A week ago today – on the 25th of August – we lost Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. They are both counter culture icons, helping to shape the modern landscape of LGBT rights as we know it,

Dolly Parton came from nothing, and spent her life dedicated to improving the lives of others. Dolly earned around $450 million through her music career. Instead of hoarding it, she spent the vast majority on giving back to others. Her Philanthropy launched reading programs, scholarship funds and disaster relief programs. She also used her platform to give a voice to the LGTB community in the USA, in a time where gay rights were a controversial subject and gay marriage was not federally legal.

Tim Curry unapologetically brought gay culture to the stage in 1973 with the Rocky Horror Show, and then to the screen in 1975 through the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Loud and proud, Curry’s performance shook the world, portraying Queer culture on his own terms in a time where it was only acceptable to be hidden, coded or ridiculed in main stream media. his performance as Frank-N-Furter wasn’t a character who quietly existed in the fringes of society – they strutted into the spotlight clad in stockings, corset and heals, demanding to be seen on his own terms. It isn’t hard to see why Frank-N-Furter, and Tim Curry, became counter culture and punk icons.

The Life of Dolly Parton

Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean was born on 19th January 1946. She was born into a poverty stricken part of rural Tennessee. It was growing up in Sevier County, Tennessee as part of a large family that made her understand poverty. Before she was the “Country Queen”, Dolly was a child who grew up knowing what it was like to have nothing. She also understood the barriers that people faced in education – her father, Robert Lee Parton Sr. – was unable to read or write. This will have influenced her later in life to remove the barriers that prevent children and families from getting opportunities for education. Undoubtably, this was one of her inspirations to launch the Dollywood foundation in 1988 and her reading program.

Dolly Parton was certainly a musical protégée from an early age. She wrote her first song at 6. By age 10, she was a regular on live television. A year later she made her first recording. By age 16, she was a professional song writer. In 1967, she released her debut album “Hello, I’m Dolly” – launching her career. In this time, she released 49 studio albums. While a feat in itself, she somehow managed to find the time to write over 3000 songs. These included “I Will Always Love You” performed by Whitney Houston. Dolly also became a star on the big screen in movies such as “9 To 5” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” to name a few.

However, it isn’t Dolly’s music or movie appearances that makes her life worth remembering. It is what she stood for in life, and how she used her money that makes her such an icon. Dolly was far more than a multi-platinum selling, Rhinestone clad Country and Movie star – Dolly Parton was a charitable powerhouse and a voice for change in Conservative America.

Dolly Parton’s impact on education

Dolly knew that a blank cheque wouldn’t solve the problem – giving kids a support network would.

For Dolly, it wasn’t just about throwing her money at the problem – it was about identifying the factors that lead to the issue. This is seen with how she approached the issue of high school drop out rates. Dolly offered $500 to Seventh and Eighth grade students, on one condition: they both graduate. According to the Dollywood foundation, the dropout rate in participating classes went from 35% (over 1 in 3 students) to 6% (just over in in 20)! While the improvement in graduation rates in itself is a huge feat, it was only made possible through Dolly’s insight- the kids just needed someone to believe in them, and someone else to depend on them. Dolly knew that a blank cheque wouldn’t solve the problem – giving kids a support network would.

Dolly Parton’s greatest charitable legacy – in my opinion – is the Imagination Library. Established in 1995 in her home county, the Imagination Library set out to give children access to a free book every month from birth to age 5, regardless of the families income. What began as a local program spread to have a global impact. By the early 2000’s the program had spread across the USA. It then launched Canada in 2006, the UK in 2007, Australia in 2013 and the Republic of Ireland in 2019. The imagination Library put books in the hands of Children who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to access them. Needless to say, the program will have had a positive impact on literacy levels for those who needed it the most. The program wasn’t just about distributing as many books as possible – it was about getting them into the hands of those who needed them. While Dolly may look like the ultimate Rhinestone Celebrity, she never forgot her roots and ensured equal access to books, regardless of a child’s class. That’s punk at its finest.

Charity Begins at home

When wildfires hit her community in November 2016, over 1000 families lost their homes. Dolly Parton’s first thought was how to help her fellow Sevier County residents, creating the My People Fund. Dolly’s response was a lifeline to her community – families who had lost their homes received $1,000 per month, for 6 months. Her campaign raised $12,000,000 – all of which was directly distributed to residents. Additional funds were used to provide scholarships for seniors who were left homeless through the tragedy. Dolly used her platform and her money to make sure that those who had lost everything were looked after in this time. She didn’t say that someone should help, she took matters into her own hands and rebuilt her community.

