“What the hell did you kids do?!” Lionsgate has released an official trailer for an indie horror movie called Where The Scary Things Are, the latest creation from filmmaker B. Harrison Smith. This premiered at the Horror Hounds Film Festival and will be on VOD in June this summer. A group of teenagers inspired by a high school “Create Your Own Urban Legend” project quickly get out of hand in their greedy desire for more “likes” and going viral with deadly consequences. It seems that they end up creating some kind of real urban legend monster, and film him to prove he’s real ending up becoming a viral sensation – but it’s also really killing people. Or so it seems from the trailer? The ensemble cast includes Paul Cottman, Michael Cervantes, Peter F. Cote, Quinn Andrew Fickes, Selina Flanscha, Oliver Givens, Emma Lim, Asher Ruppert, Riley Sullivan. The dialogue in this trailer is pretty bad, but the rest of it seems okay.
Here’s the trailer (+ poster) for B. Harrison Smith’s Where The Scary Things Are, from YouTube:
Ready for Stand by Me or The Goonies with a deliciously dark twist? The horror begins as Ayla and her high school friends discover a hideous, semi-human mutant. They keep it prisoner while shooting repulsive viral videos, with the gang’s hunger for “likes” driving them to film the beast performing murderous acts. When one boy sees that Ayla is using the monster’s gruesome violence to settle her own vendettas, he threatens to tell the authorities—but is he too late to save his friends?Where The Scary Things Are is both written and directed by indie genre filmmaker B. Harrison Smith, director of the films Camp Dread, ZK: Elephant’s Graveyard, Garlic and Gunpowder, Death House, The Special, and All I Want for Christmas previously. This premiered at the 2022 Horror Hound Film Festival this year. Lionsgate will debut Where The Scary Things Are direct-to-VOD / dvd starting on June 28th, 2022 this summer. Ready for scares?
A movie adaptation of Sony’s Gran Turismo series is reportedly in the very early stages of development.
That’s according to Deadline, which claims Sony is eyeing Neill Blomkamp, the director of films including District 9, Elysium and Chappie, to helm the movie.
However, Deadline claims the Gran Turismo project is actually a movie adaptation based on the long-running racing series, which is developed by Polyphony Digital.
The franchise, which launched for PSOne in 1997, has sold over 85 million copies to date. The most recent series entry, Gran Turismo 7, was released in March for PS4 and PS5.
It said the iconic action-adventure franchise was being adapted for TV by The Expanse creators/executive producers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby and The Wheel of Time executive producer/showrunner Rafe Judkins.
January’s Uncharted movie was the first major PlayStation Productions project to be released. Starring Tom Holland, the film had a $120 million budget and grossed over $400 million at the global box office.
“To us teenagers, she was a babe!” Madman Films has released an official trailer for the documentary film Elizabeth, a biopic profile of the iconic Queen of England. This film is made by the acclaimed filmmaker Roger Michell, known for his many features over the years including Notting Hill, Changing Lanes, Venus, Morning Glory, Hyde Park on Hudson, Le Week-end, My Cousin Rachel. His latest is this – a documentary on the life of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-lived, longest reigning British monarch and longest serving female head of state in history. Why now? Who knows! “With extraordinary access to rare footage from the Royal Archives, Elizabeth is a cinematic celebration of an icon that reveals a unique glimpse of the woman behind the legend.” It sounds like it won’t be critical because it’s more of a look at this woman and her life, not so much a commentary about the Royal Family and what they do. But the interviews here do seem fun.
Here’s the first Australian trailer (+ poster) for Roger Michell’s doc Elizabeth, direct from YouTube:
A portrait in parts. From the famed director of Notting Hill and Tea with the Dames comes Elizabeth. A nostalgic, uplifting and modern documentary about Queen Elizabeth II – the greatest British monarch of all time and longest serving female head of state in history. For the last nine decades, Queen Elizabeth II has been entrenched in our collective consciousness: instantly recognisable, yet elusively and perpetually unknowable. Until now. With extraordinary access to rare footage from the Royal Archives, Elizabeth is a cinematic celebration of an icon that reveals a unique glimpse of the woman behind the legend.Elizabeth is directed by acclaimed British filmmaker Roger Michell, director of many films including Persuasion, My Night with Reg, Notting Hill, Changing Lanes, The Mother, Enduring Love, Venus, Morning Glory, Hyde Park on Hudson, Le Week-end, My Cousin Rachel, Blackbird. Produced by Kevin Loader. The film is currently set for release in the UK on June 3rd, 2022 this summer. No US date is set yet. Look any good?
