A Different Drummer

A really fun article in The Economist about Dollywood, and what it says about the culture of the American South:

"NO ONE goes hungry at Dollywood. The cake stands at Dolly Parton's theme park in Tennessee sell slices of apple pie that weigh three pounds each, and that's before you bury them in ice cream. The mixed appetisers at the best restaurant consist of a heap of battered and deep-fried cauliflower florets, a mound of deep-fried cheese sticks and a pile of potatoes slathered in melted cheese. The next course might be a vast platter of southern-fried chicken. Only a real man still has room for apple pie after such a feast, but there are plenty of real men at Dollywood. And real women, too. [....]

...the folks at Dollywood like to celebrate their own folk culture and music. Parts of the park looks like a 19th-century Appalachian town. You can watch real artisans blowing glass, making lye soap and carving chairs the old-fashioned way. Some have developed a country sales banter. “No cameras,” says Tom, who makes wooden wagons. “The law in Mississippi's still looking for me.”

Indigenous music is everywhere. In one corner is the Smoky Mountain String Band—three guys in blue dungarees with a banjo, fiddle and upright bass. In another is a bluegrass band called Naomi and the Wood Brothers. In Europe, exhibitions of traditional music and crafts tend to be subsidised and unpopular. At Dollywood, they are neither."

It's rare to read anything about the South that isn't outright condescending, so a sympathetic take on such a truly unique culture is quite refreshing....