Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic comes out in June, so there is a lot of time ahead to say all the things I want to say about Elvis, I don’t want to blow my load on the trailer. So I’ve decided, now that the first trailer has been released, that my post today about the movie and the preview is going to be an advance apology for all the Elvis enthusiasm that is on its way between now and the movie’s release. (Sarah: Is this because the trailer looks like deleted footage from Walk Hard?)
I first got into Elvis Presley when I was around 12. One of my gateways was Priscilla Presley’s book Elvis & Me. And then it turned into an obsession. I was of the age when you start getting horny, and Elvis was so beautiful. I spent an entire summer reading every book I could find about Elvis and only listening to his music. Back then, being a fan wasn’t as easy as it is now. Here’s where I’m the boomer telling you kids that in those times, if you wanted music, you had to leave your house and go to a record store and if it wasn’t music that was currently on the radio that you were looking for, you’d have to go sifting through bins to find cassette tapes. Cassette tapes! Nowadays listening to a new song involves picking up your phone and scrolling. Music required effort!
So there I was, a pre-teen, having all these feelings about this dead icon and learning about his hard times as a child and how he broke through and the circumstances leading to his death but not really understanding anything about his life in the context of the social and racial politics of the era…
Which is where the apology comes in. I cared about Elvis so much, at such a formative time in my life, that it’s branded on my personality. I’ve been to Graceland, not every year like some hardcore Elvis stans, but when I was there I was right at home with them, they were my people, LOL. I took the tour, with the headphones, I touched everything I could, I mainlined every detail, I ate the peanut butter and banana sandwich…
I named my dog after him!
And I’m sorry about this because I’m watching this trailer now, and I can see now, with more experience and learning, that Elvis popularised an artform originated by Black artists who were never credited for it and who did not have the privilege of enjoying the same kind of success from it. There’s a scene in the trailer that seems to be focus on Elvis’s allyship, and while he always conceded in his lifetime that he was heavily influenced by gospel, opposed segregation, and supported Dr Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights Movement, suggesting that Elvis was some kind of racial justice leader is… a stretch.
Also, Elvis was an adult when he met Priscilla, who was just 14 years old. We’re going to have to talk about that part of the story now that it’s getting the Baz treatment. So I know all this, and I understand what it represents, the inequality, the ick factor…
But still, I don’t think I’ll be to help myself. I’m still going to watch the sh-t out of this movie, I’ll probably watch it twice in one day given how many times I’ve watched the trailer already, and I will probably love it. I likely won’t even be able to pretend that I don’t like it. Because, for starters, Baz Luhrmann always makes irresistibly good-looking movies – and this is no exception. Elvis, the movie, looks incredibly vivid, exploding with colour...
This is Moulin Elvis, spectacular spectacular, Elvis the spectacle, bright and tacky and so alive. And then there’s Austin Butler, in the role of his career, at times indistinguishable from the OG himself. I’ve spent a lifetime watching Elvis footage and there are a couple of moments here – like at the 2:15 mark when he leans back and then forward, shot from the side during the ‘68 Comeback Special, when Elvis was at his pure f-cking HOTTEST, and again at 2:35 in his famous white jumpsuit, again shot from the side, and the same side too, when he’s sauntering backwards – where it’s EXACT, the body, the gait, the flow…
I know I am not strong enough to resist this. I know already that I have failed on objectivity.
That said, I am not sorry about laughing. There’s a lot to laugh about where Elvis is concerned. Elvis was so f-cking corny and extra and they’re showing a lot of this here in the trailer. His martial arts obsession was super cringe and there’s a shot of him in the preview of his making karate hands, LOL. His karate posing will never not be stupidly funny. There was also his obsession with police badges and how he and his boys would roll around like they were on patrol. “TCB”, as in “taking care of business” was their motto, and it became the logo, with a lightning bolt – cheesy AF like so much of Elvis’s sh-t, and it will never not make me scream when I imagine him and his entourage strutting around casinos with all their “TCB” swagger. There’s lots of room for comedy here and I hope Baz leans into it. Sarah said that if she were writing this post she wouldn’t be able to resist the “Walk Hard” jokes (Sarah: And I didn’t!). Those are welcome, too. I mean I love Elvis and part of that is loving everything that’s absurd about Elvis. I’m sorry about that, too.
