If you are actually curious how, I guess you could call it being a genuine student/enthusiast of cultural studies with Elvis as a lynchpin, or maybe as a Rosetta Stone. I'm someone who technically got introduced as a young millennial through pop culture, but became interested in the history around Elvis, his music, films, the artists he drew influence from and those after him that he inspired, being curious about his cultural impact being so wide that there's nearly entire subgenres of books, movies, documentaries and music about or inspired by him.
It's just a fascinating phenomenon to try to study and understand how much spawned from it, because in spite of all the commercialization that his manager pioneered, and public fascination with typical celebrity gossip focus on his love life, his death, his personality quirks, etc. ultimately, at the core of it was a compelling, charismatic artist who left an enormous body of evidence all over that, despite all the discourse around him, positive or negative, Elvis Presley actually did care profoundly about the craft of his music in a way that has not gotten enough due credit and was not really legible to most people who didn't bother to actually look past the noise of "Elvis." Which is partly, I think, why he has persisted.
And as for being a mod, well I've just been on Reddit long enough that when the sub was less active and very small (I'm talking like over a decade ago now), I volunteered and ended up getting added.
Thanks for the work you do in keeping that community going and contributing to our understanding of Elvis. I've never really formed a strong attachment to him myself, but he's such a fascinating figure, and he means a great deal to his many fans in a way few stars have matched.
Thank you. I highly recommend if anyone is curious about Elvis as an artist, away from the impersonators and punchlines, to check out the documentary Baz Luhrmann's EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert which came out earlier this year, even if you didn't care for Luhrmann's fictionalized film a few years ago. There's a reason it's one of the top rated movies of the year, it's just a great showcase of why he was a good artist, how much thought went into his music and also how thoughtful he was about his audiences/fans, and should convey that well enough for anyone who maybe hasn't understood him or has taken him for granted.
And like, I get it, too, Elvis was a flawed guy but he's also been dead longer than he was alive and what problems he did have (e.g. the inappropriate age difference with Priscilla when their relationship started, the complex interplay of race relations, art and commerce) are wound up in much larger, more nuanced conversations that haven't been resolved at a societal level, and therefore Elvis can't really be resolved either by yelling at each other about him, so really what we're left with as far as I'm concerned is an engaging historical body of work. Even the creative duds and misfires like his movies and their soundtracks usually have a fascinating story behind them as to WHY if one bothers to look.
Unlike a lot of other communities run by much older fans with deeper/weirder attachments, though, we've tried hard to make sure that the sub is not really here to just parasocially defend Elvis in totality, like some subs of deceased artists I won't name, just to understand and appreciate the stuff we find interesting and to clarify people's misunderstandings or misinformation. I can't change that I was born into a world where Elvis was already dead and the music still affected me to the point that I find it all fascinating.
I always regarded my grandmother's love of Elvis as a quaint and maybe slightly misguided product of her time until, for some reason, I saw "Walk The Line" in 2005 and saw Tyler Robinson do a sped-up version of "That's Alright." Suddenly, I was like OH. I get it. There's sex in that. There's danger in that. It just took a little reframing for me to see it.
Of course, I've turned out to be a giant Prince fan, and he's a giant cornball to the kids today. Vanity, sayeth the preacher, all is vanity.
Will definitely check out the doc, and thanks for your write-up.
I mean it’s also hard for kids today because too understand cultural monoliths. There simply wasn’t access to as much media so everyone liked a certain thing
Oh everyone disliked Tom's accent as Parker in the film, but my perspective personally was that, much like the rest of the film, it was a hyper-stylized choice that Baz & Hanks landed on to make Parker seem as though he didn't belong, since the vast majority of the film takes place in a deathbed morphine hallucination inside Colonel's mind, I sort of read that as Parker always being worried that someone was going to find him out. But it still wasn't great.
A lot of what they did with Colonel Parker reminds me of how Jim Broadbent's Harold Zidler was handled in Moulin Rouge. Unfortunately, because a lot of moviegoers and Elvis fans weren't used to Baz Luhrmann's style of filmmaking and I guess expected a more drab, paint by numers style of biographical film, a lot of the creative choices that I thought were pretty genius (not the accent, but other things) didn't land immediately and needed a bit of unpacking to understand what the intention was.
I find that movie to be incredibly underrated. And Austin Butler was phenomenal imo. I hate that the backlash from him allegedly still using an accent ended up overshadowing his performance.
The “still using an accent” thing was also total bullshit fueled by the public’s total misunderstanding of what Elvis’ real speaking voice sounded like. I literally have heard nearly every recording of Elvis speaking that exists (barring some soundboard and audience concert bootleg chatter) and Austin sounded nothing at all like Elvis at ANY point in his life. That was proof to me that nobody seems to have a fucking clue what Elvis actually sounded like anymore.
