There are a million and one reasons to love and celebrate the life of national treasure Dolly Parton, who died Tuesday at 80. The voice, the songs, the smile, the wigs, the wit, the boundless energy, varied performances, unflagging generosity and palpable spirit of kindness. If she didn’t already have her own theme park, it would be our cultural duty to erect one; she is among the most talented and universally beloved artists our country has ever produced.
She was also, in her own unique way, a dedicated revolutionary, rarely letting an opportunity pass to use her appearance to point out the perils and absurdity of stereotyping.
Five foot nothing and famously curvaceous, with impossibly platinum hair teased to gravity-defying heights above big heavily made-up eyes and a lipstick smile as sweet as a Christmas angel, Parton leaned into the persona society was least likely to take seriously — the peroxide bombshell, the perky little blond — for the purposes of proving them dead wrong.
“I look one way and am another,” she told Ladies’ Home Journal in 1982. “It makes for a good combination.”
And never better, or more norm-shattering, than in her acting debut as Doralee Rhodes in the 1980 film “9 to 5.”
For women who, like me, came of age in the 1980s, “9 to 5” was a canon event, a feminist manifesto wrapped up in a hit comedy. After suffering under the commonplace tyranny of their arrogant, sexist boss Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman), three women — secretary Doralee, glass-ceiling-trapped supervisor Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin) and timid housewife turned new hire Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) — kidnap him and transform their workplace into a progressive utopia, complete with job sharing, equal pay and an onsite daycare center.
It was (and, alas, remains) a sociopolitical fairy tale and no part of it was more delightful, unexpected and deeply effective than Parton’s performance.
Well, OK, maybe the titular theme song, which was written and performed by Parton and should have won the 1981 Oscar it was nominated for (though the winning “Fame” was pretty good too).
Back in 1980, we all knew Parton could write and sing, but we didn’t know she could act — certainly not at the level of Fonda, Tomlin and Coleman. As the luminous, sweet and steel-spined Doralee, she doesn’t just hold her own, she shines, shattering the same sexist assumptions that often plagued Dolly.
In a few short scenes, Doralee outlines and then bursts the poisonous bubble of sexual harassment. As the attractive secretary, she is forced to fend off not only Hart’s advances (with the cheery but firm dexterity of a woman with no alternative and many years of practice) but also the chilly scorn of her female colleagues.
In light of Doralee’s good looks, feminine manner of dress and outgoing demeanor, they make similar assumptions about her sexual availability and relationship to Hart.
Only when she is openly accused of being his mistress does Doralee fight back, first threatening to get the gun she carries in her purse and turn Hart “from a rooster into a hen,” and then by joining Violet and Judy in workplace revenge fantasies. Doralee’s involves switching places with Hart. Parton’s ability to become the harasser without falling into some version of male drag makes this short sequence far superior to the many films with a similar premise that followed.
As the action progresses, Doralee brings grit and common sense to the trio, showcasing Parton’s ability to deliver homespun wit without ever falling into folksy caricature.
What could have been considered stunt casting — Fonda and Tomlin in a feminist fantasy, sure; but the woman who wrote “Jolene?” — made Parton a star and took the film to a different level, but because Parton thoroughly understood the assignment.
The woman you fear is trying to steal your man (or sleep with the boss) may well be simply trying to live her life or do her job. Like any stereotype, the social programming that forces us to see a lovely, curvy woman and think “siren” is actually designed to diminish and isolate her.
“9 to 5” underlined many truths about women’s experience in the workplace and if it didn’t take sexual harassment seriously enough, it was one of the few films of its time that took it seriously at all. It also propelled Parton into a level of fame beyond country music, where she could remind the world again and again that, like so many people, “I look one way and am another.”
Which wasn’t really true — she looked precisely like she was: Beautiful and bold, unique and undeniable. But we all know what she meant, because she showed us in “9 to 5.”