COVID

In 2020 the world locked down. Regardless of your stance on whether the lockdown was needed, one thing is for certain – the world stopped. People faced an uncertain future, many told to stay in their homes, keep away from loved ones, and mask up. Dolly Parton, in these unprecedented times, did all she could to help others.

In 2020, Dolly donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Centre for COVID-19 research. Her name even appeared on research associated with the development of the Moderna vaccine due to her donation. She later became one of the world’s most recognisable people associated with that donation. It’s another example of her philanthropy being relatively direct: identify a problem, find people capable of doing something about it, and put resources behind them.

But it did something beyond this: Dolly became the comforting voice to those who needed reassurance most. What she gave in children in those times was more important than money – it was her presence, and feeling like they belonged.

However, it is not just about the money that Dolly Parton donated to vaccine research. While more and more people found themselves isolated at home, Dolly turned to what she did best: entertain people. Through the pandemic, Dolly began a show called “Goodnight with Dolly” – allowing her to connect with children around the globe during a period of unrest. This was amazing, as it made a tough time just that little bit easier for children who were isolated, anxious and missing out on their childhood. It expanded the philosophy of the Imagination Library, allowing children to continue their literature findings. But it did something beyond this: Dolly became the comforting voice to those who needed reassurance most. What she gave in children in those times was more important than money – it was her presence, and feeling like they belonged. Sometimes, charity is about more than just money, sometimes it is seeing that people need you, and being there for them.

What Dolly Really stood for

While most of this article has focused on the work Dolly Parton did for children, her biggest win was being accepting of all people. Dolly Parton came from a very, very conservative part of the United States, in a time what wasn’t all that accepting of people who were different from the norm. In fact, as a Southern Christian, Dolly was exactly the sort of person you would expect to be against the LGBTQ movement. And yet, Dolly was, and always has been, a vocal champion of LGBTQ acceptance. From as early as the 1980s, Dolly was publicly supporting the Queer community. This was during the AIDS crisis, growing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments and facing backlash from a conservative country music audience. If you want to know why Dolly deserves to be mentioned in punk circles – it is that. Dolly Parton refused to bow to the hate and fear of conservative America and never stopped being an ally.

Her message was simple: love everyone, accept everyone.

Dolly’s biggest influence outside of music is definitely her acceptance of all. In a 2023 interview, when discussing transgender people and legislation in Tennessee, Dolly said she had transgender people among her family and employees and that she didn’t judge them. In a 2024 interview with ELLE, she explained her approach in terms of loving people as they are and leaving judgment to God. Her message was simple: love everyone, accept everyone. Given that she was a Southern Christian, this message was a shocking thought for many, flying in the face of conservative beliefs in her area. She effectively said:

You can be Southern.
You can be Christian.
You can love Dolly Parton.
And you can love LGBTQ+ people.

In the 1991 song, “Family” Dolly describes a dysfunctional family – if you listen to the song, surely you’ll be able to relate. But what’s brilliant about the song is that it serves as an anthem of acceptance. Regardless of whether you’re an addict, gay, drunk or stray, you are welcome with Dolly. This is a radical form of acceptance: you don’t have to be perfect, no one is; family should be loved and cherished.

Dolly wrote and performed “Travelin’ Thru” for the 2005 film Transamerica. The film centres on a transgender woman travelling across America. The song received an Academy Award nomination. Rather than treating the transgender character as a joke or spectacle, Dolly’s song communicates empathy and acceptance. That was significant in 2005, when mainstream representations of transgender people were considerably less common and often considerably less sympathetic. In a time where Transgender representation in media was in it’s infancy, this moment was transformative.

By now, it should come as no surprise that Dolly Parton was a supporter of same sex marriage, long before it became legal in the United States in 2015. While Dolly was always one to avoid partisan politics, she was always a vocal champion of LGBTQ+ acceptance. Dolly Parton always spoke about people, not about politicians and the parties that they represented. Her stance never changed, and never waivered – she just insisted that you treated people with respect. Perhaps that’s why she had such an impact – she was just more accessible to a conservative audience than an activist ever would be.

Dolly’s unique ability to bridge the gap between queer and mainstream America

Dolly Parton has always occupied a strange place in mainstream culture. On paper, she is about as mainstream as you can get. She is a country music legend, a household name, a Hollywood actress, a philanthropist and one of the most recognisable women in the world. But look a little closer and Dolly has never really played by the rules of what a woman — especially a Southern woman — is supposed to be.

