Dollitics AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Dolly Parton's America

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Episode: Dollitics

Author: WNYC Studios & OSM Audio
Duration: 00:44:50

Episode Shownotes

Dolly Parton and politics have always had an interesting relationship. On the one hand, she wrote 9 to 5, the anthem for working women and the theme song for a movie inspired by a new labor union. On the other hand, she refuses to answer questions about President Trump, or

any question on politics period. Her nephew calls this “Dollitics”: Dolly doesn’t take a position because she knows half her fans are on the right, half are on the left. In this moment in history, how should we think of this kind of fiercely apolitical stance? Is it desirable, or even possible?

Summary

In the 'Dollitics' episode of 'Dolly Parton's America,' hosted by Jad Abumrad, the complex intersection of Dolly Parton's apolitical stance and her role in advocating for working women's rights is examined. Despite her iconic song '9 to 5' serving as a rallying cry for labor rights, Parton maintains neutrality in political discussions, a choice shaped by past controversies. The episode explores the implications of her position within a polarized society, considering whether remaining politically neutral is viable or desirable, especially when faced with expectations from both fans and family.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Dollitics) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:04 Speaker_22
Listener supported. WNYC Studios. It's verbal judo. She's the best interviewee on the planet. Nobody does interviews like Dolly. I'm very outspoken politically, but I try not to talk Dolly tics at all.

00:00:32 Speaker_13
Anyway, so we're getting ready to go. We're just waiting here in the wings.

00:00:35 Speaker_02
Gotcha.

00:00:35 Speaker_13
Then we're going to go get in the car.

00:00:37 Speaker_02
I'm excited about that.

00:00:38 Speaker_13
You can ask me whatever you ask me, and I'm going to tell you what I want you to hear.

00:00:44 Speaker_02
I'm Chad Iboomrod. This is Dolly Barnes America, episode 5, Dolletix. Hat tip to Brian Sievert, Dolly's nephew and bodyguard, for coining the term. We begin this episode in London, in room 327 at the Savoy Hotel. Yeah.

00:00:59 Speaker_13
Well, they actually changed it.

00:01:00 Speaker_02
Oh, they did. Just a few minutes before Dolly's supposed to walk the red carpet for the premiere of 9 to 5, the musical.

00:01:07 Speaker_02
9 to 5, if you don't know, massive film from 1980 about three women who rise up against their sexist, egotistical boss, spawned one of the great political anthems of our time. I'll go into all that later.

00:01:19 Speaker_02
For the moment, just know it's being revived as a musical in London. That's why we're here. How are you feeling about everything so far?

00:01:25 Speaker_13
Oh, it's exciting. I'm really more excited than anything, because I haven't seen it all.

00:01:29 Speaker_13
I mean, I've been working with them, writing new stuff and putting things together, but I'm just excited to see the new cast and to hear the new songs, how they work.

00:01:37 Speaker_02
I can feel the energy of the event, and so it's hard for me to even focus. Outside the hotel, it's mayhem.

00:01:46 Speaker_07
Can we clear the back porch just for the protocol?

00:01:50 Speaker_02
Not only are thousands of people waiting for Dolly to emerge, but all weekend long, all throughout London. been protests.

00:01:59 Speaker_13
I guess they're protesting some kind of fashion something and then the environment I guess there's thousands of people out in the streets doing other things. Inside the room,

00:02:39 Speaker_02
It's a spooky mix of energies Dolly's team led by Danny Nazelle her manager are zipping around like all-electric Dolly now I have to sign some autographs it never ends. Yeah, totally chill It's never out.

00:02:53 Speaker_13
It's never over. It's going on all the time.

00:02:55 Speaker_02
Gotcha Danny brings in some posters with her face on it that she's supposed to sign before the show I'm gonna capture the sound of your pen

00:03:02 Speaker_13
Okay, well I don't know if this is going to show on that. That don't even make a noise on this. Danny, that's not a good one. My hair colored that one out. I don't know.

00:03:13 Speaker_21
Would you like a black Sharpie for that?

00:03:14 Speaker_13
It's too late now.

00:03:16 Speaker_02
Go time. Alright, we're walking down the hall. I guess we're on our way to the red carpet.

00:03:22 Speaker_13
Now we're going to go down, get in the car, because we have to drive around to the red carpet, to the front of the building.

00:03:31 Speaker_02
Dolly hums her way down the hall. Her dress has all of these glass beads on it that swish back and forth musically as she walks, and she hums to the rhythm of their swishing. She's flanked by, I don't know, 12 men, many of whom have very big guns.

00:03:46 Speaker_13
Hello. Thank you.

00:03:50 Speaker_02
We all crowd into this tiny elevator. where there's a middle-aged British couple who happen to be standing there and are totally stunned.

00:04:14 Speaker_13
We're just having to go around the building.

00:04:15 Speaker_02
Okay. We hop into a black SUV and drive literally halfway around the block from one side of the hotel to the other where the red carpet is.

00:04:24 Speaker_16
No, you're gonna get on my side, but I gotta get out before you. We're on a time frame. Gotcha.

00:04:28 Speaker_13
If you hear them ask questions, you're welcome to.

00:04:30 Speaker_02
Alright, I'll do it. I'll do it.

00:04:33 Speaker_13
And if you decide to ask one right in the middle of that, I'll answer you too.

00:04:36 Speaker_02
Again, icy calm. Oh my god, look at all these people.

