Indeed, there are not only positive voices concerning the singer and his life. During the early years of his career, Country blues guitarist Mississippi Slim constantly criticized Elvis. According to Jennifer Harrison, "Elvis faced criticism more often than appreciation" from a small town in South Memphis. "Much criticism has been heaped on Elvis, often perpetuated by squares, the Colonel, and others who controlled his creative (or not so creative) output, especially during the Hollywood years."
According to Robert A. Segal, Elvis was "a consummate mamma's boy, who lived his last twenty years as a recluse in a womblike, infantile world in which all of his wishes were immediately satisfied yet who deemed himself entirely normal, in fact 'all-American.'" When a CBS special on Presley was aired on October 3, 1977, shortly after the singer's death, it "received such harsh criticism that it is hard to imagine what the public response to Elvis's degeneration would have been if he had been alive." This special "only seemed to confirm the rumors of drug abuse."
In a recent study on the analogy of trash and rock 'n' roll, professor of English and drummer Steven Hamelman demonstrates that rock 'n' roll productions are often trash, that critics often trash rock 'n' roll productions, and that rock 'n' roll musicians often trash their lives. The author uses the tortured lives and premature deaths of Presley, John Lennon and Kurt Cobain in his section on "waste" in order to underscore the literal and figurative "waste" that, in his opinion, is part of rock 'n' roll.
However, one of the most frequent points of criticism is the overweight and androgyny of the late Las Vegas Presley. Time Out says that, "As Elvis got fatter, his shows got glammier." It has been said that the star, when he "returned to Las Vegas, heavier, in pancake makeup, wearing a white jumpsuit with an elaborate jeweled belt and cape, crooning pop songs to a microphone ... had become Liberace. Even his fans were now middle-aged matrons and blue-haired grandmothers, who praised him as a good son who loved his mother; Mother's Day became a special holiday for Elvis's fans." According to several modern gender studies, the singer had, like Liberace, presented "variations of the drag queen figure" in his final stages in Las Vegas, when he excessively used eye shadow, gold lamé suits and jumpsuits. Although described as a male sex symbol, Elvis was "insistently and paradoxically read by the culture as a boy, a eunuch, or a 'woman' – anything but a man," and in his Las Vegas white "Eagle" jumpsuit, designed by costumer Bill Belew, he appeared like "a transvestite successor to Marlene Dietrich." Indeed, Elvis had been "feminized", as Joel Foreman put it.
Thus, "Elvis' death did occur at a time when it could only help his reputation. Just before his death, Elvis had been forgotten by society." Except for the fans who held his memory in honor, he was chiefly "referred to as 'overweight and over-the-hill.'" After the singer's death, things changed. In their book When Elvis Died: A Chronicle of National and International Reaction to the Passing of an American King (1980), Neal and Janice Gregory documented through newspaper and television archives the reaction of the media to the spontaneous and unprecedented outpouring of public grief at Elvis's death. One reporter after another described scenes not witnessed since the death of Valentino. When President Jimmy Carter issued a public statement acknowledging Elvis's contribution to American life, he effected a turning point in our culture and the way the media reports on figures in show business. It could be argued that Elvis's death was the event that precipitated the media's dubious current obsession with celebrity. According to Curtis W. Ellision, "The most vivid anecdotes in When Elvis Died focus on the origins of the perpetual death memorial that Presley's home, Graceland, has become." The author adds that "Some anecdotes in the Gregory account reinforce the impression that Presley's death touched nostalgia for teenage years."
No comments:
Post a Comment