“We don’t get to walk off into the sunset!” Universal has launched a second official trailer for Ambulance, the new Michael Bay explosive action movie arriving in theaters next week. The movie has been premiering around the world this week, and they’re giving it one last push hoping people will still come to theaters to see this. In this breakneck thriller from director-producer Michael Bay, two desperate brothers hijack an ambulance with a wounded cop clinging to life and EMT onboard, too. In a high-speed pursuit that never stops, Will and Danny must evade a massive, city-wide law enforcement response, keep their hostages alive, and somehow try not to kill each other, all while planning the most epic escape L.A. has ever seen. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza González, and Garret Dillahunt. Technically it’s a remake of the 2005 Danish film Ambulancen. Though with all the usual Bay flair – dizzying cinematography, endless explosions gunfights violence, lots of yelling, and more. Buckle up for safety and watch below.
Here’s the second official trailer for Michael Bay’s Ambulance movie, from Universal’s YouTube:
Decorated veteran Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), desperate for money to cover his wife’s medical bills, asks for help from the one person he shouldn’t—his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal). A charismatic career criminal, Danny instead offers him a score with the biggest bank heist in Los Angeles history: $32 million. With his wife’s survival on the line, Will can’t say no. But when their getaway goes spectacularly wrong, the desperate brothers hijack an ambulance with a wounded cop clinging to life and ace EMT (Eiza González) onboard. In a high-speed pursuit that never stops, Will Danny must evade a massive, city-wide law enforcement response, keep their hostages alive, and somehow try not to kill each other, all while executing the most insane escape L.A. has ever seen. Ambulance is directed by American action filmmaker Michael Bay, of Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II, The Island, Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon, Pain Gain, T’formers: Age of ExtinctionThe Last Knight, 13 Hours, and 6 Underground previously. The screenplay is by Chris Fedak, based on the original story screenplay for the 2005 Danish film Ambulancen by Laurits Munch-Petersen and Lars Andreas Pedersen. Universal will release Bay’s Ambulance in theaters starting April 8th, 2022 this spring.
It should be noted that Murdoch’s alliance with Trump was an unholy affair in which Fox, the Journal editorial page and the New York Post disregarded the president’s high crimes and misdemeanors in exchange for the mogul’s access to the White House. Trump wasn’t the genocidal tyrant’s first pick for president in 2016. In July 2015, when Murdoch still tweeted, he used the site to dis the future president: “When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country?” When Fox refused to kiss Trump’s ring during the campaign, Trump boycotted the network’s primary debate. And as I’ve written before, Murdoch opposed Trump’s signature policies on immigrants, the Muslim ban and trade. Only after Trump clinched the nomination did Murdoch and his media empire become Trumpy.
Currently dissolving his fourth marriage to model Jerry Hall, the 91-year-old Murdoch is practiced in ending partnerships that no longer benefit him. In the United Kingdom, he has switched his editorial support back and forth between the Tories and Labour, depending on which party was willing to serve him better. He performs similar political puppetry in Australia.
The Murdoch-Trump union, never very stable in the first place, has been vectoring toward splitsville for some time. In early June, the New York Post rattled Trump’s cage with an editorial calling him “a prisoner of his own ego” and instructing him to concede the 2020 election. “Look forward!” the editorial urged. “The 2024 field is rich. You have Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley … the list goes on. All candidates who embrace conservative policies without the preoccupations of the Don.” Ten days later, Murdoch retainer Piers Morgan wrote a New York Post column explicitly urging Republicans to junk Donald for Ronald. Fox News has tilted ever so slightly against the Trump line in recent weeks, with news anchor Bret Baier acknowledging that the hearings made Trump “look horrific” and that Trump’s inaction was “very telling.” Trump has complained about Fox’s new posture, too. Today, he scorched Fox Friends, his former home away from home, for “botching” his poll numbers. “That show has been terrible — gone to the ‘dark side,’” Trump posted on Truth Social. Even FoxNews.com recently posted a three-minute montage of Trump voters vowing to back a different horse — like DeSantis — in 2024.
In a June 22 Gettr post, Trump co-conniver Steve Bannon discerned the coming breakup, writing in broken English, “The Murdochs — Australians via England — not American, have never sacrificed anything for this Country — their entire media Empire has turned on Trump — Fox News, Wall Street Journal , New York Post , Times of London , The Sun etc etc etc——all lockstep against Trump.”