00:04:42 Speaker_23
You ready?

00:04:44 Speaker_13
Are you ready for me?

00:04:55 Speaker_02
2,000 people go bonkers.

00:04:56 Speaker_17
She steps out onto the red carpet.

00:05:05 Speaker_02
She starts to field questions. Why is the show still so relevant?

00:05:09 Speaker_15
Well, I think we've made a good point. When we did it 40 years ago, we did a lot of good. I don't know if modern residents do think this story has for modern audiences now. I mean, the women in work, it's a different world.

00:05:19 Speaker_15
How modern do you think this story is?

00:05:20 Speaker_13
Well, I think it's as relevant now as it was before, and in a way with the new Me Too movement, I think this is really a good time for it.

00:05:27 Speaker_02
People ask her what advice does she have for working women. A lot of other questions related to workplace harassment, which was a big part of the original 9 to 5. But very quickly, the questions broaden out.

00:05:38 Speaker_20
At the moment in the UK, we've got Brexit looming. Have you got any dolly advice to help the UK get through? We can't hardly even take care of our own problems, so let's try to solve yours. Several reporters ask her about Brexit.

00:05:56 Speaker_02
She gets asked about climate change, what does she think about the protests that are sweeping London. She spends about four minutes swatting all those questions away. But then, maybe about 10 steps and 20 questions in, something shifts.

00:06:17 Speaker_02
I couldn't tell what was going on at the time, but all of a sudden Dolly's security detail snapped into a tight circle around her. I was caught in the middle. I actually started to feel like I couldn't breathe.

00:06:28 Speaker_02
And then the whole circle started moving really fast.

00:06:36 Speaker_02
I'd find out later, when I spoke with Brian, Dolly's head of security, that what was actually happening in that moment was that a guy with a knife had rushed the red carpet, somebody had tackled him, disarmed him, then the rest of the security guys had made a circle around Dolly, which I was inadvertently in the middle of, and then they whisked her away from the red carpet and in the process ejected me out onto the sidewalk.

00:07:01 Speaker_02
That was bananas. That was bananas. When Shima and I asked Brian, like, what did the guy want? He said, I don't know, he probably just saw an opportunity. He was like, this is just what happens.

00:07:17 Speaker_02
Dolly's trying to do her job, open a new show, and somebody rushes in, tries to attach themselves to that so they can be heard. Actually, we don't know what the guy wanted. But her team did what they always do, circumvent disaster.

00:07:31 Speaker_02
Dolly seems to be able to do that time and time again, not just on red carpets. But countless times in her career, every political election, she manages to glide above the fray. So much so that we started calling her the Great Unifier.

00:07:47 Speaker_02
It's one of the through-line ideas of the series. But in these intensely divided times, can she do that much longer?

00:07:56 Speaker_22
Well, you know, people will always try to pull, you know, what her opinion is on certain politics or try to attach her to certain candidates.

00:08:05 Speaker_13
Well, there's a lot of pressure. People seem to be expecting a lot from me. But I figure I can't think about that. I hope I don't let people down. They've put me up on this pedestal. I hope they don't knock me off of it.

00:08:21 Speaker_02
Truth is, the expectations, the pedestal, it's not new. She's been navigating that for a while. But what has raised Dalatix to the level of an art, it's like judo.

00:08:32 Speaker_22
She is, it's verbal judo.

00:08:34 Speaker_02
Is that she has sidestepped controversy, stayed above the fray, while standing at the center of a giant political movement that she wrote the anthem for that is still being used by politicians to this day.

00:08:46 Speaker_05
Hello?

00:08:48 Speaker_02
And that brings us to Karen.

00:08:50 Speaker_05
So my name is Karen Nussbaum. My title, that's tough, man. I am a founder of 9to5, the National Association of Working Women and Working America.

00:09:02 Speaker_02
And so as I understand it, this story begins for you in the early 70s with your friendship with Jane Fonda.

00:09:09 Speaker_03
Jane Fonda, the most beautiful creature of the future.

00:09:13 Speaker_05
Is that right? That's right. Jane Fonda and I were both in the Indochina peace campaign.

00:09:20 Speaker_02
What was that exactly?

00:09:22 Speaker_05
In the early 70s, Nixon had said, I've asked for this television time tonight. The war is over.

00:09:28 Speaker_12
Make public a plan for peace that can end the war in Vietnam.

00:09:32 Speaker_05
But it wasn't over.

00:09:33 Speaker_00
The American public is not being told the truth. Richard Nixon is telling us the war is over and the war is escalating.

00:09:39 Speaker_05
And Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden created an organization called the Indochina Peace Campaign. And it was to go back out into the public and say, we have a big responsibility here.

00:09:50 Speaker_00
And we, as political people, have to be sure that we don't ever stop.

00:09:54 Speaker_05
We have to bring it to an end.

00:09:55 Speaker_00
This is Jane Fonda speaking from New York.

00:10:00 Speaker_02
This campaign famously included Jane Fonda touring North Vietnam in 1972 and broadcasting messages of support to the communist forces that the U.S. was then fighting.

00:10:10 Speaker_04
Hanoi Jane would henceforth rank right up there with World War II enemy propagandists Tokyo Rose and Axis Salad.

00:10:17 Speaker_02
It's what would get her the label Hanoi Jane and make her, in some circles, the most hated woman in America.

00:10:23 Speaker_12
She will always be a traitor. Hanoi Jane sucks. She needs to go down in history for what she is, the traitor.

