Premium 106: Dollyology for the Masses (w/ special guest Dr. Jessie Wilkerson)

for any future book plugs, maybe suggest bookshop.org? it’s a network of independent bookstores that reduces the local shipping load by handling distribution while also giving the entire profit margin to the local affiliates

Rock over London, Rock on Chicago. Polaroid, see what develops.

I'm originally from Trousdale County, TN and am prepared to have my Dolly loving feelings hurt :[

Here in Shawnee County, Kansas we participate in Dolly’s Imagination Library. The services are actually paid for by our local library. The library is also responsible for the cost of shipping for anyone signed up in our county. Anyone in our county can sign up their children to receive these ‘free’ books, but you are required to register online. What we found is that the more affluent neighborhoods are are actually the majority of the recipients because people in these neighborhoods have access to internet services and the electronic devices needed to sign up. Poor children in our county weren’t even receiving these books. To try and address this disparity in recipients local businesses affiliated with the United Way were sending out teams of volunteers to go door to door and leave pamphlets on doors with instructions for signing up. How detailed instructions help people who don’t have internet services or a computer is beyond me. The realization that the kids in our city and county that need these books the most weren’t even receiving them was just...heartbreaking.

Leslie Cerniglia

I'm from Claiborne County and I agree with all this.

Simia Canis

Love this episode. I'm from East TN and spent most of my life surrounded by Dolly-worship before she became popular among a larger liberal crowd. I graduated from Sevier County High School and we had a bronze relief of her in the cafeteria and a statue of her downtown. These felt like appropriate ways to honor her, but all this talk of replacing confederate statues in Tennessee and elsewhere with Dolly is bonkers. Erect statues to indigenous peoples and people of color who have made a real difference. I still love her for her art. But it's so confusing to see her escape criticism as a rich capitalist. You can love her and still be critical of her faults and her positionality in a fucked up system.

Fantastic episode, excited to hear Dr. Wilkerson's coming to WVU, as a history alum always happy to see that program get some new blood!

Dylan Bartholomew

Loved this. Thank you. Do you think there will be a Trillbillywood? (We could have it in Liverpool) x

Jane Pickering

If Chicagoland has any local musical idol figures, I don't actually know them since I don't really pay attention to anything...Aside from Wesley Willis. That guy rocked.

Mrs. Argent

This was a great episode. The obsession around certain southern celebrities and their problematic behavior around stereotypes that often obscured their labor abuses reminds me of what happened with Paula Deen. There was so much (validly) made about Deen wanting to have a plantation-themed wedding for her son, where older black men were servants who wore white gloves. But that obscured the original facts of the lawsuit filed by her former employee. This person also claimed that many of Paula Deen’s employees had their wages stolen and were instead paid with beer. But almost everyone wanted to reduce all of Deen’s misdeeds to using the n-word.

Sela Lewis

Great show. Dr. Wilkerson was brilliant. The show got most interesting when y'all started talking about the implicit ideology that brands and products (in this case celebrities) carry with them. Disney was a land before it was expanded into a world--the ideological messages are even more insidious there.

S