Elvis "Postwar Product" Presely

“Elvis was the purest of postwar products, the commodity that had been missing from the shelves in an expanding marketplace of leisure time and disposable cash”-Peter Guralnick's The Rise of Elvis Presley, 240

It isn’t that Elvis was the first musician to gyrate and sell his act with sex, but he was the first to do it on television. Even though he wasn’t the first, he received unprecedented attention. David Shumway reminds us that his acts “were televised and…watched by enormous audiences” (132). To the new audiences he was reaching, the teen and particularly teen girl demographic, he was performing music they had never heard and acted a way they hadn’t seen anyone act. He was a poor, white, Christian guy inspired by black culture and music and hitting against boundaries of decorum, gender and sexuality. It’s no wonder that he garnered so much attention. As Shumway notes: “Elvis transgressed gender boundaries in several ways, but…his most troubling transgression was to call attention to his body as a sexual object” (126)

David Shumway’s argument aligns Elvis’ status as the first pop sensation, a feminized, fetishized icon as a result of the “changes in the social relationship of the genders” occurring in postwar America in the 1950s. The period saw a blurring (less mature: tug of war) on gender roles; women who had been working difficult, traditionally masculine job weren’t instantly relieved to have their independence (and tangible satisfaction of a days work) just taken from them. Shumway quotes Bailey in saying “the fragility of gender was the root of the trouble. The necessary barriers had broken down and women were exercising too much power—whether by stifling masculinity or by assuming masculine traits themselves” (126).

Guralnick’s biography repeatedly makes mention of Elvis’ adopting what Shumway might define as “feminine codes” (visual presentation): affinity garish costuming (though never cross-dressing), meticulous hair styling, and appearing to wear eye shadow. The combination of this feminized persona and his heightened masculine sexual presence made women and girls hysterical. Guralnick paints a wonderfully insane scene: “these high school girls were screaming and fainting and running up to the stage, and then he started to move his hips real slow like he had a thing for his guitar” (182-83). Now, Shumway does not suggest that Elvis performed what he defines as “transvestite rock” (127), like more contemporary Boy George and David Bowie, opting instead to call him “androgynous”. He was adopting feminine codes, putting himself in a vulnerable, objectifies position (the object for the gaze), but he didn’t try to bend gender roles in his appearance.

His flamboyant and highly sexualized stage presence brought gained his both critical and mass appeal. But he claims that it was just the way he performed. Elvis allowed himself to be sexual on stage, essentially objectifying himself for his female fans. Though it’s a traditionally vulnerable position he seemed to relish in the attention. Shumway proves that there is much more to Elvis’ rise to fame than talent. Whether Elvis consciously realized what he was doing or not, or if “it was just the way he did it” (Guralnick, 248) a review of the social context within which Elvis was living and performing serves to better explain how he became “Elvis”.

Youtube Bonus! I found this video of a short interview with Elvis and a performance with some pretty substantial gyrating and greased (seriously, greased) hair.