In Pursuit of Elvis: Performativity and Authenticity in Elvis Impersonation
By Kate Pelling
©Kate Pelling September 2008
Abstract
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1: In Pursuit of the Performative
Chapter 2: In Pursuit of Authenticity
Conclusion
Bibliography
Fig. 1: Detail of In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Tongue) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 2: Detail from In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis' Favourite Colour was Blue) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 3: Elvis by Andy Warhol 1963
Fig. 4: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis in Pieces) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 5: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis' Blow Job) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 6: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (The King of Rock and Roll Became a Queen) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 7: Detail of In Pursuit of Elvis (Memories and Manifestos) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 8: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis' Sandwich) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 9: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis' Secret) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 10: Shawn Klush with some fans after a performance Peabody Hotel, Memphis, August 2007 Photo by Kate Pelling
Fig. 11: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Blood, Sweat and Tears) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 12: In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis and Gladys) by Kate Pelling
Fig. 13: Candlelit Vigil outside Graceland, Memphis August 2007 Photos by Kate Pelling
Fig. 14: Homage to Elvis, 1991, by Joanne Stephens from Elvis + Marilyn: 2 X Immortal, 1997
Introduction
The answer can only come from the impersonator. For by enacting on stage – or by video screen – the disarticulation of parts, the repetition of images that is the breakdown of the image itself, it is only the impersonator who can theorize gender.[1]
This paper is going to be examining a body of visual work created by myself based on Elvis impersonation, I will be using this visual work to both engage with and disrupt Elvis impersonation through questions of performativity, authenticity and masculinity. The body of work, titled In Pursuit of Elvis[2], consists of video, drawing and photography, with myself performing as Elvis. This paper explores the work in an attempt to suggest that Elvis impersonation occupies a ‘queer’ space due to its challenge to normative standards of masculinity and the authentic self. Judith Butler’s notions of gender performativity, mourning and melancholia will inform this exploration, as will Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome and Adorno’s work on authenticity. Using this theoretical framework I am going to explore how In Pursuit of Elvis addresses the conceptual tension between performativity and authenticity to create a theoretical position that challenges normative gender structures.
I am going to discuss how In Pursuit of Elvis explores the concepts of performativity and authenticity through use of visual language and narratives around drag, masculinity, queer identity and melancholia. The context of this exploration comes from the experience of making the work, the intrinsic conceptual importance of the process will be discussed here, and this study also gives me the opportunity to look at the resulting cultural document in a critical light, to tease out the strands of research and areas of conflict that are present in the theoretical aspect of this visual work; to explore the questions arising from the wider context of the work.
In Pursuit of Elvis is a visual and theoretical assemblage with an emphasis on process as well as product. The term ‘assemblage’, appropriated from Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus[3], includes the process of making and the form of the work as meaningful to the eventual product as providing the connections between the parts, giving it a quality of spacio-temporal multiplicity. The term is not a translation from the French ‘assemblage’, which refers to a collection of parts just like its English equivalent, but a translation from the word ‘agencement’ which follows Deleuze’s work on the philosophy of Spinoza and the ‘common notion’[4], which represents the situation when two or more bodies have something in common.
‘Agencement’ corresponds to the notions of event, becoming and sense. Spinoza’s work explored that all bodies have in common the states of extension, motion and rest; but when two or more bodies come into contact or otherwise enter into a relationship they form a composition. A ‘common notion’ is the representation of this composition as an independent unity. In this sense the term assemblage, in translation from ‘agencement’, implies the unity and homogeneity of a theoretical concept, and in applying it to In Pursuit of Elvis the term includes the process, event and connective threads of the work as well as the work itself, as a unit without chronological or systematical order.
Elvis impersonation is a practice that occupies a subcultural position in society but it consists of an estimated 85,000[5] people and resembles a society in itself, having many common ideas and connections with the normative in terms of its structure and hierarchies. This connection with the normative is however only apparent from within discourses around Elvis impersonation, generally the practice is situated against the normative of general society. Elvis impersonation has evolved to provide its own sense of relation to an ideal standard or model; but much like the dominant idea of masculinity that it would like to reflect, there is no one person who can be identified as embodying the normative representation of an Elvis impersonator.