She was blonde, glamorous and unapologetically feminine. The hair was enormous, the eyelashes were enormous, the clothes were covered in rhinestones and the silhouette was exaggerated to the point of caricature. She made no attempt to tone herself down to become more respectable. In fact, she did the complete opposite. She took every expectation placed on women and turned the volume all the way up.

And that is where Dolly created a gap between herself and the mainstream. She was undeniably part of it, but she was never quite of it.

Dolly could stand on the biggest stages in America while looking completely ridiculous by traditional standards of respectability, and somehow become even more beloved because of it. She was glamorous without being untouchable, feminine without being delicate and successful without abandoning the working-class Southern identity she came from.

There was also something deliberately artificial about the Dolly image. Dolly herself has always been very open about the fact that the look was constructed. The hair, makeup, breasts, clothes and nails weren’t an accident — they were part of creating Dolly Parton. She once joked that if she hadn’t been a girl, she would have been a drag queen.

That joke makes a lot more sense when you look at what drag actually does.

Drag takes the familiar and exaggerates it. It takes femininity, masculinity, celebrity, beauty and glamour and pushes them beyond their normal boundaries until you can see the construction underneath. Dolly had already been doing that with her own image for decades. She created a version of femininity so exaggerated that it became almost cartoonish, while still being completely herself.

And that is exactly why drag adopted Dolly.

Why Drag Loves Dolly

Dolly Parton gave drag performers something incredibly useful: a character that everyone already recognised.

You didn’t need to explain who Dolly was. The giant blonde hair, the lashes, the rhinestones, the figure-hugging clothes and the unmistakable Southern glamour were enough. A Dolly impersonation could walk into a room and the audience would immediately understand the joke.

But it wasn’t just a joke.

There is a huge difference between making fun of Dolly and celebrating Dolly. Drag performers have spent decades turning themselves into Dolly because her image gives them permission to be excessive. They can make the hair bigger, the breasts bigger, the eyelashes longer and the outfit even more ridiculous — and somehow it still feels like Dolly.

Dolly herself has understood this better than most celebrities. She has spoken about seeing people, including boys, dressing like her as a compliment rather than something to be embarrassed by. She has also famously taken part in a Dolly lookalike contest in West Hollywood — and lost.

That might be one of the most Dolly things imaginable.

She arrived expecting to win her own lookalike contest, deliberately exaggerated her appearance to compete with the drag queens, and still got beaten by performers who had spent weeks preparing their Dolly transformations. Instead of being offended, she found the whole thing funny.

That relationship between Dolly and drag is important because it shows that the admiration goes both ways. Drag didn’t simply steal Dolly’s image because she was famous. It adopted her because she represented something drag has always understood: you can create yourself.

Dolly took the idea of the perfect Southern woman and rebuilt it into something entirely her own. Drag performers took Dolly and rebuilt her again.

The result is almost a cultural loop.

Dolly created an exaggerated version of femininity. Drag exaggerated Dolly’s exaggerated femininity. And in doing so, both were showing that femininity doesn’t have to look one particular way.

You can be glamorous. You can be ridiculous. You can be completely over the top. You can wear enough rhinestones to be visible from space. And you can still be yourself.

That is perhaps the biggest reason Dolly became so beloved within queer and drag culture. She didn’t fit neatly into the boxes that mainstream culture had created for her, even while becoming one of its biggest stars. Dolly made the mainstream a little stranger. Drag took that strangeness and ran with it.

The Life of Tim Curry

Tim Curry was never someone who was going to quietly exist in the background. From the moment he stepped onto the stage as Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show in 1973, he became something completely different. Then, in 1975, The Rocky Horror Picture Show brought that character to an even wider audience. Curry’s performance was loud, provocative and unapologetically queer, at a time when mainstream entertainment still treated homosexuality as something that should be hidden, coded or laughed at. Frank-N-Furter didn’t hide. They strutted into the spotlight wearing corsets, stockings and heels, demanding to be seen exactly as they were.

And that is what made Frank so important. This wasn’t a character quietly waiting for society to accept them. Frank was completely comfortable taking up space. They were sexual, theatrical, outrageous and completely uninterested in following the rules that society had written for them. For audiences who had spent their lives being told that being different was something to be ashamed of, seeing somebody like Frank-N-Furter walk onto a stage and own every single part of themselves was revolutionary. Curry wasn’t simply playing a character who challenged gender and sexuality; he was putting that challenge directly in front of an audience and daring them to look away.