00:10:30 Speaker_02
Okay, so as all of that was happening, Karen says she was in Boston organizing against the war.

00:10:34 Speaker_05
I thought of myself as an activist, but I also had to, you know, pay the rent. And so I had to get a job. And I ended up getting a job that was the most typical job for women, which was to be a clerical worker.

00:10:53 Speaker_09
Remember, keep in mind, the 1970s is this moment when you have millions of women working for wages for the first time.

00:11:02 Speaker_02
This is Lane Windham, labor rights historian at Georgetown University. You can't overestimate just the level of change that was happening in the 70s, she says.

00:11:09 Speaker_09
Women until 1970, 73, 74 couldn't even get credit in their own name. They had to get a man or their brother or husband or whatever. to get credit.

00:11:21 Speaker_02
Wow.

00:11:22 Speaker_09
That was the culture.

00:11:23 Speaker_02
Then she says you had a bunch of economic forces coming together, a bunch of civil rights legislation coming together, and suddenly 12 million women, like Karen, enter the workforce en masse.

00:11:33 Speaker_09
The single most common job for women to hold is a secretary or office clerical. And the women who held those positions were treated as the wife.

00:11:45 Speaker_02
You know, they're expected to get the coffee.

00:11:46 Speaker_09
Expected to, you know, be a sex symbol in the office.

00:11:51 Speaker_05
I wasn't thinking about it. It was really just, OK, this will bring in a paycheck every week.

00:11:57 Speaker_02
So Karen was at Harvard working as a typist, pretty much hating her job, but seeing it as a way to fund her activism, which had to do with the war and things happening out there.

00:12:07 Speaker_02
But then one day she's walking home from work and she passes by a restaurant.

00:12:10 Speaker_05
And actually what happened was there was a group of waitresses holding picket signs.

00:12:19 Speaker_05
there's just these eight working-class waitresses who, you know, got hit on the butt one time too many or disrespected by the boss or whatever it was, and they decide that they're going to go on strike.

00:12:35 Speaker_02
Karen says she started to march with him, and it was a light bulb moment. Like, oh, I could do activism about my work.

00:12:42 Speaker_05
So she gathered 10 clerical workers together. Working in different workplaces, a hospital, an insurance company, a publishing house, a shoe factory. They formed a group, began to meet weekly, and after a few months.

00:12:55 Speaker_05
We decided to create a citywide organization that we decided to call 9 to 5.

00:13:05 Speaker_02
over the next couple of years.

00:13:07 Speaker_09
They created an office worker's bill of rights. We want these minimum standards implemented now. And launched a big press conference. They did studies of the publishing industry and the banking industry.

00:13:20 Speaker_19
The pay runs up to 40% less than men get for jobs at the same skill and effort level.

00:13:25 Speaker_05
There's also Phil Donahue.

00:13:30 Speaker_02
He had a popular TV talk show, Daytime.

00:13:33 Speaker_05
9to5 used to do an annual bad boss contest.

00:13:37 Speaker_09
Oh, they were so funny. They were hilarious. OK, so they would hold contests.

00:13:42 Speaker_02
Donahue would invite the 9to5 activists onto the show, and they would hold these big contests.

00:13:46 Speaker_19
We held a contest to determine the worst thing your boss makes you do. And they'd do it in a big public way. So for instance, a winner was a man who owned his own business.

00:13:57 Speaker_19
He was late for a meeting and he had a rip in his pants, right in the back of his pants, and he asked his secretary to sew the rip while he kept the pants on. He dropped his pants and she sewed the rip.

00:14:10 Speaker_03
Give me some other winners, just briefly.

00:14:12 Speaker_09
Then there was the boss who required his secretary to vacuum up his nail clippings from the floor. He won the personal hygiene award.

00:14:21 Speaker_02
Oh, that makes my stomach turn.

00:14:23 Speaker_09
I would have a bunch of women go deliver it to him in front of the news cameras.

00:14:27 Speaker_02
Okay, so Karen was doing all this, holding all these contests, filing all these lawsuits, fighting for equal pay. She had this movie star friend.

00:14:33 Speaker_05
Jane and I saw each other regularly as we worked on ending the war.

00:14:38 Speaker_10
You know, every time we would see each other, she would tell me stories about what the women office workers were up against.

00:14:44 Speaker_05
And it was exciting to her.

00:14:46 Speaker_10
Yeah.

00:14:47 Speaker_02
This is Jane Fonda, of course.

00:14:48 Speaker_05
One day, Jane just came to me and said, what if we made a movie?

00:14:53 Speaker_02
So Karen invites Jane to a meeting of 40 clerical workers that she'd organized. Jane brings some Hollywood people with her.

00:14:59 Speaker_05
One of them asked the women, have you ever dreamed of getting even with your boss? And the place lit up. They all had dreamed of getting even with their boss.

00:15:11 Speaker_10
Yes, I remember one woman said she imagined putting Cutting up her boss and putting him in a coffee grinder and then making drip coffee out of him.

00:15:23 Speaker_02
Wow.

00:15:23 Speaker_10
Another fantasized breaking his knees with a bat as he walked by. I mean, they were.

00:15:28 Speaker_02
Oh, my God.

00:15:29 Speaker_10
You know, some of them were so violent that we couldn't possibly use them in the movie.

00:15:34 Speaker_02
But she says when she heard all those dark fantasies start spilling out.

