White trash still holds a pocketbook.

In "The King of White Trash: Elvis Presley and the Aesthetics of Excess", Sweeney presents the white trash culture as a bleek, repressed, yet vast peoples. "The construction of White Trash in popular culture is of total consumer and non-producer: White Trash is separated from the working class by their lack of connection with work or production, hence "lazy" and "shiftless" as common descriptive adjectives (compare to stereotypes of Blacks.)" Elvis is interesting because he is prototypical of White Trash: "poor white, country boy, hillbilly, redneck..." etc. Sweeny's presentation of this culture is interesting in that he never seems to run out of negative adjectives and references.

What I'd like to examine, however, is the latter half of the essay. Though White Trash can be described as "an excessive body", Sweeny states several times that consumption is a huge aspect to White Trash. White Trash consume more than other stereotypical class group in America (think about the success of Nascar...). If America is built on capitalism (and related, consumption) then building up a prototypical White Trash star may very well result in a high response from American consumers. Elvis exemplifies this as one of the most iconic figures of twentieth-century pop culture. According to Wikipedia, Aloha from Hawaii was viewed by more than 1.2 billion people worldwide. He released over thirty number-one singles, twenty number one albums. His fans consumed anything that he released and they are life-long fans. Their dedication is long-term (Sweeny compares it to that of religion) and his empire is STILL highly profitable.

So, as much as we can apply negative adjectives to the lowest-denominator of working class America, we need to understand their effect on American capitalism. With that said, wouldn't any media company dream of producing a star like Elvis Presley? Would Elvis Presley be successful today? What is the difference between a White Trash star and the White Trash audience - and how do they work together?