Bannon wasn’t exaggerating for once. Murdoch himself signaled the split last November when he blew Trump a big, wet goodbye kiss at his company’s annual shareholder meeting, which the Wall Street Journal excerpted. Said Murdoch, “The current American political debate is profound, whether about education or welfare or economic opportunity. It is crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in that debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past. The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future.”
Although it looks great in headlines, the Murdoch-Trump divorce isn’t the seismic event that some pretend it is. The two masters of demagoguery have had their differences over the years. In 2015, Murdoch was calling Trump a “phony” to his friends and a “fucking idiot,” according to Michael Wolff’s 2018 book Fire and Fury. These insults did not prevent Trump from using Murdoch or Murdoch from using Trump. If Trump runs for president in 2024 and buries the field, there will be plenty of time for Murdoch to do what he traditionally does: Place his bet on the leading pony. Like a pair of powerful gangsters who quarrel over how to divide the spoils, Murdoch and Trump will reconcile if they determine it’s in their mutual interests to reconcile.
How could they possibly do that? It would be easy.
******
Trump has always reminded me of the gangster played by Ronald Reagan in his last Hollywood film, The Killers (1964), a film noir masterpiece by Don Siegel. Murdoch? Citizen Kane, of course, which Trump calls his favorite movie. Send noir ideas to [email protected]. My email alerts are accepting no new subscriptions. My Twitter feed doesn’t like film noir. My RSS feed wants to live in a world in which Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour gets the respect it deserves.
“We’re just a bunch of shelter pets, but we’re stronger than you think.” Warner Bros has revealed a new official trailer for the DC League of Super-Pets movie, also known as DC Super Pets. It’s based on a real spin-off comic series that first launched in 1962, created by Jerry Siegel and Curt Swan, all about the pets of famous DC superheroes. We’ve already featurednumerous trailersfor this so far, it actually looks better than expected, with some funny pet humor to go along with all the superhero jokes. Krypto the Super-Dog and Superman are inseparable best friends, sharing the same superpowers and fighting crime side by side in Metropolis. However, Krypto must master his own powers for a rescue mission when Superman is kidnapped. Kevin Hart voices Ace, with Keanu Reeves, Dwayne Johnson, Kate McKinnon, John Krasinski, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Diego Luna, and Marc Maron as Lex Luthor. This is going to be fun! Yeah it seems mainly made for kids, but it also looks like adults might enjoy this movie, too.
Here’s the third official trailer for Jared Stern’s DC League of Super-Pets, direct from WB’s YouTube:
It sure isn’t easy being Superman’s dog! Krypto hails from Krypton and has super-powers like his owner; but his social skills are decidedly alien at the dog park and he has no idea how to be ordinary. But when Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the rest of the Justice League are kidnapped; while Krypto is exposed to green kryptonite as a motley crew of shelter pets is exposed to orange kryptonite. Krypto is stripped of his abilities while the other animals become all-powerful.DC League of Super-Pets, also known as DC Super Pets, is directed by writer / producer Jared Stern, making his feature directorial debut with this project, after writing scripts for Mr. Popper’s Penguins, The Internship, The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego Ninjago Movie. Co-directed by Sam Levine. The screenplay is written by Jared Stern and John Whittington. Based on the DC Comics team initially introduced in 1962 as the “Legion of Super-Pets“. Warner Bros will release the DC League of Super-Pets movie in theaters on May 20th, 2022 this summer.
“You didn’t want to be old, what you wanted is to be YOU.” Gravitas Premiere has unveiled a trailer for an indie comedy titled Mack Rita, the latest from filmmaker Katie Aselton after her films The Freebie and Black Rock. This is being given a full on wide release in August, most likely because it has Diane Keaton in it and she can usually bring in audiences. A 30-year-old writer, played by Elizabeth Lail, spends a wild weekend in Palm Springs and wakes up to find she has magically transformed into her 70-year-old self – as played by Diane Keaton. “Freed from the constraints of other people’s expectations, Rita comes into her own, becoming an unlikely social media sensation” and sparking a tentative romance. The film’s ensemble cast includes Taylour Paige, Loretta Devine, Simon Rex, Dustin Milligan, Amy Hill, Lois Smith, Wendie Malick, Patti Harrison, Martin Short, Addie Weyrich, Aimee Carrero, and Nicole Byer. This is a fun coming-of-old-age concept and getting Keaton is perfect. Much like Big but going older! Enjoy.
