewrite for Squarespace. Those of us who live in reality completely understood that the song and ad were for the dreamers who were working at one job, but from 5-9 were working and planning for their dream career! The blue-check scolds completely missed the point. 

It was inevitable Dolly would disappoint in some way(s), but still not sure why almost no one was more cautious beforehand (trying to be part of the fun-cool club?). This 2018 piece takes some wild swings, but it at least had some focused foresight. https://t.co/9aF1N1WeSs https://t.co/T2qwLypbWf

— Winkler (@ThatWinkler) February 3, 2021

Secondly, Dolly isn’t feminist enough for the woke scold harpies out there. Probably because she said this in an interview several years ago.

“I look like a woman, but I think like a man…I don’t believe in crucifying a whole group just because a few people have made mistakes.”

THAT ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of feminist that I am! Calling down the thunder because of a mistake, real or perceived is damaging our society. Vox and others refuse to understand that THEY are the ones who continually show their dark side, not people like Dolly Parton.

This is the kind of woman Vox says possesses a “DARK SIDE.”

A 75-year-old woman who funded the Moderna vaccine but is waiting for the rollout to hit high-risk groups first. https://t.co/YaJyZGLCoN

— Tristan Justice (@JusticeTristan) February 27, 2021

Third, Dolly Parton is …WHITE. This whole apology tour that we white people are supposed to embrace and embark on because of a few angry shrewish scolds like Vox and Jessica Wilkerson needs to be halted in its tracks. Particularly when the scolds are whites themselves. If they want to grovel to mean-spirited progressives, go right on ahead. But leave Dolly and the rest of us out of it. 

Feature Photo Credit: Kristopher Harris, May 2014 via Flickr, cropped and modified