00:15:37 Speaker_10
I thought, oh, my God, there it is.

00:15:41 Speaker_03
There's the movie. 20th Century Fox presents a tribute to anyone who has ever been overworked, underpaid, and pushed to the edge by an ungrateful boss.

00:15:55 Speaker_02
Quick refresher on the movie, in case you haven't seen it or haven't seen it recently. 9 to 5 is the story of three female office workers.

00:16:01 Speaker_07
Hi, this is Violet.

00:16:02 Speaker_02
There's Violet.

00:16:03 Speaker_13
Welcome to the front lines.

00:16:04 Speaker_02
Played by Lily Tomlin. There's Doralee.

00:16:06 Speaker_13
I think he told everybody I was sleeping with him.

00:16:09 Speaker_02
Played by Dolly Parton. And there's Judy.

00:16:11 Speaker_19
Couldn't we just all get together and and complain?"

00:16:14 Speaker_02
Played by Jane Fonda.

00:16:15 Speaker_19
Let's face it, we are in a pink-collar ghetto.

00:16:19 Speaker_02
So they've got this boss, Mr. Hart, who's played by Dabney Coleman, who demeans the female employees, openly harasses Dolly's character.

00:16:25 Speaker_13
Mr. Hart? Told you before, I'm a married woman. I'm a married man.

00:16:29 Speaker_02
That's what makes it so perfect. And the story of the movie is these three women getting revenge. And it's, of course, hilarious and over the top. They inadvertently kidnap him. At one point, they string him up from the ceiling.

00:16:50 Speaker_02
One of the interesting things we learned is that the original script for the movie was way darker, a little closer in spirit to that 9 to 5 meeting. I mean, there was a cyanide scene written in, an electrocution scene.

00:17:01 Speaker_02
But Jane Fonda nixed that version because she felt that the only way the movie would work as a political vehicle was if it were a farce.

00:17:10 Speaker_10
You know, the way I think you make these kind of movies is you make a movie so that even if people don't want a deal, with the issues that we're raising don't like the movie anyway because it's really funny.

00:17:22 Speaker_00
And as we know... A man in Hollywood, Jim Brown, goes behind the scenes of the movie 9 to 5 to find out what the office talk is.

00:17:29 Speaker_02
People did like the movie. It blew up. Jane remembers women shouting at the screen.

00:17:35 Speaker_10
These were their stories. And I knew that the fact that we were putting their issues up on the screen this way would make a real difference.

00:17:44 Speaker_02
This was really the first national conversation about workplace harassment. It was like Me Too Beta. And it allowed us to explode. Karen says 9to5 became a full-fledged union and added 20 local chapters almost immediately.

00:17:58 Speaker_05
It just took off like a rocket.

00:18:00 Speaker_10
Office workers all over the country felt empowered and uplifted and seen for the first time because of the movie.

00:18:08 Speaker_02
So now we come back to Dolly. who at this point had never been in a movie.

00:18:12 Speaker_10
No.

00:18:13 Speaker_02
And what gave you the idea to cast her?

00:18:15 Speaker_10
It went like this. During the process of development.

00:18:18 Speaker_02
She says she was driving home one day.

00:18:20 Speaker_10
I turned the radio on and Dolly Parton was singing Two Doors Down. And I suddenly had a vision of Dolly as a secretary. Just the visual. You know, she can't see her hands. Typing with those long fingernails, everything about it made me laugh.

00:18:44 Speaker_10
And I thought, wow, she's never been in a movie. Even if she can, which I had no idea if she could or not, I thought people would want to see the movie because of her. You know, I didn't realize how fabulous the choice would end up being.

00:19:00 Speaker_02
I wonder, was there any thought in your mind that, like, you're trying to deliver a message, like a political message in a movie, but you are a polarizing figure at this point, and that maybe she was a way to bridge to an audience that you wouldn't normally be able to reach?

00:19:16 Speaker_10
Well, I didn't. That would have implied that I was smarter than I am and more strategic. A real business person would have thought, oh, that would bring in the southern demographic. That's a good business idea. I didn't think that way.

00:19:32 Speaker_02
Dolly in her autobiography.

00:19:34 Speaker_13
She was very upfront about the fact that she thought I'd have to see him do well in the South.

00:19:39 Speaker_02
says the exact opposite. But as for what Dolly was thinking at the time... I'd like to thank all of you for coming this afternoon. I'm sure you knew... And she explained this at a press event on the day of the film's opening.

00:19:48 Speaker_13
Well, I was attracted to the idea of doing 9 to 5 because I had been looking through scripts for a few months. And so it just seemed like it would be a good idea and working for the first time in a film with

00:20:02 Speaker_13
great people like Jane and Lily, I figured if it was a success that we would all enjoy, you know, the benefits. And if it was a flop, they could take the blame for it.

00:20:12 Speaker_02
Dolly said, in a very tongue-in-cheek sort of way, but she was very upfront about it, that she was making a political calculation. She knew that for her country music fans, appearing with Jane Fonda, Hanoi Jane, was risky.

00:20:26 Speaker_13
She's so outspoken and so political and you know a lot of stuff she talks about I don't necessarily agree with but then a lot of stuff she talks about I do but I just thought well now this ought to be real interesting because I'm also very opinionated in what I believe in although I respect anybody's beliefs

00:20:43 Speaker_13
and the fact that they're willing to stand up for whatever it is. But I'm also the kind of person that if I don't like where you got it, I can tell you where to put it.

