Elvis Presley and "White Trash" - CORE POST 2

We all know Elvis Presley as “The King of Rock and Roll.” I feel like everybody, no matter how little or much you like his music and films, respects Elvis in some capacity, even if just for reasons including how insanely popular he became in the 1950s and for decades after. He is and always will be “The King.”

But how did this young kid from the south become this nation-wide (even global) icon? Why him? In "The King of White Trash: Elvis Presley and the Aesthetics of Excess" (Sweeney), it is suggested that Elvis was able to achieve the success that he did because of what where he came from and what he represented. Though I don’t necessarily agree with all of the negativity that Sweeney speaks of when talking about what I would consider lower class middle America, he calls the “White Trash” population an “excessive body.” This is something that seems so obvious because it simply makes so much sense when you sit down and think about it.

What Sweeney calls the “White Trash” population consumes so much in America, not because they spend more but because they make up such a massive portion of the total population. Think about Wal-Mart. When we think of this kind of store, we think of the poor, trash, etc. But the fact of the matter is Wal-Mart is one of the biggest corporations in America because of who it appeals to. If your CD or other kind of product is at Wal-Mart, someone is going to buy it. And people who shop at Wal-Mart are loyal to Wal-Mart. If they need to buy something, that is where they go. The same goes for Elvis, whom Sweeney calls “the saint of white trash.” People were loyal to him, and if he released a song or a movie, people bought it or went to go see it. No matter how negatively we might look at Elvis, his star power proved the consumerism power of “White Trash.”

What’s interesting about Elvis’ star text is that he was very much the same both in his films and in person (or at least from what we thought we knew about him as a person). He was someone to whom the larger population of people his age could relate, and this definitely had to do with where he came from and how he was raised. In King Creole, for example, Elvis’ character Danny wants to be a good kid, but things just keep coming his way to get him in trouble. He isn’t trying to be a bad person; he is just a confused kid trying to grow up. He was relatable, and his rags to riches story both in his films and in his life were something that appealed to the majority of Americans. Elvis just seemed to have come around at the right time, and his charisma won America over.

Questions:
1. Would Elvis have been as successful if he weren’t from the south?
2. What would have happened if Elvis had experimented more with roles and styles; did Americans need the consistency?
3. Today, a lot of the rags to riches stars are rappers. In what ways can we compare them to Elvis?