Here’s the first official trailer for Katie Aselton’s Mack Rita, direct from YouTube:
When 30-year-old self-proclaimed homebody writer Mack Martin (Elizabeth Lail) reluctantly joins a Palm Springs bachelorette trip for her best friend Carla (Taylour Paige), her inner 70-year-old is released — literally. The frustrated writer and influencer magically transforms into her future self 40-years-older self: “Aunt Rita” (Diane Keaton). Freed from the constraints of other people’s expectations, Rita comes into her own, becoming an unlikely social media sensation and sparking a tentative romance with Mack’s adorable dog-sitter, Jack (Dustin Milligan). A sparkling new comedy with a magical twist, Mack Rita celebrates being true to yourself at any age.Mack Rita is directed by the American actress / filmmaker Katie Aselton, director of the films The Freebie and Black Rock previously. The screenplay is written by Paul Welsh Madeline Walter. It’s produced by Alex Saks, Diane Keaton, Stephanie Heaton-Harris, Jina Panebianco, Dori A. Rath. Gravitas opens Mack Rita in theaters nationwide starting August 12th, 2022.
“He looked like a prince from another planet, narrow‐eyed, with high Indian cheekbones and a smooth brown skin untouched by his 37 years,” reported the New York Times’ Chris Chase in June 1972.
The “prince” in question was Elvis Presley, performing live on June 9, the opening of his three-day, four-show engagement at Madison Square Garden in New York City. “[W]hen he started to work with the mike, his right hand flailing air, his left leg moving as though it had a life of its own, time stopped, and everyone in the place was 17 again,” Chase wrote.
Just a few hours earlier, the Times added, Elvis had held a press conference “in a hotel ballroom jammed with freaks, little skinny girls, fat men in hippie clothes, lots of leather jackets and inane questions.” Clad in a blue satin jumpsuit, the singer, with his mane of black hair and showbiz smile, received his audience with patience and grace. Off to the side as always, his manager, “the big‐bellied, straw‐hatted, cigar‐carrying” Colonel Tom Parker, watched over him.
Elvis in a movie still, circa 1957
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images
During the conference, a reporter barked a question at Elvis, prompting a revealing exchange.
“Are you satisfied with the image you’ve established?” he asked.
Elvis replied, “Uh … well, the image is one thing, and the human being is another, you know, so—”
The reporter cut him off. “How close does the image come to the man?”
“It’s … very hard to live up to an image. I’ll put it that way.”
“The world was not prepared for Elvis Presley,” proclaimed music writer Peter Guralnick in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock Roll. “He hit like a Pan American flash, and the reverberations still linger from the shock of his arrival.” Guralnick’s words, first published in 1976, still hold true today. Forty-five years after the musician’s death in 1977 at age 42, observers continue to reckon with the man and the myth that was—and is—Elvis Presley.
Baz Luhrmann’s new film Elvis, starring Austin Butler as the eponymous singer, testifies to the public’s enduring fascination with its title character. The movie dramatizes the artist’s rise and fall from a lesser-known perspective—that of his enigmatic manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). Crafted by Luhrmann with the characteristic extravagance of his earlier films, including Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby,Elvis explores the relationship between Elvis the man and Elvis the myth from the viewpoint of the man who sold both. Hanks’ Parker concedes as much in a trailer for the film: “Elvis the man was sacrificed, and Elvis the god was born.”
Here’s what you need to know about the true history behind Elvis—a story inseparable from myth—ahead of its release in theaters tomorrow, June 24.
Is Elvis based on a true story?
Yes. The movie condenses Elvis’ life into a 159-minute biopic. Much is necessarily left out, but all of the key moments appear: Elvis’ discovery at Sun Records in 1954, the titillating cultural explosions of his first live shows, the ’68 Comeback Special, his reinvention in Las Vegas in the 1970sand everything in between. Parker’s narration of the film adds another layer to the experience, as the former carny–turned–rock and roll manager is an unreliable narrator if ever there was one.
“The film is really a story about the ‘biz,’ and the ‘show,’” Luhrmann tells GQ. “… But it isn’t ‘Elvis did this, Elvis did that.’ It’s actually about America in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. He’s at the center of culture, for the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Given Luhrmann’s flair for larger-than-life spectacle, Elvis may well reflect the star’s spirit better than any prior depiction. As Harper’s magazine asked in 1958, “When [Elvis’] present public finds itself, as it someday must, demesmerized by time, … what’s to become of this young man whose life and legend are by now indistinguishable?”
