Dolly Parton’s greatness

When a significant public figure dies, there’s often far ranging opinions which rise to the surface—or perhaps even an eyebrow raised over any skeletons in the closet. With Dolly Parton, however, there has just been love and adoration.

It seems the country singer, who died aged 80 this week after a brief battle with cancer, was one of the most universally liked celebrities—no small feat indeed. Parton was also extremely successful. Growing up poor in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains without running water, she went on to achieve 25 number ones on the Billboard country charts, 11 Grammys and a net worth of some $450m. Still, music critic Laura Barton writes, “there was always something in the way that she lived that carried an air of stitching together”.

Part of the singer’s “stitched-together greatness” came from her philanthropy and commitment to political causes and campaigns (although she insisted she was not “political” herself). She did much to destigmatise HIV/Aids and was an LGBTQ+ ally, yet she remained popular with religious and conservative communities in the south. Barton writes that Parton’s 1971 single “Coat of Many Colors” reflects her multifaceted nature perfectly and “makes something magical out of thin mountain air”.

We are also saying a bittersweet goodbye today to Prospect’s Media Confidential podcast which has been hosted by the brilliant Alan Rusbridger and Lionel Barber for the last three years. In the final episode, the pair reflect on the revelations throughout the show—from powerful interviews about Trump’s attacks on press freedoms, to the journalists killed in Gaza and the future of the BBC. From a restaurant in London they also discuss some of their favourite and most controversial guests, and finally settle a long-standing bet... It really is the end of an era! Please do send me any well wishes or favourite moments for our beloved hosts.

Elsewhere in Prospect, Yonatan Touval writes on Benjamin Netanyahu’s politics of saturation and the unwavering loyalty of his supporters. Touval explores Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party and compares it to a patriarchal household where loyalty to the leader is rewarded above all—much like what the Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar calls an “adopted political family”. Even men he has humiliated return, writes Touval, and while a successor may inherit his party, they cannot inherit his pull. All in all, “Netanyahu has cultivated in his political base the conviction that he is the nation and the nation is him”, argues Touval.

Finally, in today’s culture newsletter, my colleague Isabel Hilton looks at why the Edinburgh TV Festival (ETF), after celebrating its 50th birthday, is now moving to Manchester. I suppose this marks the third goodbye to something in today’s edition...

The character of the festival has undoubtedly evolved over the years, alongside the TV industry itself, she writes. But for Hilton, it’s a shame that the festival will move out of its birthplace. For one thing, proximity to the world’s biggest arts festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, led to the creation of TV hits Fleabag and Baby Reindeer as they were discovered by executives attending the ETF. That type of crossover may now be lost.

Get in touch with your thoughts on today’s bittersweet goodbyes at kathryn.schoon@prospectmagazine.co.uk.