00:20:51 Speaker_02
But then she says the real reason that she agreed to do the movie, to take that political risk, was for the chance to write the music for the film.

00:21:00 Speaker_13
Because the music is most important to me and I wouldn't have agreed to do 9 to 5 if I hadn't seen it as an outlet for my music, which, you know, that part of my deal was to do the theme song.

00:21:09 Speaker_10
One day Dolly arrived on the set and she said, Hey y'all, come over here, I think I got a song for us.

00:21:19 Speaker_13
On the set, when we did that with Jane and Lily, I wear these acrylic nails.

00:21:23 Speaker_10
And she used her fingernails like a washboard. kind of, you know, keeping time, rubbing her fingernails together. Clickety, clickety, click. So I thought it sounded like a typewriter, too.

00:21:33 Speaker_13
So I'd do, I'd tumble out of bed and stumble into the kitchen. A cup of ambition. I love that line. And I remember when I was writing that Pour Myself, and I was going to say coffee, and I said, a cup of ambition! Yeah! And I said, high five!

00:21:49 Speaker_10
And she sang the working 9 to 5. And I mean both Lily and I looked at each other and we had goosebumps. Because we knew this was it and that it was going to be a huge hit and it would become a movement anthem.

00:22:09 Speaker_02
Oh, did you know that immediately?

00:22:10 Speaker_10
Yeah.

00:22:14 Speaker_14
For service and devotion You would think that I Would deserve a fair promotion Want to move ahead But the boss won't seem to let me I swear sometimes that man is

00:22:32 Speaker_02
Jane says from the moment she heard the song, she just knew this was the entire working women's movement captured. That this was going to outlive the movie because it was all there.

00:22:45 Speaker_10
Yeah.

00:22:46 Speaker_02
Yeah.

00:22:46 Speaker_10
When people think about think about working women or working, that's that's the go to song.

00:22:53 Speaker_02
And as for why it works so well... Here's how Karen Nussbaum broke it down to Lynn Neary of NPR. She says, check out the sequence of ideas in the song.

00:23:02 Speaker_05
It starts with pride. Pour yourself a cup of ambition. And then it goes to grievances. They always take the credit. It then goes to class conflict. You're just a step on the boss man's ladder, and then it ends with collective power.

00:23:21 Speaker_05
You're in the same boat with a lot of your friends. So in the space of this wildly popular song with a great beat, Dolly Parton just puts it all together all by herself.

00:23:37 Speaker_05
And if you feel like the 9 to 5 song is on a continuous loop in your brain, it's because you're hearing it all over the place.

00:23:46 Speaker_18
When Elizabeth Warren went to make her announcement that she was going to run for president, she was playing 9 to 5.

00:23:59 Speaker_09
Oh, I'm a huge Dolly Parton fan. I mean, what's not to love, right?

00:24:03 Speaker_05
Before her?

00:24:04 Speaker_12
The next president of the United States, Hillary Clinton.

00:24:08 Speaker_02
She was playing 9 to 5. But here's where you get to the Dalitics of it all. You've got one of the great political protest songs of the last, I don't know, 50 years? You can debate me on that. I'll stand by it.

00:24:18 Speaker_02
It's a song that was born from a movie literally made to promote a union.

00:24:23 Speaker_02
And yet when Elizabeth Warren tried to use the song, Elizabeth Warren, who is a huge supporter of unions, Dolly's manager, Danny DeZell, issued a statement saying, We did not approve this request.

00:24:35 Speaker_16
And we do not approve requests like this of a political nature.

00:24:45 Speaker_02
Coming up, we asked Dolly, what's really behind that? That refusal. And her answer? I got to say, it is stuck so deep in my head that literally I've been thinking about it every day for the last 18 months.

00:25:02 Speaker_02
I'm Jad Abumrad, Dolly Parton's America will continue in a moment. I'm Jad Abumrad, this is Dolly Parton's America.

00:25:13 Speaker_02
I'll admit that when I learned about 9to5, the labor movement, and how it inspired 9to5 the movie, and how that gave birth to 9to5 the song, which probably right now is being sung at 95 different protests, I'll admit, I was a little puzzled by

00:25:30 Speaker_02
The thing you hear often from Dolly and her team, which is that we don't do politics.

00:25:33 Speaker_16
We do not approve requests of a political nature.

00:25:37 Speaker_02
Well, isn't the song a political song? I mean, that's where I was at. Wasn't sure what to make of this thing which seemed like a contradiction to me. But then, we got to talking about this one moment.

00:25:53 Speaker_02
Came up the first time in the lobby of the Savoy Hotel in the UK talking to this guy. I'm Sam Haskell. He's one of Dolly's production partners.

00:26:00 Speaker_23
We produce movies together. We've done things for NBC, Lifetime.

00:26:04 Speaker_02
We were sitting in the lobby and we started to talk about dolitics, how any time a political subject comes up, she'll deflect. And I'll give you a perfect example.

00:26:13 Speaker_23
We found ourselves nominated for best movie of the year at the Emmys in 2017.

00:26:22 Speaker_03
The nominees for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series are... Well, it just so happened that... Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin... Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda were also nominated for Grace and Frankie.

00:26:32 Speaker_23
So I had this idea that I let become everybody else's idea, but I had this idea. that we should have the three of them reunite for the first time since 9 to 5, because they're all three Emmy nominees at the same award show.