Elvis impersonation provides a set of ready-made imagery, a visual language available for use and recognisable on a worldwide basis. The normative representation of Elvis impersonation follows the different personas that Elvis Presley presented throughout his career. An ‘Elvis’ can be a shiny jacketed 1950’s look, through to a GI, through to the ’68 comeback in the black leather and gold lame suit through to the famous white Vegas jumpsuit and impersonators can and indeed do change their ‘Elvis’ as their career progresses and as they age or their body shape changes. However the variations within these groups are immeasurable, even within the dominant group of the Vegas jumpsuit, and the differences in terms of performance are also beyond reasonable evaluation.
As the purpose of the research was to both engage with and disrupt Elvis impersonation by queering it, it was necessary not just to explore the normative of Elvis impersonation, which could have been achieved remotely, it was important to test and to push the boundaries of what Elvis impersonation is in order to investigate new narratives around it and to explore what impact it could have on society in terms of changing perceptions of gender identity.
The research method of this project is as important as any findings or connections made from the research. It was vital that I approached this cultural subject using cultural tools and to create a product that could in turn be put back into the culture. This makes the process an additive one, exploring and adding to the field; creating a resultant hybrid cultural subject that is cross disciplinary. This idea of an additive process is also important in terms of a discussion around performativity and the queering of authenticity, both of which could be defined as reductive, all of which I will discuss later. In Pursuit of Elvis is to include this critical appraisal of itself as part of the assemblage, as a part of the hybrid cultural document.
Elvis’s hair created even more of a furor. It was like a black man’s (Little Richard’s; James Brown’s); it was like a hood’s; it was like a woman’s. Race, class, and gender: Elvis’s appearance violated or disrupted them all.[6]
If Elvis Presley was capable of challenging race, class and gender with just his haircut then what sort of cultural resonance might an estimated 85,000[7] Elvis impersonators have on the world, and what happens when the impersonation is queered or disrupted in itself. In Pursuit of Elvis is essentially an investigation of Elvis impersonation to see if this initial disruption can be continued, or to make a new disturbance to cultural norms to include new ways of thinking about race, class and gender and to consider identity in more fluid terms.
Never having been a particular fan of Elvis Presley, and following on from some work around femininity and the performance of gender using myself as the subject, I had decided to look for a personification of ‘performance’ and I thought about using Elvis Presley. The resulting visual work provides a research method and cultural product where the research evidence is visible within the framework of the practice and is accessible in that it can be engaged with on a variety of levels. Researching in this way provides a self reflexive context through the actual experience of the role of Elvis impersonator, this research, and the wider context of the assemblage, would not have been possible without this first hand experience. This process is supported by a study of existing literature from the subject area and discourse analysis around the dominant themes of the research.
This paper will discuss how In Pursuit of Elvis explores the conceptual tension between the concepts of performativity and authenticity. An emphasis will be placed on the role of drag as an example of the performance of gender; in turn showing Elvis impersonation as a queer practice that exists outside of established normative gender structures. I will also argue how authenticity, particularly in the case of Elvis impersonation is a subjective term, and how it has a relationship with mourning and melancholia in relation to object loss. This line of thinking will develop further to explore Elvis impersonation as a form of gender melancholia; I will look at how In Pursuit of Elvis develops a visual language on the relationship of grief to drag.
The video pieces in the assemblage of In Pursuit of Elvis are achieved entirely through improvisation, which I will discuss as being an important tool to explore the subject of performance, especially when discussing performance in terms of authenticity. The drawings are made using repetition and by either only looking at the subject and never looking at the hand that is drawing or by using the left hand, when I am usually right handed. My processes serve the purpose of making further comment on the current culture of fame in relation to identity, by questioning the way we look at and what we expect from performed representation.
The process of making the assemblage, improvisation for the performance and the drawing process, involves an element of the unknown and introduces a sense of difficulty, suggesting that the result should not be easily achieved, like the position of ‘icon’ that it questions. The success of In pursuit of Elvis is dependant on how knowledge gained from the process is communicated to the viewer, and in order to discuss this I will firstly need to offer a definition of the terms that I will be using: performative, queer, authenticity, mourning and melancholia.
The performative is a linguistic model that demarcates an action that is dependant on an utterance, a speech act, so while a performance, including improvisation, relates only to an action the performative does not exist without an initial linguistic statement. The term was first used by J L Austin in his book How to do Things with Words[8] and was then taken on by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble[9], who used it to describe the social construction of gender, showing it as a discursive utterance that is followed by an action dependent on that utterance, which is then repeated and repeated to give it a power of it’s own. An example of this is how the statement of “it’s a girl!” at birth sets up a consequential series of actions applied to and by the person which has a direct effect on how their identity is constructed; all dependent on that initial linguistic statement.
