As American as Elvis by: slick riddles February 19, 2006 at 19:25:59 America
In my first diary here, I am not now, I discussed anti-communism. A large part of that ideology was to determine what persons activities and ideas were Un-American.
The second diary was about the limitations of the two-party system and in a way was also about what is American and what is not.
Tonight, I'd like to discuss part of my vision of what is American and I'll use the iconic figure of "The King" to help me discover my mother country. As they say "There's Good Rockin' Tonite."
I'll be straight with y'all. Part of what i'm doing with this diary is trying to get the title's simile to sprout legs and walk into the English language. Were Elvis to replace apple pie as the standard of Americaness, I believe that would be a good thing for the left side of the spectrum.
Besides, I can't remember the last time I had apple pie, but just last week Garrison Kiellor sang "Can't Help Falling in Love With You" on "the Prairie Home Companion." Not only is this an Elvis song, it is also Ms. Riddles and my wedding song. I'm always hearing Elvis, hardly ever eating apple pie.
It should be self-evident that Elvis is a symbol of America, but let's dig into it a bit. First thing is Elvis's southern background. The Tupelo, Mississippi birthplace and the rest of his life spent in Memphis establish Elvis as a son of the south. This is actually crucial to his Americaness. In fact the South as a whole has had an inordinate power to define American/Un-American.
This goes back to the Declaration (and before) when Jefferson wished to insert a paragraph blaming George III for slavery. Southern delegates forced any mention of slavery out of the document. Later with the Constitution, a similar situation prevailed. Southerners are able to define slavery as wholly American and constitutional.
This has gone on for centuries and still goes on today. As an example, Robert E. Lee, leads an insurrection against the US and yet is still highly regarded even in the North. While on the other hand John Brown who wanted to free the slaves 5 years before they were actually freed, is normally vilified as a zealot, an abolitionist, a madman. Who is more American?
So the fact of southerness is crucial to Elvis. Equally crucial is that he arrives simultaneosly with the Second Reconstruction. You all know the 2nd Reconstruction, that's the one that was necessary because white southerners had defined the first one as share-cropping, black codes, Ku Klux terror, lynching, Jim Crow and general white supremacy. Activist judges interpreted the 14th and 15th ammendments in a way that destroyed legislative intent. So a second Reconstruction was called for. This time scalawags and carpet-baggers would be known as commies, nigger-lovers and generally un-American.
The loss of New Orleans makes me think we need a 3rd Reconstruction or an ongoing reconstruction. But these days the white supremacists wear hoods made from the party of Lincoln. No matter, like John Malkovich in Places in the Heart we all know who they are don't we?
Southerness is crucial but if Elvis doesn't manage to transcend that he can't become a fully American Icon. This is something we all have to go through -- transcending localness to become Americans. And localness can be a place, a religious grouping, an ethnicity or something else. Elvis transcends his localness in two important ways. First by crossing a cultural color-line and then by becoming a Hollywood star.
The first of these is, I believe, the more important and does the most to make him a symbol of America as I understand it. Shortly before Elvis showed up at Sam Philips' Sun Studios in Memphis, Philips had said to an associate that if he could find a white man who sang like a Negroe he could make a fortune. Elvis apparently fit the bill. Philips needed Elvis because he couldn't market the Black artists he was recording to white audiences.
This ability that Elvis had to give a convincing (to whites) performance of Black cultural product put him in a long tradition that most Americans find embarassing but which nonetheless serves to define us.
As far back as the 1830s lower-class white men (mostly Irish at the time) began to stage minstrel shows that featured plantation songs and dancing and rascist comedy routines that played off stereotypes. Of course the performers all "blacked-up" for the performance. Critics evaluated these shows based on how closely they mimicked actual African-Americans. Minstrelsy becomes the most poular form of American entertainment. Later after the Civil War, when Black performers joined some of these shows they also had to black up so they would look like the white performers.
Minstrelsy is always in the background of American popular music and culture. The first talking movie The Jazz Singer featured Al Jolson in blackface. Watch the Blues Brothers the next time they are on TBS. Akroyd and Belushi know that blackface is totally off limits so thay make everything but their faces black. Shoes, socks, pants, jacket, tie, fedora and sunglasses. The Blues Brothers are classic color-line crossers.
Beyond minstrelsy, in the 20s,, 30s, 40s there is a long line of white jazz musicians who do what Elvis does. But Elvis is just in a right place at a right time to drastically change the ways Americans think about these things.
His first single featured "Blue Moon of Kentucky" by Bill Monroe and "That's All Right Mama" by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. Crudup was a black blues performer and Bill Monroe is of course, the "Father of Bluegrass Music" possibly the whitest music in America. This is emblematic of how Elvis's music went. His career opened up oppurtunities for many black artists like Little Richard. Rock n' Roll was bi-racial in its early days and Elvis helped to create that. At the end of his career he would perform "An American Trilogy" that brought together Dixie, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and All My Trials, a spiritual. Makes me think he might have been conscious of his role.
Besides the white black thing there is also a way in which Elvis's career is classically American. It's a perfect Horatio Alger story including the luck of walking into Sun Studios. Rags to riches indeed! I've read somewhere that Elvis gained thirty pounds in the first year he was making money. He must have been hungry for years before that. In no time he is a wealthy recording star buying houses and Cadillacs. A movie career comes next and even though the movies are those stupid formulas he is a part of Hollywood -- tres Americain
There's the stint in the Army which somehow takes the rock n roll out of Elvis and then the long decline as a fat guy in a jumpsuit in Vegas. But even all this seems to bespeak his Americaness. In fact there's a parallel between Elvis's life and America. Both start off rebellious and energetic. In mid-career both are dealing with made-up happy stories and finally Vegas Elvis is a perfect symbol for an America that is bloated and thinks no one will notice if it wears a jumpsuit and hands out sweaty scarves.
As American as Elvis? I don't know.