Parton's plea for
tolerance
By Peter Cooper, USA
TODAY, from the Web, February 25, 2006
NASHVILLE, Feb. 22 -- Dolly
Parton has no trouble relating to outsiders. "I've always been a weird,
out-there freak myself," she says
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| Dolly Parton got the idea for her Oscar nominated
song, Travelin' Thru, while on her tour bus. |
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Growing up in the mountains of East
Tennessee, she was used to not being accepted. "My grandfather was a
Pentecostal preacher. It was a sin to even pluck your eyebrows, and they
thought it was a sin for me to be there looking like Jezebel."
Her ability to identify with outcasts helped her to an Oscar nomination for
Travelin' Thru, a song she wrote for the movie Transamerica. The main
character is a pre-operative transsexual (played by Felicity Huffman) traveling
the country with his son.
"Some things are strange to me, and some things are odd," says Parton, 60.
"But I don't condemn. If you can accept me, I can accept you."
The ceremony March 5 won't be Parton's first Oscar experience; her 9 to 5 was
nominated in 1980. But this time, she gets to perform.
She'll walk the red carpet in a Robert Behar-designed dress with Duncan Tucker,
Transamerica's producer and director. (Of her husband of 40 years, Carl
Dean, she says, "I can't even get him to go for a Big Mac, much less the
Oscars.")
Tucker was instrumental in offering Parton direction for the song. "He
wanted the song to be about redemption and about people's feelings," Parton
says.
She struggled until one morning on her tour bus she had the idea for a spiritual
theme and a gospel feel. She wrote: "God made me for a reason, and
nothing is in vain/Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain."
She finished in a day.
Parton is considering putting the song on a gospel album and doing a dance club
version.
"Having a big gay following, I get hate mail and threats," she says. "Some
people are blind or ignorant, and you can't be that prejudiced and hateful and
go through this world and still be happy. One thing about this movie is
that I think art can change minds. It's all right to be who you are."
Peter Cooper reports daily for The (Nashville) Tennessean.
Contributing: William Keck in Los Angeles.
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