The performative action has no particular power in society as an isolated event but with a continued repetition of the utterance and the following action, even with variations on the form of the speech act, the power is reinforced and entrenched into the infrastructure of society by repetition. Looking at gender as a performative social construction allowed Butler to put forward the theory that all gender is a form of imitation, but an imitation without an original due to the action being based in a purely linguistic concept and not based in any specific identity. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick subsequently used this performative construction of gender, using the term queer performativity[10], to demonstrate that there are no essential truths to identity.
Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence. “Queer”, then, demarcates not a positivity but a positionality vis-à-vis the normative - a position that is not restricted to lesbians and gay men but is in fact available to anyone who is or feels marginalised because of her or his sexual practices.[11]
David M Halperin describes queer as a positionality in relation to the normative of any marginalized identity, but not an identity that has substance or can be fixed and defined by anything but its own queerness. Other definitions also situate queer as a fluid position that exists outside of social normativity, “supported and articulated”[12] by social norms, where social normatives also correlate to power within society. Even with the fluid nature of the queer position a relationship between the normative and queer is retained through the common notion of positionality.
When I describe In Pursuit of Elvis as ‘queering’ Elvis impersonation I am positioning myself outside of the normative construction of Elvis impersonation, which has to be considered within the wider context of society where Elvis impersonation is already positioned outside of the normative and is therefore by definition a queer identity. So In Pursuit of Elvis sets about queering an already queer concept; exploring the space between the positions, rather than necessarily the concepts themselves. Queer, as an identity without an essence, has an implication of multiplicity about it, and a sense of ‘becoming’ because of its being a relational position; this spacio-temporal quality is explored both visually and theoretically in the assemblage of In Pursuit of Elvis.
Authenticity provides a challenge in attempting to offer a quantifiable definition; in basic terms it is about the genuineness or truth of something, it implies a correctness and an originality, however this is not as simple as it sounds when you consider that truth, correctness and originality are subjective terms in themselves. Authenticity is most subjective when it is applied to identity, it implies the extent to which a person is true to their own personality or character, despite the conscious self encountering external forces, pressures and influences which are very different from, and importantly other than, them.
I will also include in my attention to authenticity a specific relationship with mourning and melancholia as this is of particular interest in the context of Elvis Presley and Elvis impersonation. Freud wrote about mourning and melancholia as dealing with object relations, and specifically the behaviour around the loss of an object[13]. The acknowledgement of the loss of the object supports an idea of dependency between the subject and the object, and it could be understood as mourning being the authentic act, a one to one relationship with the object, signified by the sense of loss, which in time is resolved. Melancholia could be seen as being the inauthentic version of mourning, where the object of loss is mixed up with other objects and potentially even the subject themselves, making resolution in the same way as mourning impossible because there are any number of replacement objects available.
Chapter 1: In Pursuit of the Performative
Before I discuss the use of the performative within the assemblage of In Pursuit of Elvis I will first make clear the distinction between the terms performance and the performative. In Pursuit of Elvis uses improvisational performance as a key tool within to the research process of the assemblage, as it creates a space for connections to be made without a structure being imposed either by scripting the performance or by looking and considering the drawing while it is being made. Improvisation as an unstructured process is also appropriate to the research in that it is a more fluid method of working and could in itself be called a queer methodology, leaving space for invention and spontaneity rather than a fixed methodology producing fixed results.
Whereas intended strategy is more analytical, planned, controlled, future-oriented, top-down and episodic-emergent strategy is more intuitive, action-oriented, spontaneous, in-the-moment, bottom-up and ongoing. The value of improvisation is in the potential it holds to enhance the quality of spontaneous action. The rich tradition of improvisation in the arts has provided a foundation for theory development, and the exercises arising from that tradition have provided a bridge from theory to practice.[14]
Using improvisation in the In Pursuit of Elvis assemblage provides a method of deviating from Elvis impersonation while retaining its context of a performance practice; showing that it can be queered by not only removing any singing or dancing but by also not learning the anecdotal performance that would constitute an ‘Elvis’ performance. By removing the ‘practice’ or working repetition part of the performance it is reduced down to its elemental state, making it about performance rather than a polished representation of something other.
