Here’s a post I wrote for NPR’s Monkey See blog about the multiple identities of Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s theme park in Tennessee. The intro goes like this:
Earlier this month, I became the envy of my friends when I visited Dollywood, the theme park that Dolly Parton founded in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee in 1986. Upon reflection, I’ve realized that Dollywood is much like the woman herself. It presents many identities at once, meaning it can speak simultaneously to wildly different types of people.
Here are the Dollywood Identities I observed (as well as their corollaries to the actual Dolly Parton):
Have you been to Dollywood? What did you think? What do you think of Dolly Parton’s music and image? (As my piece makes clear, I am such a big fan that I’m practically wearing rhinestones and a big blond wig to work today.)
Would you like a very easy way to make a very real difference to American teachers and students? And I mean a real difference, one that starts immediately, has obvious results, and requires almost no effort on your part.
You would, right? Obviously! Because helping American teachers and students is awesome, and being able to do it with almost no effort is even better.
Here’s how it works: The fantastic website Tomato Nation is raising money for various projects supported by Donors Choose, a nonprofit that supports public education in America. If you go to this website, then you can see all the students and teachers that Tomato Nation is supporting, from kindergarteners who need new supplies to sixth graders who need new math books.
The great thing about Donors Choose is that they let you know exactly which project you’re supporting. If you want to give those sixth graders math books, for instance, then Donors Choose will tell you how much money they need to purchase them. You will know precisely how much your donation has assisted them.
And by donating under the aegis of Tomato Nation, you are also signing yourself up to win fabulous prizes. Everyone who donates to a project via Tomato Nation’s Donors Choose page gets enrolled to win all sorts of cool stuff, and if TN raises $250,000 this year, then site owner Sarah Bunting will go across the country dressed as a tomato to raise awareness about the needs of America’s education system. (In the past few years, the site has raised almost $1 million, and Sarah has donned a tomato costume in all sorts of places.)
This year, TN has already raised almost $100,000, and the fundraiser runs through the end of April. You can make a difference by donating any amount of money. $5, $10, $20… whatever. It’s really going to help. If you have questions, then you can visit this page, which even includes a spreadsheet of all the current projects, sortable by region, subject, and more. If you really want to help theatre classes in Michigan or science classes in Illinois, then this page will help you do just that.
I just donated $20 to third graders in East Tennessee who need dictionaries and other materials to boost their reading skills. Can you help out? Let’s do this thing!
Yesterday, the entertainment press announced that David Mitchell’s complex novel Cloud Atlas—which I really liked and don’t have the energy to describe right now—has officially been greenlit as a film starring Tom Hanks, to be co-directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and the Wachowskis (The Matrix).
But here’s the thing: The stories did not say that the film would be co-directed by the Wachowski brothers, as they were formerly known. Instead, the Wachowskis were identified as “Andy and Lana Wachowski” or “Andy and Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski.”
In other words, Larry Wachowski has transitioned to Lana Wachowski (pictured above with Keanu Reeves). She has quietly announced herself as being transgender.
That’s a huge deal for the trans community, and I’d say it’s an even bigger deal that no one has made a huge announcement about Lana’s transition. No one has said “transgender director Lana Wachoswksi is helming a movie starring Tom Hanks.”Instead, the focus has been on Lana’s work. Her gender identity has been treated matter-of-factly.
Granted, we may be six weeks away from a sensitive cover story in People magazine about “Lana’s brave journey,” and there may be backlash against the film and the Wachowskis themselves because of Lana’s identity. It’s also possible that people want to write about Lana’s transition, and she just isn’t cooperating.
But whatever the case, it’s wonderful that for now, Lana Wachowski’s gender identity is beside the point. That’s a sign of true equality… when you can just be who you are without also being a spokesperson for everyone who’s like you.
Of course, I’m not saying that high-profile trans people like Chaz Bono are wrong for being vocal advocates for understanding. That’s great. But it’s also great to have someone like Lana Wachowski in the mix, who’s just doing her work and living her life.
I really hope I’m right to interpret Wachowski’s story this way. I really hope that she can be a major filmmaker who just happens to be trans.
To start your weekend, let me offer a bit of silliness that I call… The Blankenshow.
Recently, some friends and I gathered in my apartment to make an episode of a pop culture web series. The idea was to approach pop culture from several angles, throw in some video effects, and see what happened.
Of everything we tried, I thought these three segments turned out pretty well, so I’d like to share them with you. First up, an ode to Shangela RuPaul’s Drag Race. (NOTE: This was filmed before I saw the last two episodes of the show, which made me realize that Shangela can be joylessly mean and transparently insecure as she insults people.)
The original theme of this episode was Second Acts in Pop Culture, which is what I’m referencing.
Next up, my friend Marya and I flashback to the top five songs from early February 1991. You might remember similar posts from previous months.
