HELLO (AGAIN) DOLLY

The pandemic has thrown up all nature of unlikely heroes, but one of the most surprising and delightful has to be country and western star Dolly Parton.

In April 2020, it came to light that 75-year-old country and western singer Dolly Parton had donated a million dollars towards Covid-19 research, which went towards funding the development of the Moderna vaccine. She was quick to respond, when most of the rest of the world was still reeling from the shocks of both a world vastly altered by the virus and the experience of lockdown. Although nearly a billion dollars in state funding followed, a number of researchers have been quoted stating that her donation helped fund crucial work at the early stage of vaccine development.

Then, this March, she filmed herself having her first shot of the vaccine that she helped fund at the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Tennessee. She broadcast a message encouraging others to follow suit. “I’m old enough to get it and I’m smart enough to get it,” she said. She even sang an altered version of one of her best-known hits from the 70s, Jolene, with “Jolene” replaced by “vaccine”!

“Because once you’re dead, then that’s a bit too late,” she riffed, harnessing the song’s catchy tune and broad cultural resonance to become the soundtrack to her cause.

July 27, 2019: Dolly Parton performs at The Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.

One of the most remarkable things about the timing of her vaccination is that Parton wasn’t first in line to have her shot before it was widely available. In fact, she deliberately waited so that others who needed it could have it first.

“I don’t want it to look like I’m jumping the line,” she said.

By the time she got it, however, the emphasis had shifted somewhat, and her celebrity endorsement was welcomed, her charisma and influence alone this time playing a vital role in fighting the pandemic.

One of the stranger turns of this now year-long pandemic (and then some) has been that the urgency of finding a cure or vaccine to prevent the spread of the virus has been replaced with resistance to the vaccines now that they are available. Studies show that about a quarter of Americans are likely her typically straight-talking but witty manner.

February 13, 2021: Costumed visitors at the Krewe of House Floats Saint Dolly, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Although it has been pointed out that Parton’s million was relatively small compared to the cost of developing the vaccine, that “little seed money” as she called it at the time, joins a long line of philanthropic gestures that Parton has made over the years.

Parton grew up poor – one of 12 children born in a one-room cabin in Tennessee – and her father was illiterate, so she knows the power of money.

One of her best-known initiatives is Dolly Parton’sImagination Library, which sends a million books a month to pre-school-going children in the US and beyond. They have delivered over 100million books. In 2016, she helped raise $8.9 million for families affected by wildfires in the Great Smoky Mountains. But her efforts through her Dollywood Foundation are myriad, ranging from anti-animal cruelty and conservation to the American Red Cross and HIV/AIDS-related charities, not to mention medical research.

Perhaps what is so remarkable about Dolly Parton’srecent ascent to hero status in these troubled times, is that she has arisen as a voice of reason and good, and has proved a great unifier in a fragmented world. She’s even weighed in on #BlackLivesMatter with credibility, when she was alerted that the word ‘Dixie’, as in her Dixie Stampede Dinner Theatre Show, was seen to be offensive.“When 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,” she told Billboard magazine. “As soon as you realise that [something] is a problem, you should fix it. Don’t be a dumbass. That’s where my heart is.“I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen,” she also said. “And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”

February 8 2020: Dolly Parton's Stampede is a dinner and show attraction on the strip in Branson Missouri.

When the state of Tennessee wanted to replace some of the toppled statues of confederate leaders with one of her, however, she declined, saying she didn’t think she was the kind of person who should be put on a pedestal right now.

And yet, between April last year and her initial donation to vaccine development, to this March when she received her shot, in many ways she has been put on a pedestal.

Dolly Parton at the 61st Grammy Awards at the Staples Center on February 10, 2019 in Los Angeles, CA.

It may seem strange that a white country singer in her mid-70s should end up being a kind of icon of hope in our times. But you can also see why she has such credibility.

Her impulses are fundamentally generous, her intentions kind, and her good deeds and philanthropy consistent. She’s not just smart and funny (she once famously quipped, when asked about having plastic surgery, “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap”) but she’s basically honest and considerate, as demonstrated in her Billboard interview. She’s also straight-talking and direct.

When you look at it like that, it’s no wonder she’s won over the American (and global) public all over again. It doesn’t matter what package those qualities come in. •

Dolly Parton pictured in Los Angeles, California, in the early 90s.