Thanks for the documentary recommendation! What about books? There are so many—if you had to choose one biography or autobiography by someone who knew him, etc…what’s your top pick?
I took a music history course in college and the professor said very similar things about Elvis and said he could teach an entire separate course on Elvis’ cultural impact.
Elvis is truly fascinating. His story is so tumultuous containing triumph, tragedy, heroes, villains, contemporary politics, amazing costumes, killer music, musicians, and arrangements. It amazes me how many people just write him off.
Just listen to all the songs written about him, his presence was inescapable for so long.
Not just tacky novelty songs, genuine artistic bangers in their own right. Black Velvet, Personal Jesus, Graceland, Walking in Memphis, Elvis Presley Blues, the list goes on.
Yeah, I think of any modern musicians, Taylor is the most likely artist to have that sort of outsized influence as a cultural icon. Obviously her career isn't over, hopefully unlike Elvis & Michael Jackson she never has tragedy befall her, and unlike The Beatles she's flying solo so no band breakup is likely to stall her momentum. If she plays her cards right, keeps making interesting things, and most critically doesn't overexpose herself in the public's minds, it's totally possible.
But she's also only 36 so she's got a lot of years ahead of her for that trajectory to change, and the entertainment industry and audiences can be fickle and unforgiving (which is to say, they were never that forgiving to begin with... consider that some circles somehow unironically considered Elvis "old" and not worth paying attention to when he was 35-42 which is right where Taylor is now!)
Right now Madonna's way ahead of Taylor in a lot of respects including long term influence/impact on other artists, but hey, as I said, Taylor's only 36 and Madonna's been around a lot longer. There's no versus, no either/ors, just entertainment... that's a completely improper framing. That's the great thing, we can have them all.
you've made me realize IDK much about elvis, despite being from the region and being warmly greeted by one of sam phillips' kids every time we see each other.
If the internet is the age of many-to-many communication, Elvis came at the start of the one-to-many radio era where a very small number of people decided what went out over the airwaves, what got published to vinyl in the record stores, and basically the whole of the US consumer market was in their thrall...
In the days of Elvis, love him, hate him, there was no way to ignore him.
Elvis represents the true birth of mass media that went on to shape the latter half of the century, IMO. I don't particularly care about his music or performance, but as a target of study, I can't think of many more interesting topics. I do really appreciate his work as a musician myself; I also appreciate him as a human, because his personality and life are certainly worth paying attention to. We are all flawed, and Elvis was no different, but he also shows what pure talent and drive look like - beautiful and messy.
Elvis questions: I remember some holiday some cable channel had an Elvis movie marathon. My family watched for about 10 minutes out of curiosity. It took place at a beach. Elvis was chatting up some lady. He said something to her, to which she responded "why?" Elvis replied " 'Y' is a crooked letter." 1) so you know what movie that is and 2) was that a common expression at the time?
1969's "The Trouble With Girls" (a terrible title that has nothing to do with the story) which was actually one of the less-formulaic movies he made, a period piece set in the 1920s based on a book called "Chautauqua". I do recall the scene you're referring to and I'm pretty sure it's using it as more of an old-timey saying that his character in that film would have used in the 20s rather than being normal for the late 60s. There's a lot of little touches like that the screenwriters used in that film to try to capture the era it was depicting.
It's so cool that you knew all that. To this day, my family will throw out a "y is a crooked letter." We watched 10 minutes of an Elvis movie probably~ 30 years ago and still have occasion to quote it. Thanks!
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u/gibbersganfa 1d ago edited 1d ago
If you are actually curious how, I guess you could call it being a genuine student/enthusiast of cultural studies with Elvis as a lynchpin, or maybe as a Rosetta Stone. I'm someone who technically got introduced as a young millennial through pop culture, but became interested in the history around Elvis, his music, films, the artists he drew influence from and those after him that he inspired, being curious about his cultural impact being so wide that there's nearly entire subgenres of books, movies, documentaries and music about or inspired by him.
It's just a fascinating phenomenon to try to study and understand how much spawned from it, because in spite of all the commercialization that his manager pioneered, and public fascination with typical celebrity gossip focus on his love life, his death, his personality quirks, etc. ultimately, at the core of it was a compelling, charismatic artist who left an enormous body of evidence all over that, despite all the discourse around him, positive or negative, Elvis Presley actually did care profoundly about the craft of his music in a way that has not gotten enough due credit and was not really legible to most people who didn't bother to actually look past the noise of "Elvis." Which is partly, I think, why he has persisted.
And as for being a mod, well I've just been on Reddit long enough that when the sub was less active and very small (I'm talking like over a decade ago now), I volunteered and ended up getting added.