Finally, I use pop culture to give relationship advice to a viewer in trouble. (That’s Marya and my friend Matt playing the couple in love.)
I spent my adolescence with my heart just leaping out of my mouth. I was always so moved by things. In American Beauty, when Wes Bentley’s teenage character said, “Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in” I sat in the theater, not that far beyond my teen years, and knew exactly how he felt.
Age and experience have dialed me down, but even still, I cry from happiness several times a year. Like last December, when my partner and I had our first Christmas in our first apartment together, and I bought my own Christmas tree for the first time, and I suddenly had a holiday tradition with my own little family. The gratitude was so strong I just cried and cried.
Being a Happy Crier makes me susceptible to things like The “Little Miss” Project, a fan-made music video for Sugarland’s latest single. When I first heard it, I like the inspirational ballad well enough, but now that it’s connected to this video, I like it even more. The clip features a group of young women holding up pieces of paper that announce their personal hardships, and then on the flip sides of those pages, they’ve written words of support or encouragement or perseverance. It’s like PostSecret as a music video.
What really gets me about this video is that it’s so obviously made by everyday people. One of the young women isn’t visible because she’s totally out of the light. One has her piece of paper turned at such an angle that I can’t read it. Some of the teenage girls are over-emoting like yeah, obviously getting lost in the Size of Their Feelings, and one girl is hamming it up like a comedian.
But that’s what makes me believe these women. They’re not professionals. They didn’t get focus-grouped by a casting agent. According to Sugarland’s website (the band is wisely supporting the project), one of the girls just reached out to a bunch of Sugarland fans and asked them to send in video clips that represented what “Little Miss” means to them. Clearly, she had the artistic flair to give them some narrative guidelines—and do that thing with her shoes—but beyond that, she seems to have let everyone just be themselves.
So what I see, then, is shot after shot of genuine, unbridled enthusiasm. Maybe I don’t love the song as much as these women. Maybe I feel like some of their problems aren’t such a big deal, really. But I’m touched by their energy and their desire to be hopeful and helpful. I’m touched by how genuine they seem in their optimism.
I remember being them. I remember having my heart in my mouth. I hope these people hold onto that feeling and cry from happiness and even when they look back and feel silly about fretting over that “dream job,” they still celebrate the fact that they felt things deeply.
Today on NPR’s Monkey See blog, I’m thinking about the way the media and the public alike are approaching the ongoing calamity of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. The musical got slammed in The New York Times today, and that seems like the latest volley in a lip-smacking feast on the show’s bloody carcass. What does it mean that we, as a public and a media, are approaching the show’s troubles this way? Read on to find out!
In case you thought the Oscars weren’t surreal enough this year, or that they seemed a little too restrained, take a look at the “For Your Consideration” ads that Melissa Leo recently took out for herself in several Hollywood industry magazines and websites.
Pete Hammond at Deadline has an information-packed story about these ads, and he reports that Leo, who is nominated as Best Supporting Actress this year for The Fighter, didn’t tell her studio that she was paying for these come-ons. In fact, in the interview she gave Hammond, she makes it seem like she’s less interested in winning the Oscar (she’s a front runner) than in making studios “consider” her as someone with box office potential. This strikes me as the most revealing section of the story:
“I did hear a lot of very positive comments, particularly from women of a certain age who happen to act for a living and happen to understand full well the great dilemma and mystery of getting a cover of a magazine. I also heard there were negative comments, but no one said them to my face, sadly. I like to hear what people think. I could explain myself.” She noted that the night before she had been guest of honor at a party celebrating her nomination and thrown by Robert Duvall, James Brolin, James Gandofini, and Demi Moore. “All I ask of Hollywood is they consider Melissa Leo. If you want to hire me, give me a shout,’ Leo added.
So again: Not about winning an Oscar. All about getting hired. And getting shouted at, I think.
Earlier today, NPR posted a thoughtful story by Nishat Kurwa about the success of Xtranormal, the online animation company that lets users create short films with just a few keystrokes. It seems like new Xtranormal videos pop up in my Facebook feed everyday, and I almost always watch them because they’re almost always funny.
Kurwa’s piece touches on the question of why these videos are so funny, and I’d love to keep discussing that.
But before we begin, let me share a two of my favorites, just so we’re sharing a vocabulary.
First, “So You Want to Get a PhD in the Humanties:”
Today I am launching a new feature at NPR’s Monkey See blog called “We Still Love.” It’s a column that focuses on “antiquated” items that people can’t or won’t eject from their lives.
I’m pleased to be the guest on this week’s episode of the Extra Hot Great Podcast. Among the topics discussed with passion and flair… recent Christmas movies that can rightfully be called classics, the up-and-down season of Community, and whether or not the “Fizbo” episode of Modern Family deserves to be canonized.
Have a listen, have a laugh… have a fabulous holiday!
