Save Story Save this story Save Story Save this story She was Just. So. Darn. Good. Good at writing songs that wrenched the soul. Good at singing them with a voice that was, as she said, “real different.” Good at witty repartee: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb…and I also know I’m not blonde.” Good at spreading her wealth .
And maybe most surprisingly, good at showing us, once and for all, the profound importance of intention behind our aesthetic choices.
In Dolly Parton ’s case—because who else could we be talking about—the aesthetic choices involved the familiar cartoonish physical proportions, along with mile-high cotton-candy hair , fingernails in the extreme , and heels so towering she had to have them handmade, especially for her.
In other words, Dolly was a convenient, if not perfect, target for the kind of finger-pointing and simmering outrage often aimed at other women who seem to have achieved their ultra-feminized figures with injections and surgeries (looking at you, Kim K. and Lauren B.).
Why was she adored rather than vilified? You might say it’s because of the accretion of all of the good she did—likely true. But I think, importantly, it’s also because of Dolly’s relationship to her physical transformation: It was playful, creative, an exercise in extravagance, a loving tribute to the “trashy” character she wanted to be. Her facial and bodily fiddling, as I like to call it, didn’t come from a place of shame or insecurity or self-disparagement.
Dolly Parton at the Steel Magnolias premiere in 1989.
By now you must know that Dolly was born in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains, the fourth of 12 children raised in deep poverty. She often talked about meeting a neighbor with her mother when she was a little girl, a woman who wore makeup and painted her nails and seemed to Dolly the epitome of glamour. When she expressed her admiration, her mother told her “that woman is trash.” “Well, that’s who I want to be when I grow up,” said Dolly.
Much later, having achieved her childhood goal, she said many times: “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap.” Her proportions may have been artificial, but there was no artifice in her intention. “Having had plastic surgery is something I am not embarrassed about,” she wrote in Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “I have done it and I will do it again when something in my mirror doesn’t look to me like it belongs on Dolly Parton.” Statements like that are another reason her body modifications were received by the public with far more joy, than judgment. She always gave us total, consistent transparency about how they were achieved—often with a cheeky one-liner thrown in, but she also spoke at times about the risks involved in surgery and the fear that comes with it. She never wasted our time with details of her daily water intake, or the miracles of olive oil on middle-aged skin.
On Larry King Live many years ago, Dolly spoke about having had multiple facial surgeries, collagen in her lips, Botox, and other aesthetic procedures. When King asked why she’s so willing to share that information, almost always secreted by a public figure, she said, “Well, because people like you ask me, and I don’t want to lie about it.” Compare that response to the exchange in this magazine a few years ago between incredulous interviewer Danielle Pergament and Kim Kardashian :
Her gaze is unwavering, accentuated by her eyelashes . Insanely long eyelashes.…