Dollywood: A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Gay

The New York Times
Dollywood: A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Gay
AUG. 22, 2014

(excerpt)
...That Dolly Parton, 68, is also a gay icon would probably be news to many of the guests in cargo shorts and tennis shoes who wait patiently in line each day until “The Star Spangled Banner” is sung and the park opens. But for the rest of us, it is not.

First of all, it’s no secret that Ms. Parton is a patron saint of drag queens. Her look, she has said, is patterned after the bleached hair and red lipstick of the town tramp, whom she admired. It both embraces and mocks the best and worst of high country glamour and feminine features.

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Ms. Parton likes to joke that if she hadn’t been born female, she would have ended up a drag queen. She even entered a drag contest once in Santa Monica — and lost badly.

More broadly, Ms. Parton is nothing if not a survivor, which feeds her status among her gay fans. She has defied critics, stayed true to herself and turned stereotype into power....

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