00:26:46 Speaker_02
That was your idea? That was my idea. Okay.

00:26:48 Speaker_17
Ladies and gentlemen, here they are again, and still working at 9 to 5. Here are three of tonight's nominees, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, and Jane Fonda.

00:26:58 Speaker_23
Well, if you'll remember, they came out with Dolly in the middle.

00:27:01 Speaker_13
Thank you! Oh, that's nice. Well, we appreciate that. And personally, I have been waiting for a 9 to 5 reunion ever since we did the first one. Well.

00:27:13 Speaker_02
Can you walk me through that moment from your perspective?

00:27:16 Speaker_13
Yeah.

00:27:16 Speaker_02
So it's Trump's been in office for about 10 months, nine months at this point. The three of you walk out, you're going to present an award for best supporting actor. First thing that happens is Jane Fonda says, I forget what it was.

00:27:30 Speaker_13
Well, it was a line actually from the movie Lying, Hypocritical... You're a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.

00:27:38 Speaker_08
Now back in 1980 in that movie, we refused to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot. Really?

00:27:51 Speaker_07
And in 2017, we still refuse to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical business.

00:28:03 Speaker_13
It was really the famous line from the show, 9 to 5, and a lot of people didn't know that, but they were using it in a roundabout way to apply to Donald Trump.

00:28:19 Speaker_02
Your eyes got really wide when they said it.

00:28:20 Speaker_13
— Well, I didn't like it. I had already told Jane and Lily, I said, now look, I'm not going to get into the politics of anything. So the writers had written up this whole stuff for us to say. I said, I'm not saying it. I don't do politics.

00:28:37 Speaker_13
I have too many fans on both sides of the fence. Of course, I have my opinion about everything. But I learned years ago to keep your mouth shut about things. I saw what happened to the Dixie Chicks.

00:28:51 Speaker_02
Let me just stop the tape for a second. When Dolly talks about what happened to the Dixie Chicks.

00:28:57 Speaker_14
Our love will never end. Waiting for the soldier to come back.

00:29:02 Speaker_02
What she's referring to is something that happened in March of 2003. The Dixie Chicks were the highest-selling female band of all time. They had a No.

00:29:11 Speaker_02
1 song, they were touring Europe, but then in London... Natalie Maines, the lead singer, is talking to the London crowd. And she says... Kind of hard to hear, but she says we're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.

00:29:33 Speaker_02
She was referring to George W. Bush, who is from Texas. So were the Dixie Chicks. London crowd loves it. But.

00:29:42 Speaker_21
The London story was picked up by the Associated Press and printed in newspapers all over the United States.

00:29:47 Speaker_02
This was 18 months after 9-11 and just 10 days before the US would invade Iraq.

00:29:52 Speaker_07
And how they can say I'm ashamed that the president's from Texas? Come on, man.

00:29:56 Speaker_10
Traitors. Dixie sluts. Anti-American.

00:29:59 Speaker_22
I think they could send Natalie over to Iraq, strap her to a bomb, and just drop her over Baghdad. I never want to hear another Dixie Chick song again.

00:30:06 Speaker_07
We're going to boycott them for their music and we're going to boycott you for playing it if you

00:30:11 Speaker_12
Country radio overnight turns its back on the Dixie Chicks.

00:30:14 Speaker_18
As a result of statements made by members of the Dixie Chicks at a concert, two radio networks banned the Dixie Chicks from their playlists at a chain level.

00:30:21 Speaker_05
The Chicks' number one hit, Traveling Soldier, quickly fell from the top of the charts.

00:30:26 Speaker_02
Their record sales crashed and their career kind of crashed too.

00:30:29 Speaker_10
All because of one split-second comment aimed at President Bush right before the war with Iraq.

00:30:35 Speaker_13
I have as many fans that are Democrats as I do Republicans. And you don't want to hurt anybody. And it's not my place to be doing that anyway. I'm an entertainer. That's what I said to them. I'm an entertainer. I am not up here to bash somebody else.

00:30:57 Speaker_13
So y'all just do what you do. I'm not playing that game.

00:31:10 Speaker_02
So here's what happens.

00:31:10 Speaker_08
That being said, tonight we're here to recognize some men who conduct themselves with the utmost integrity.

00:31:17 Speaker_07
They're nominated for their extraordinary work in supporting roles.

00:31:22 Speaker_02
Right at this moment, Dolly steps in.

00:31:24 Speaker_13
Well, I know about support. Hadn't been for good support. Yeah, shucking off here would be more like Flopsy and Droopy. And I think... try to turn it around and make it kind of funny.

00:31:40 Speaker_13
And instead of doing that, like I say, I can always depend on a boob joke, you know, if I have to. That's why I got to lean back on them. Like I said, I don't know if I'm supporting them or they're supporting me.

00:31:51 Speaker_13
How about a shout out for Dabney Coleman out there? Actually, I'm here to have a good time tonight, and I'm just hoping. But congratulations on your nomination for your show. I'm just hoping. You too, by the way. Yeah, thank you.

00:32:04 Speaker_13
I'm just hoping that I'm going to get one of those Grace and Frankie vibrators in my swag bag tonight.

00:32:10 Speaker_19
You think that's possible?

00:32:13 Speaker_02
Within just a few seconds, Dolly had disarmed the whole room.

00:32:17 Speaker_13
Anyway, here are the nominees for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. That whole night, they had just, everything was just bashing, you know, Donald Trump. It wouldn't make any difference how I feel about him.

