Pardon My Parton

Dolly Parton has been cropping up in my life lately. The executor of my father's estate worked for her and her brother, Randy, and on Mother's Day my mother wanted to watch Steel Magnolias. That movie has an impressive ensemble. In addition to Parton, there's Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Sally Field, Julia Roberts, and Olympia Dukakis, though I would say having Olympia Dukakis in your movie is nothing to brag about. Apparently she died in 2021 but her career seemed to really peter out after the '80s ended. There's something very '80s about her, some register of stately smarm that resonated with critics in the '80s but then dissipated around 1990 or so.

It'd been a long time since I'd seen Steel Magnolias so I don't remember much about my original opinion of it. I thought Parton and Daryl Hannah were the strongest parts of the cast this time. I don't think Parton has a lot of range as an actress but she's especially good in supporting roles. I really liked The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, though. I was listening to "Hard Candy Christmas" this past Christmas.

Nowadays, I guess she's known to the younger generation as the old lady in the second version of Sabrina Carpenter's "Please Please Please" music video (not to be confused with The Smiths song of the same name. Yeah, I know, no-one does).

More recently, Sabrina Carpenter was seen performing with Madonna. Nice to see there's a young artist that the pillars of an elder generation are enthusiastic about supporting. One might debate over whether this is good for either the younger or elder artists or if this is a Dial of Destiny thing. Maybe the lesson here is "Seize the moment."