Dolly Parton: Why She Doesn’t Talk Politics
Dolly Parton admitted that when her 9 To 5 co-stars Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin started to bash President Trump at the 2017 Emmy Awards, she was a bit uncomfortable, but it wasn’t because she agreed or disagreed with them.
Parton told The Guardian last week, “I don’t like to be known by the company I keep, so to speak. I want to be my own individual self. If I’ve got something to say, I’ll say it, but I don’t want to be dragged into it.”
She added, “I just did not want everybody to think that whatever they think is what I think. I don’t really like getting up on TV and saying political things. I don’t even want to make a deal out of it, but I want people to know I’m my own individual self. Even though [Fonda, Tomlin and I] may agree on a whole lot of things — and they may have more agreement [between] themselves because they’ve been together for longer — I still have my own thoughts and my own way of doing things. It’s not a matter of being disrespectful, it’s just, ‘OK, that’s what they said, I’m not getting involved in it.’”
As for her own political views, she knows what they are and that’s good enough for her. “I’ve got as many Republican friends as I’ve got Democrat friends and I just don’t like voicing my opinion on things,” she says. “I’ve seen things before, like the Dixie Chicks. You can ruin a career for speaking out. I respect my audience too much for that, I respect myself too much for that. Of course, I have my own opinions, but that don’t mean I got to throw them out there because you’re going to piss off half the people.”
When the subject of the #MeToo movement of sexual Harassment was raised, Dolly said, “I’m pretty sure [sexual harassment had] always been bad. It’s just that with the #MeToo movement women are bolder to speak out against it. I have [dealt with it], but I have always been able to maneuver because I come from a family of six brothers, so I understand men and I’ve known more good men than bad men. It’s a man’s world, and it’s not their fault any more than it is just life and … we have allowed it to happen.”
So, is Parton a feminist? “I must be if being a feminist means I’m all for women, yes,” she says. “But I don’t feel I have to march, hold up a sign or label myself. I think the way I have conducted my life and my business and myself speaks for itself. I don’t think of it as being feminist. It’s not a label I have to put on myself. I’m just all for gals.”
-Nancy Brooks