Who was Elvis Presley?
Before he was a rock and roll star, Elvis was a truck driver. And before he was a truck driver, he grew up in abject poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi. Born on January 8, 1935, Elvis came of age in a heavily segregated region still reeling from the Great Depression. As the South modernized and became part of a prosperous, postwar America in the 1950s, Elvis brought its musical culture onto the national stage.
These were the conditions that made Elvis, whose actions were largely driven by his fear of losing everything and ending up back where he’d began. “I can never forget the longing to be someone,” he told a reporter in 1965. “I know what poverty is. I lived it for a long time.”
Growing up, Elvis’ desire for something more in life led him to fall in love with all things pop culture. “Elvis invented himself over and over again, through the popular culture that he consumed,” says Michael T. Bertrand, a cultural historian at Tennessee State University and the author of Race, Rock, and Elvis. “I mean, music, movies, style—he was a sponge. … He was the ultimate consumer.” Only 19 when he started recording music with Sun Records in 1954, the culture-savvy teenager was, at the beginning of his career, very much like his future fans.
Austin Butler as Elvis in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Elvis’ music drew on his favorite styles—the kinds of music he listened to on the radio, including country, gospel, and rhythm and blues performed by both white and Black artists. “He’s kind of a synthesizer,” says Jack Hamilton, a cultural historian at the University of Virginia. “Like a lot of young, very talented musicians, he’s just kind of going with his gut. … You can really hear all of his influences.”
Elvis was at his best on stage. Whether it was his legendary 1954 appearance on Louisiana Hayride, his ’68 Comeback Specialor his 1973 Aloha From Hawaiibroadcast, the star always brought the thunder. He had “a style and panache that come close to pure magic,” wrote Elvis biographer W.A. Harbinson in 1975. “Flamboyant and flashy, sexy and self-mocking, he works with the instincts of a genius to give poetry to the basic rock performance.” Whether he made fans swoon with “Love Me Tender,” rocked their worlds with “Jailhouse Rock” or set their hearts aflame with “Burning Love,” Elvis proved again and again that he was made for the stage.
Though Elvis didn’t write his own material, he heightened every song he sang with the rawness of his smoldering baritone. “He had an incredible sense of time, an incredible sense of intonation and phrasing. … It’s sort of like musical intuition,” says Hamilton. Elvis’ early records, produced by Sam Phillips at Sun Records, stand as testaments to his talent: “That’s All Right,” “Baby, Let’s Play House,” “Mystery Train.”
Though none of Elvis’ Sun singles became national hits, alongside his live performances, they won him a regional following. Elvis’ unique sound, borne from the talent of his voice and the instrumental skill of his backing band, the Blue Moon Boys, resonated across the United States as he moved from Sun to a new label, RCA Victor, and became a national star. From 1956 to 1958, the teen idol dominated the charts with hits like “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Don’t Be Cruel,” even as he was castigated by his detractors as “Elvis the Pelvis” for his suggestive dance moves and called a racial slur for his affinity with Black culture. Then, in 1958, at the height of his fame, Elvis was drafted into the Army and shipped off to Germany. He only resumed his career after the end of his service in 1960.
The following exchange between the colonel and a White House staffer, recounted in the rock magazine Creemin 1972, aptly summarizes Parker’s approach to business:
President Nixon requests Mr. Presley to perform. The Colonel did a little quick figuring and then told the man that Elvis would consider it an honor. For the President, Elvis’s fee … would be $25,000. The good German gasped.
“Col. Parker, nobody gets paid for playing for the President.”
“Well, I don’t know much about that, son,” the Colonel responded abruptly, “but there’s one thing I do know. Nobody asks Elvis Presley to play for nothing.”
Like Elvis, Parker came from humble beginnings. Born in the Netherlands as Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk on June 26, 1909, he, too, reinvented himself. Illegally immigrating to the U.S. at the age of 17 and adopting the name Thomas Andrew Parker (he thereafter claimed to be from West Virginia), he made his living as a carnival worker, aside from a nearly four-year stint in the Army. Honorably discharged for psychopathy in 1933, it wasn’t through the military, but rather a carny connection, that Parker received the honorary title of “colonel” from the Louisiana state government.
President Richard Nixon shakes hands with Elvis in the Oval Office in December 1970.