Rocky Horror and the Queer Community

When The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released in 1975, it wasn’t immediately the huge success that it would eventually become. Instead, it found its audience slowly. Midnight screenings became a phenomenon, with audiences dressing up as the characters, shouting lines back at the screen, throwing props and eventually creating shadow casts where people performed the entire film alongside it.

What started as a strange little film became something much bigger. It became a place for people who didn’t quite fit into the world around them. The cinema itself became part of the experience. You weren’t just watching Rocky Horror — you were participating in it.

That is where Tim Curry’s impact goes far beyond Frank-N-Furter. The character helped create a space where being different wasn’t just tolerated; it was celebrated. For queer audiences especially, Rocky Horror offered something that mainstream culture rarely did at the time: a place where you could turn up dressed however you wanted, scream whatever you wanted, and be surrounded by other people who understood what it meant to feel like an outsider.

There is something incredibly punk about that.

The whole culture surrounding Rocky Horror rejected the idea that audiences should sit quietly, watch what was put in front of them and behave themselves. The fans became part of the performance. They dressed up. They shouted back. They created their own traditions and their own communities around the film. It was messy, loud and completely outside the rules — exactly the sort of thing that counterculture thrives on.

And Frank-N-Furter was right at the centre of it.

Don’t Dream It, Be It

Perhaps the most important thing Tim Curry gave people through Frank-N-Furter was permission.

Permission to be weird. Permission to be sexual. Permission to dress differently. Permission to experiment with gender. Permission to stand in a room full of people and say, this is who I am.

The famous line “Don’t dream it, be it” became much bigger than the film itself. Although it is deeply connected to Frank’s sexuality and identity, Curry has spoken about the message as something broader — encouraging people to actually pursue the things they dream about rather than simply wishing they could be somebody different.

That message is incredibly punk.

Punk has always been about refusing to accept the rules simply because somebody else decided they existed. It is about taking control of your identity and refusing to apologise for it. Frank-N-Furter embodied that attitude decades before social media gave people a platform to publicly define themselves.

And the influence didn’t stop with Rocky Horror.

Generations of drag performers, queer artists, theatre performers and counterculture figures have taken inspiration from Frank-N-Furter. The character’s combination of masculinity, femininity, sexuality and theatricality challenged the idea that those things had to exist separately. Frank could be masculine and feminine. They could be powerful and glamorous. They could be terrifying and ridiculous. They could be all of those things at once.

That freedom became part of the legacy.

More Than Frank

It would be easy to reduce Tim Curry’s legacy entirely to Frank-N-Furter. After all, it is the role that made him a queer and counterculture icon. But Curry’s career went far beyond Rocky Horror. He became an incredibly versatile actor, appearing in films, television and theatre and proving that the man underneath the corset was capable of far more than one iconic performance.

But Frank never really left him.

For decades, people continued to discover Rocky Horror, and every new generation found something different in it. For some, it was simply a bizarre musical. For others, it was an introduction to queer culture. For others still, it was the first time they saw somebody completely ignore the boundaries of gender and sexuality that they had been taught were fixed.

That is the strange power of Rocky Horror. It refuses to stay in the past.

Tim Curry himself has always kept his personal life relatively private, and his legacy shouldn’t depend on making assumptions about his own sexuality. The importance of Frank-N-Furter is what Curry created on screen and stage: a character who became a symbol of freedom for people who were often told they were too strange, too sexual, too feminine, too masculine or simply too different.

Curry gave those people a stage.

And eventually, they took it for themselves.

A Punk Legacy

It isn’t hard to see why Tim Curry became such an important figure in counterculture.

Frank-N-Furter wasn’t asking permission. Rocky Horror wasn’t asking permission. And eventually, neither did its audience.

The film created a community that existed outside the traditional rules of cinema and outside the expectations of mainstream society. People turned up in corsets, fishnets, glitter and ridiculous costumes. They screamed at the screen. They performed. They made friends. They found people like themselves.

For queer people who grew up feeling like outsiders, that could mean everything.

Tim Curry didn’t just play a character who looked different. He helped create a character that made being different look powerful.

Dolly Parton gave people a place to belong. Tim Curry gave them a place to misbehave.

And maybe that is why, more than fifty years later, Frank-N-Furter is still strutting onto stages around the world.

Don’t dream it.

Be it.