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Dixie is a term for the area of the south in the US that seceded from the union which led to the American Civil War. They seceded over slavery. There is a massive disinformation campaign from back then called the Lost Cause of the South (often just lost cause). People try to frame it as being about other things like states' rights, but we don't need to guess, the states that left the union said why in their letters of secession. They left over their "property" rights being violated. Property to what? People. The fugitive slave act specifically. Slave states in the south wanted to compell free states in the north to return escaped slaves.

So that's the primer on the civil war and lost cause movement, but you can see it's effects everywhere. It's hard to really describe to an outsider. It's hard to describe to people living in the south who grew up here who don't see it as political. You'll tell them things like "Isn't it fucked that Stone Mountain has the world's largest Confederate monument?" They'll respond "hey, I went to that fireworks and laser show there all the time as a kid, it was never about politics and I loved it!" Meanwhile completely ignoring that normalizing celebrations under a monument to the fallen heroes of the south (therefore ones defending slavery) is fucked.

Content wise, I never went to the Dixie Stampede, so I can't tell you exactly what it featured. But Stone Mountain in GA had a similar thing. I remember commercials for the Stampede when I visited Gatlinburg. They showed Union and Confederate troops on horses and mentioned how it played up the "friendly rivalry " with the north. Stone Mountain had a similar thing. It would show imagery of people fighting, but finally one of them puts their sword down and breaks it, representing peace. I think it was even a Confederate one who did. People who grew up in the south have just received a lot of stuff like this over the years and many don't see how problematic it is, even if they genuinely and truly are not racist. This is exactly what the Lost Cause movement has been about. They knew they could never outright convince people that things were good, but they just want to soften the edges. Get people to question it just a little bit.

Stone Mountain, once again, the world's largest Confederate monument, sat partially finished for a very long time. It was only after schools desegregated in the US (Brown v. board of Education) that it was finished. The wikipedia article has a better timeline with specifics. Literal members of the KKK were involved. It's not some goofy conspiracy theory. It's all very well documented. They said they were doing it because of schools being desegregated.

We see this a lot all over. Dixieland was another amusement park near me growing up. I think the best way to think about it is how a lot of times pioneers or cowboys can become a theme for amusement parks and similar attractions, Confederate troops became one. It likely began more racist and overt, but over time just became something that was normalized. Only around the 2010s did people really seem to wake up from their collective stupor and say "hey what the actual fuck are we doing?"

I'll be honest. Prior to her death, this was something I always brought up about her. I'd even say it made me suspicious of her. To be truthful, it was sort of a bit, the way some celebrities just feel to squeaky clean, but it did still upset me. I can't personally speak for when or if the content of the Stampede (formerly Dixie Stampede) show changed its content. Like I said, I've never been. The only commercial I remember about the "friendly rivalry" was from the Dixie Stampede name era.

Dolly Parton seemed to love LGBTQ people and spoke up about it often. She did a lot of charity work in her local community too. I'm not trying to ignore that or cancel her or some shit. Without really digging deep on stuff about her, it felt like she tried to be outspoken but tried hard to not get labeled as political. I'm not sure that means she fought less. She fought hard enough that many people did say she was problematic for supporting queer people. I'm just rambling by this point trying to reconcile my views of her into something succinct, but I don't think I can. I guess the best way to put it is that I grew up in the south too and I got duped by these things as a young person. Some of my most fond memories of my early relationship with my now wife are from us doing stuff at Stone Mountain. I think the Unite the Right rally in 2017 was a big turning point in America. I think it's what finally snapped a lot of people out of their collective haze. Or if not that directly, the after effects of it. And I wonder if I was Dolly Parton's age, would I have realized how messed up things were around 2018 when she did? It's very likely. As a kid I was definitely conservative. I grew out of that, thankfully. But it's really hard to explain just how subtly the Lost Cause messaging can affect people.

My fifth grade teacher, who I have no reason to believe is a racist, very specifically told us that General Lee (the main general of the Confederacy) was a very honorable man. She spoke so poetically about him. About how he only sided with the south because it was his home. As if it were a burden of duty. Looking back, I have to wonder who her teacher taught her. The Daughters of the Confederacy (main people in the Lost Cause) would reject textbooks because they were "unfair to the south." it makes me wonder what bizarre slants she was told. Was her merely saying Lee was a "good man" a result of her deconstructing the lies she was told over decades? I don't know. It could be. And I'm not praising her, don't get me wrong, I'm just trying to help paint a picture of how successful the Lost Cause movement was. It's easy for people to say "well, it obviously wasn't successful, slavers are dumb" or something, but look at pictures of any remotely rural gathering from the 1980s or so in the south. Look at the number of Confederate flags. Today we get cagey when we see some, and they're mostly only the most remote of places (mostly), and the notable exceptions stick out like crazy. It wasn't so long ago that they were genuinely ubiquitous.

I could ramble more about this topic but I think this is enough of a primer and enough of my personal experience as someone born in 1991 in the south to get a picture of what it's been like for the non-American readers. Happy to yap more if anyone has questions.

Dixie is a term for the southeastern US, especially when they were in rebellion for the right to own slaves. The Dixie stampede was an equestrian performance that was civil war themed and IIRC involved treating the sides more like sports teams