Payton Ewalt - Core Post #3

When I initially read through Doss’ piece, one thing became immediately clear to me: the most important responses to Elvis’ performances and persona were all somatic. Doss writes that Elvis’ desire to perform and please his audience combined with their eagerness to respond became something “explosive and experiential, something liberating and connective all at once” (Doss 3). Personally, I’ve never been able to stand Elvis. My somatic response to seeing him is to cringe. Other than Glenn Ford and Clark Gable, there are few older stars that I hate with such a passion. But the most interesting thing was reading about how different other people’s responses to him were during the time. A quote read “His belting style drives us wild. We have to do something. Kick the seat in front or let out a ‘rebel yell’ or something” (4).

I do wonder how people responded to him in his cinematic form though. Theories from scholars like Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener of cinema as ear or as skin and touch explore the ways that cinema incite involuntary bodily responses from us, like Elvis’ live performance that inspired acts of The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead. But how do those things translate to the screen, if at all? I can watch The Last Waltz or Stop Making Sense and try to feel as much of the music and performance as I want, but it doesn’t compare to physically being there in a concert. Were people screaming and fainting as they watched Viva Las Vegas for the fifth time in the theater? How much of the somatic response to seeing or being in the physical presence of a star is made of the repression of our feelings when they’re only 2D on a screen? If I saw Mick Jagger in five different films and once in person, would my reaction to seeing him in person be the same as seeing him in person for the sixth time?

Elvis was a media creation, the brilliant vision of a culture whose repression and desire had reached a limit – a threshold – and no longer wanted to be contained. It was interesting to me then when in Sweeney’s article John Waters was brought up. When I thought about interacting with film and music in the context of Elvis’ films, I thought of audience participation in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour audiences getting up and dancing and singing. If dancing, falling to your knees, screaming, and crying are responses to a star like Elvis or Taylor Swift, how many layers of abstraction can someone’s somatic response to a star take and still retain its initial integrity? How much of the cheering and singing at a Rocky Horror showing is a response to the image of Tim Curry or what his character and the film’s history represents, the same way singing and dancing at the Eras Tour film are a response to the effect of Taylor’s music on people’s personal lives rather than the image of her on the screen?

Anyway, I don't even know if what I've written makes any sense! But in light of our favorite hound dog attending the Oscars last weekend and the positive reception of Austin Butler’s role in Dune 2, here’s a tweet I’ve been loving: