Rania Khalek and Zoe Alexandra honor Dolly Parton: working-class feminist icon, country music legend, and lifelong advocate for the disenfranchised, as the world mourns her death Tuesday at the age of 80. They pay tribute to the songwriter who immortalized the fight for workplace dignity waged by 9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women; the Imagination Library founder and philanthropist who used $10 million in royalties from Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” (which she wrote) to invest in a historically Black Nashville neighborhood; and the human rights warrior who stood by the queer community decades before it was popular or professionally safe to do so — during the height of the 1980s AIDS crisis. Zoe and Rania also pay tribute to Hayden Panettiere, star of Heroes and Nashville who started acting as a baby before roles on One Life to Live and Guiding Light, who was found dead last week at just 36. Her memoir reveals a harrowing pattern of patriarchal exploitation: fired by Neutrogena for speaking out about postpartum depression, given “happy pills” as a child on the red carpet, and pushed into predatory encounters with powerful figures in Hollywood. Rania and Zoe connect Panettiere’s story to Britney Spears, Amanda Bynes, and Demi Lovato — asking what it means that even the most famous, beautiful, and wealthy white women are chewed up and discarded by capitalism’s total disregard for the people who make its profits. Watch full episodes of BT Live, join breakthroughnews.org as a member today!

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