According to Gael Sweeney, “White Trash culture” is “an aesthetic of the flashy, the inappropriate, the garish” and those part of the culture “take pride in their outsider status…degeneracy, and criminality.” What fascinates me about this marginal culture, though, is the idea that this aesthetic develops “naturally” – that society generally believes that these tastes and aesthetics come from some quality inherent in those part of the White Trash culture. This sense of innate white trash sensibility, then, can translate directly into the preserved persona of Elvis Presley – by deconstructing his star persona, it’s very clear why he is a worshipped figurehead for the White Trash culture.
As Sweeney says, “Elvis Presley is an icon of White Trash Culture: a figure of terror and the grotesque to the urban, mostly Northern, arbiters of “good taste” and a spectacle of excess and release for his Southern white fans.” His personal life is indicative of such symbolization: he grew up in the deep south, and rose to success through unconventional means of over-sexual/expressive hip-gyrating and borrowing from traditionally “black” music. The later, “Vegas Elvis” took his outrageous displays to a new level: “the obese Elvis of the seventies…[stimulated] fantasies of the grotesque, hysterical gorging, indulging in food, dink and dugs, and of living a life larger than ordinary human beings.”
I argue, however, that Elvis’ off-screen, star persona is not the only way he embodies the White Trash ideal. His roles in films – the characters that he embodies – also validate the white trash culture, and serve as validations for his iconography as the king of White Trash. This is particularly discernable in King Creole. Throughout the movie, he is portrayed as having an essential character of marginalization; audiences are made to believe that he is much more natural as a (what can be considered “White Trash”) performer in the sinful city of New Orleans than as a middle-class working man. He flunks out of senior year twice, and against the dreams of middle class success of his father, he drops out of school to pursue singing in nightclubs. Throughout the movie, this choice to abandon his education is portrayed as something positive – he wasn’t MADE for education, he was made for singing the blues and gyrating his hips to a fanatic audience. Moreover, even though he tries to court the all-American girl, Nellie, he ultimately falls in love with the tortured call woman, Ronnie. Despite his attempts at leading the life that mainstream American expects of him, he realizes that he just isn’t naturally cut out for it – he is meant for White Trash America.
Questions:
1. Elvis has always been a figure of “White Trash Culture,” a marginalized segment of society. However, mainstream culture is beginning to embrace him as part of “official history” – the Smithsonian even planned an Elvis impersonator exhibit. Will the common memory of Elvis within “White Trash Culture” shift to maintain their alternative identity? Or does this signal a merging of mainstream and marginal culture?
2. Certain stars have maintained great fame after their death – John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, etc. What differentiates the stardom Elvis has garnered post-mortem from these icons?
3. Are there contemporary stars that embody the same ideals that Elvis did during his time?
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