The theme-park industry has two tiers. The really big money is in what insiders call “destination” parks. These are so fancy and expensive that people fly thousands of miles to visit them. Asian governments invite Disney and Universal Studios to build ever-bigger parks on their territory in the hope that this will spark a tourist boom, which it usually does. Because they aim for a global audience, Hollywood theme parks tend to be spectacular but self-consciously inoffensive to all nationalities. To learn about the real America, you have to look at its smaller theme parks—the ones only Americans visit.

People do not fly to Dollywood; they drive there in big cars full of squabbling children. East-coast accents, let alone foreign ones, are rare. The park is thus an excellent window on what people in this part of the American heartland like.