The colonel later leveraged a position working at an animal shelter to break into the music industry, managing crooner Gene Austin and country stars Eddy Arnold, Hank Snow and Tommy Sands before turning his attention to Elvis as the artist began making waves in the country music scene. In 1955, Parker persuaded the much-larger record label RCA Victor to buy out Elvis’ contract with Sun Records for the staggering sum of $35,000; he became Elvis’ manager and exclusive representative for the rest of the star’s career.
Parker’s personal credo was “don’t try to explain it; just sell it.” He may not have understood—or even liked—rock and roll, but he knew how to promote a product and negotiate with force. In addition to securing Elvis’ RCA deal, Parker negotiated his feature films, his Vegas residency and his Aloha From Hawaii special. The colonel even profited from Elvis’ detractors, selling ”I Hate Elvis” pins alongside “I Love Elvis” ones. Whatever served Elvis’ interests served Parker’s, too: He contractually took a 25 percent cut on all of his client’s earnings (50 percent for licensing and merchandise).
Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis on a movie set in 1969
Music writers continue to debate how necessary the colonel was to Elvis’ career, particularly as he polished the rocker’s rough edges to make him more marketable. (The star’s first studio album was titled Elvis Presley. His sixth: Something for Everybody.) Rock critic Dave Marsh denounced Parker as “the most overrated person in the history of show-business,” arguing that he “[sold] genius short for 23 years.” Guralnick, meanwhile, concluded that Elvis and the colonel “started out with great love, loyalty, respect,” but “towards the end of Presley’s life, they should have walked away. None of the rules of the relationship were operative any longer.”
“Words can never tell you how my folks and I appreciate what you did for me,” wrote Elvis in a 1955 telegram thanking the colonel for negotiating the RCA deal. “I will stick with you through thick and thin. … I love you like a father.” Toward the end of his life, however, Elvis’ relationship with the colonel completely changed. He felt trapped by the contracts the colonel signed for him in the 1960s and ’70s—a resentment worsened by his drug abuse and the colonel’s gambling addiction. On stage in Vegas in August 1974, the musician ranted at his audience: “Is the Colonel around anywhere? No, he’s out playing roulette, … out there talkin’ mash and drinkin’ trash, whatever.”
“He needed a father figure,” says Nash. “I think initially, Elvis loved this idea. … [The colonel] seemed not only interested in turning his million dollars’ worth of talent into a million dollars, but also in wanting the very best for him.” In the end, it’s likely that Elvis felt obligated to stick with Parker. After all, he had family and friends (nicknamed the “Memphis Mafia” by the media for their black suits and limousines) to support. Above all, he was terrified of being poor again. And the colonel was great at making money.
But did Parker truly care about Elvis?
“[He] was not a warm and fuzzy guy,” says Nash. “I think providing, being able to say, ‘I got the most money,’ was his way of showing love.”
Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Did Elvis steal Black music?
Music critics, journalists, academics and fans have long debated the idea of Elvis as a white thief of Black art. The truth of the matter is complicated.
Rock and roll started with Black rhythm and blues (also called RB). “Rock and roll is not, or was not, so much a distinct genre of music as it was a label that was applied to an existing musical form to market it to white teenagers,” says Steven Lewis, a curator of music and the performing arts at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). “Rock and roll was rhythm and blues repackaged for white audiences.”
Rock and roll was indisputably pioneered by Black artists such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley. It’s “Black music” in the sense that it was invented by Black artists, but as Lewis argues, that doesn’t mean only Black people can play music with origins in Black culture. “To me, it’s the difference between talking about Black music as a musical language and talking about musical Blackness as something that is inherent in the body of a Black person,” the curator adds. (In other words, it’s crucial not to confuse music originated by Black artists with the cultural experience of being Black.)
Alton Mason as Little Richard in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Elvis didn’t “steal” Black music simply by performing it. He consistently credited the artistry of his Black predecessors and peers, so it’s disingenuous to label him a thief. “A lot of people seem to think I started this business,” he told Jet magazine in 1957. “But rock ‘n’ roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people. Let’s face it: I can’t sing like Fats Domino can. I know that.”
While this “borrowing”—and whether it constitutes cultural appropriation—is heavily contested, it’s perhaps most useful to think about it in terms of cultural exchange: neutral, with the potential to be positive or negative. American popular music had thrived on cultural exchange (and appropriation) since its inception, and Elvis was far from the first—or the last—white artist to draw from Black music. This lineage includes countless other rockers, including the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones, not to mention jazz greats like Benny Goodman and Sophie Tucker and rappers like Eminem and Post Malone.