00:32:32 Speaker_13
I just thought, my God, you know, it's like, and somebody, you know, just, why does it all have to be about politics?

00:32:39 Speaker_02
In the days after the Emmys, some people praised Dolly and how she sort of navigated the situation.

00:32:45 Speaker_12
She's done a very good job of keeping herself in the clean and the narrow.

00:32:48 Speaker_02
But she also came in for a fair amount of criticism from all angles.

00:32:52 Speaker_18
I want to talk briefly about the statements made by Hanoi Jane Fonda and Lily Lip-Tarted Tomlin at last night's Emmy Awards ceremony. She knew what was going down. She knew what they were going to do. Parton stayed silent.

00:33:04 Speaker_18
Does Dolly Parton support those statements made? Because I am a lifelong fan of country music, and I think that country music fans should be outraged.

00:33:13 Speaker_02
Some people on the left attacked her for not speaking out against President Trump. Others on the right attacked her for not speaking out for President Trump.

00:33:21 Speaker_13
Well, you could have upheld him. You should have said something. I thought, no, I shouldn't have said nothing.

00:33:25 Speaker_13
Because if I'd have said anything about Trump, anything good or bad, or if I'd have said anything just saying, well, you know, this or that, I'd have got booed out of that house.

00:33:38 Speaker_13
I'd have been probably up there on my own, but I didn't, I wasn't interested in that. I wasn't going to say anything good or bad, no matter what I thought or felt. I just knew that I wasn't playing that game.

00:33:49 Speaker_13
It's just, but I want to be careful about that. Cause people, you know, it's like, uh, anyway, it's, it's just scary. Yeah. No matter what you say is wrong.

00:34:02 Speaker_02
At this point, uh, Shima jumped in with a question.

00:34:05 Speaker_01
When, when you saw, When you're in a room and everyone's attacking this man, like Trump, because of your story of forgiveness, does it almost make you feel like you want to protect him? Yes. What was your feeling?

00:34:21 Speaker_13
I wanted to say, let's pray for the president. Why don't we pray for the president? If we're having all these problems, let's just, you know, why don't we just pray for Mr. President?

00:34:35 Speaker_13
You know, it's like, I wanted to say that, but I thought, no, keep your damn mouth shut. That won't work either. They don't, you know, so, tit joke. When all else fails, be funny, or try to be funny.

00:34:48 Speaker_02
Wow, that's really interesting. I have to be honest, that moment messed me up. I kept thinking about it. You know, I mean, I came in thinking that her refusal to talk about Trump was probably mostly a business calculation.

00:35:03 Speaker_02
She has a lot that she needs to protect, including a massive charitable foundation. So I think we can all get that. But it's also easy to see that silence cynically, like a refusal to speak truth just because it might hurt the bottom line.

00:35:22 Speaker_02
But when she said, let's pray for the president, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought, oh, no, no, no, that's not all that's happening here. I mean, this is not somebody who is denying the reality of America.

00:35:41 Speaker_02
If you just look at the 9 to 5 album itself. In addition to the song 9 to 5, You've got a song about the racist treatment of deportees. There's another labor rights song on there. There's a song about the plight of mine workers dying in mines.

00:36:06 Speaker_02
Like she's been singing about political social issues since the 60s. We talked about this in episode 1. So this is not someone who's in denial. But the Trump comment made me realize, oh, I get it.

00:36:21 Speaker_02
She's saying her stake in the sand is that she will not cast anybody out. I thought back to those press conferences. When Dolly started working with Jane Fonda, her country music fans would boo when Jane's name came up.

00:36:36 Speaker_02
But in every press conference and interview, she would insist.

00:36:39 Speaker_13
But there is this sweet, gentle side in Jane that I think is so sweet and lovable. It's a side that the public never sees, and I know that it's hard to believe, but she's a very caring person.

00:36:52 Speaker_02
I thought back to all our conversations about Porter Wagner. This is a guy that would be really easy to turn into a cardboard cutout of a misogynistic ass who held her back. And frankly, I was going that direction in my questioning.

00:37:07 Speaker_02
There's a power thing happening, for sure.

00:37:09 Speaker_13
She just refused to flatten the guy.

00:37:19 Speaker_02
And it seems suddenly clear to me that yes, while there is a business logic here, this is also a spiritual stance. This is an ethos that she has chosen.

00:37:32 Speaker_02
And it is undeniably one of the reasons that she can have the fan base that she has, because everybody feels safe at a Dolly Parton concert.

00:37:42 Speaker_10
Afterwards, you know, I realized that

00:37:47 Speaker_10
it had put dolly perhaps in a in a difficult situation uh... because dolly is not a political activist uh... and you know many of her fans are trump supporters so i i i think it was awkward for her and i felt bad about that did you talk about that with her afterwards uh... i don't remember i don't remember but you know i i heard that there you know there were

00:38:16 Speaker_10
uh... that there were there was look you know some of the fans objected to it and you know i'd very much respect dolly's uh... she she doesn't have a very diverse fan base she loved him and the and her fans love her i mean i've been to a concert for her fans are you know tears rolling down their face

00:38:41 Speaker_10
I mean, there's a connection between Dolly and her fans unlike any that I have ever seen in my life. And she has to protect that. I'm in a very, very different place. Some people, there's almost a symbiotic relationship with fans.

00:38:58 Speaker_10
I'm not in that situation. It's very different for me.