What is often overlooked when observers pin the blame for pop cultural racism on a single artist is the fact that the broader music industry was—and still is—racist. White artists, regardless of their intentions, enjoyed greater access to fame and profit than Black artists by virtue of the color of their skin. “The discussion of cultural appropriation in music would be much more nuanced if we took a broader look at the conditions in which musicians worked,” says Lewis. “Elvis was always going to get radio play and record sales that Black artists could not have gotten at the time. So, in some ways, the problem goes beyond Elvis.”
Elvis was hailed by his fans as the white “king” of a Black musical style whose originators received far less recognition than he did. “I believe that if Elvis had been Black, he wouldn’t have been as big as he was,” Little Richard told Rolling Stone in 1990. “A lot of things they would do for Elvis and Pat Boone, they wouldn’t do for me.” White rapper Eminem, conscious of how his race benefitted his career, compared himself to Elvis in his 2002 single “Without Me”: “No, I’m not the first king of controversy / I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley / To do Black music so selfishly / And use it to get myself wealthy.”
No, Elvis didn’t steal Black music, but he certainly appropriated and profited from it within an unjust, discriminatory system.
Why should we still care about Elvis?
Defying his detractors, who expected his fame to putter out during his military service, Elvis resumed his career right where it left off upon returning to the U.S. in 1960. Backed by the colonel, Elvis starred in nearly 30 movies over the next eight years, appearing in comfort films like Blue Hawaii (1961) and Viva Las Vegas (1964), where he sang, danced and always got the girl. Though the movies made Elvis rich, he became dissatisfied with how they limited his creativity to milquetoast plots and soundtrack albums.
The ’68 Comeback Special changed everything. A televised concert that revisited the entirety of Elvis’ career, it revived him as an artist. Sexy and electric in a full-leather ensemble, he growled and ground his way back up to rock stardom. Leveraging the special’s momentum, the colonel secured Elvis a lucrative residency at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, where he performed 636 consecutive sold-out shows between July 1969 and December 1976.
The concerts started off well. The artistic freedom Elvis enjoyed in Vegas rejuvenated him as a performer. But things started to fall apart as the pressures of fame caught up to him. He divorced his wife, Priscilla, in 1973. His relationship with the colonel deteriorated as he once again felt trapped by his contractual obligations. He abused drugs and ate his way to obesity to cope with singing and dancing through his two-shows-a-night, seven-days-a-week regimen.
Priscilla and Elvis Presley following their wedding on May 1, 1967
Bettman via Getty Images
“We’re caught in a trap,” he lamented in “Suspicious Minds,” his last number-one single. Though his triumphant 1973 Aloha From Hawaii broadcast kept his myth alive, it wasn’t enough for the man himself. Elvis died of a heart attack on August 16, 1977, at his Graceland estate in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 42 years old.
Elvis, in his artistry, grandeur and contradictions, was a living embodiment of the American dream. In remembering his life and times and attempting to parse the man from the myth, audiences come closer to understanding the multivalent meanings of American culture.
“I always say to people who weren’t alive in 1956, when Elvis hit the national scene, you cannot imagine the before and after [of] American culture,” says Nash. “It was a seismic change. It was as if a bomb had blown up that engulfed the entire world.”
Elvis performing in front of a crowd around 1957
Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Hamilton adds, “It’s impossible to imagine a world of popular music in which Elvis doesn’t exist. [He] was as much—if not more—a cultural phenomenon than a musical one.”
At his best Elvis not only embodies but personalizes so much of what is good about [America]: a delight in sex that is sometimes simple, sometimes complex, but always open; a love of roots and a respect for the past; a rejection of the past and a demand for novelty; the kind of racial harmony that for Elvis, a white man, means a powerful affinity with the most subtle nuances of black culture combined with an equally profound understanding of his own whiteness; a burning desire to get rich, and to have fun; a natural affection for big cars, flashy clothes, for the symbols of status that give pleasure both as symbols, and on their own terms. Elvis has long since become one of those symbols himself.
We should care about Elvis—the man and the myth—because he was Elvis Presley, a true American original.
Grant Wong |
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Grant Wong is an American history Ph.D. student of 20th century pop culture and consumerism at the University of South Carolina.