00:39:02 Speaker_13
I tried to tuck my waist in, but I don't think I'm ever going to do it like you. Well, you did. We're good.

00:39:09 Speaker_17
We're just about the same size. Gorgeous lighting, whoever did it, thank you. Telephone's off if you're new to the party.

00:39:17 Speaker_02
Back in London, a couple hours before the physical knife situation on the red carpet, we got to watch Dolly continually fend off other more veiled attempts to pin her down on politics.

00:39:30 Speaker_20
Without naming names, there are people in politics who might talk about women in less favorable terms than others, grabbing them by certain parts of their anatomy.

00:39:37 Speaker_20
I mean, do you think that kind of language is useful or helpful in American politics these days?

00:39:42 Speaker_02
Any time the president came up, which was often.

00:39:44 Speaker_20
What people do to each other? I'm sorry, I didn't get the first part of it. Well, I'm talking about President Trump. I'm trying to allude him to him in the language he talks about grabbing women by certain parts of their anatomy.

00:39:55 Speaker_13
I'm not even going to talk about any of that stuff because I refuse to talk. I just think people should treat everybody with respect.

00:40:02 Speaker_02
Every time Trump came up, Dolly shut it down. And it did make me think. At this moment when like even having cereal somehow becomes about President Trump, is it even possible to do what she's trying to do? Is it even okay?

00:40:19 Speaker_11
I think this code of silence is what's keeping women down.

00:40:24 Speaker_02
Just days after we returned from that UK trip, Stella Barton, Dolly's sister, who's also a recording artist, appeared on a podcast called Our Stories and spoke with a woman named Adrena Austin and... I find that is very disheartening to me.

00:40:39 Speaker_02
...basically pointed a finger at her sister.

00:40:41 Speaker_11
My sister should speak out more. I honestly call her out. She should speak out more. And I'm ashamed of my sister for keeping her mouth shut. She can run it all day long when it's about something else. Well, speak up against injustice.

00:40:55 Speaker_11
Now, who is your sister, just for people who may not know? Dolly Parton.

00:40:59 Speaker_13
Speak up. You know, it's like we're just divided. It's just torn my own family apart, this political stuff. We can't even have a nice dinner like we used to have.

00:41:11 Speaker_13
We'd laugh about things that was going on, something going on in the family or some jokes or whatever. Now everybody's arguing about politics. And I said, can we just stop and eat? Let's stop. Don't do that. We don't need to talk about that now.

00:41:25 Speaker_02
Shima jumped in with one more question.

00:41:27 Speaker_01
Sometimes when I don't speak up, people get hurt because I don't say what needed to be said. Do you ever feel like by not opposing, like maybe it is hurting others or you could be taking other people's pain away?

00:41:41 Speaker_01
Do you ever worry about that or think about that?

00:41:45 Speaker_13
No, because I know that when the time comes, I will speak out. I have a great sense of timing. And that's always worked in my favor. That's why I say I don't just join the marches. I don't just join the group.

00:41:59 Speaker_13
I know that my time will come, and hopefully when it does, I will say my piece.

00:42:24 Speaker_02
When she said that, I thought, when would be a good time to speak? What would need to change? What would she say? How would we hear it? Would we hear it?

00:42:39 Speaker_02
I thought about a Quaker meeting I'd gone to once with a friend where they tell you to wait in silence until the inspiration compels you to speak, and so you wait. for something to happen. Then I thought about her music, which never seems to wait.

00:42:55 Speaker_02
It just comes in this unending stream and she channels that stuff. So in lieu of her saying her piece, we certainly have her singing it.

00:43:17 Speaker_13
Just a step on the boss man's ladder But you've got dreams he'll never take

00:43:34 Speaker_02
Dolly Parton's America was produced, written, and edited by me and Shima Oliai, brought to you by Awesome Audio, that's OSM Audio, and WNYC Studios.

00:43:42 Speaker_02
We had production help from W. Harry Fortuna, original music by Leroy Anderson, the typewriter, used with the permission of Woodbury Music Company,

00:43:51 Speaker_02
Thanks to the folks at Sony, special thanks to Peter at HarperCollins, Lynn Sacco, huge thanks to Pat Resnick, Karen Nussbaum and her archives at Wayne State University, Sam Shahi, David Dodson, Pat Walters, Lulu Miller, Susie Lechtenberg, and Soren Wheeler.

00:44:05 Speaker_02
Thanks as always to my dad. I also want to take this moment to thank Dolly Parton. and Danny Nazel and the entire crew for being so generous with their time. They did not have to spend the amount of time that they spent with us.

00:44:16 Speaker_02
They did not have to answer all of our sometimes very annoying questions. But they did, and we are grateful.

00:44:23 Speaker_02
We've partnered with Apple Music to bring you a companion playlist that will be updated each week with music you'll hear in the episode, plus some of our favorites. You can find that on our website at dollypartonsamerica.org.

00:44:35 Speaker_02
Next week on Dolly Parton's America.

00:44:37 Speaker_13
I said, look, I'm a writer. Jolene's a whore.

00:44:42 Speaker_02
We take a Dolly classic and turn it on its head.

00:44:45 Speaker_13
I got my little melodica.

00:44:53 Speaker_02
Oh, I love that verse. It's so good.

00:44:56 Speaker_14
Oh!

00:44:56 Speaker_02
That's coming up next week on Dolly Parton's America.