Repetition within an improvisational performance implies that the performance is passing through some sort of action related to practice, which would potentially cross the line into rehearsed performance and no longer be improvisational. This sense of occupying one action with the potential of becoming another action is quite important to the process of making the work as it relates very closely to the question of identity for Elvis impersonators, the process of performance, like identity, has a fluidity and potential for becoming something other.
Within every improvisation is the back-story of learned or known information; making it only the actual action in that moment that is where new connections between existing pieces of knowledge are formed. The pre and post performance are structured systems of gathering and disseminating knowledge that may have been discovered during the improvisation.
In Pursuit of Elvis implements improvised performance to explore the performative aspects of Elvis impersonation. Austen said there is no relationship between performativity and performance, that a performative utterance would be “hollow or void”[15] if said during a theatrical performance because of the distance between the fixing of the speech and the subsequent performance of it, describing the process as a “parasitic”[16] context of use. Butler also stressed that performativity and performance are discrete concepts in an interview in 1993:
It is important to understand performativity - which is distinct from performance - through the more limited notion of resignification. I'm still thinking about subversive repetition, which is a category in Gender Trouble, but in the place of something like parody I would now emphasise the complex ways in which resignification works in political discourse.[17]
Butler is attempting to distance herself from her use of drag as an example of disrupted performative gender construction which she felt introduced an unnecessary relationship between the performative and performance. If the performative can redefine a practice, using the notion of repetitive resignification that Butler talks about, such as the attribution of a social power, the inference is that performance has less potential for political subversion because it is positioned outside of political discourse.
Improvisation however uses speech that is much closer to the notion of speech under, to use Austen’s phrase, “ordinary circumstances”[18]. I would contest that there is an element of performance in all action, political by default through being viewed by society, and gender construction is an excellent example of this category. Aesthetic and linguistic choices are made by individuals on a daily basis as to what representation of gender they are going to perform to the world, making all gender a performance beyond its construction and the subversion of that performance. Ultimately drag, and other queerings of gendered representation, have a political power through the combination of performative process despite being an action of performance. The performative has the potential to change the meaning of as well as establish cultural practices, and has a necessary close relationship with discourses on gender performance, with this in mind I can consider how In Pursuit of Elvis interrogates the performative within Elvis impersonation.
Throughout In Pursuit of Elvis, I position myself as an Elvis impersonator by using the language “I am Elvis Presley” or “my name is Elvis Presley”, the identity being based entirely on that utterance coupled with a performance, although rather than using obvious ‘Elvis’ cultural signifiers such as a southern American accent or a rousing rendition of Suspicious Minds[19] the performance places itself as related to the statement but at the same time as something ‘other’. Following J L Austen and then Butler’s thinking it is the repetition of the phrase that affords it power, but the phrase without any following action does not have any cumulative affect, it has to be combined with a action that serves the purpose of both reiterating and reinforcing that statement.
In Pursuit of Elvis performs ‘Elvisness’ in many different guises. Using costume and language to present versions that are consistent and each clearly identified as Elvis by repeatedly using the phrase “My name is Elvis Presley”, but at the same time removing or displacing the Elvis signifiers, including singing and dancing. Some pieces within In Pursuit of Elvis use a black wig and a large white collar as visually recognisable Elvis signifiers, but other parts of the assemblage entirely remove the visual signifiers such as In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Tongue), see figure 1 below; the piece is very much about the use of language, and uses the tongue to make a literal connection in this respect.
Fig. 1: Detail of In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Tongue) by Kate Pelling
However In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Tongue) is a series of photographs rather than a video, verbal language has been removed leaving only the visual signifiers with which to read the image. This creates a kind of dependency on the other parts of In Pursuit of Elvis, where more information can be gathered to form a narrative around the set of images. This is intended as a reflection of the dependency of individual Elvis impersonators on other Elvis impersonators, as though the performance of Elvis Presley can only be achieved in a ‘complete’ sense when experienced through multiple versions, hence the development of competitions and conventions as a means of gathering that collective energy.
Common amongst Elvis impersonation, and especially among professional ETAs (Elvis Tribute Artists), is a set of language around the sincerity of their intentions and humbleness towards Elvis Presley. Impersonators repeat specific language such as ‘respect’, and assertions of their lower status position of ‘fan’ against the masculinity of Elvis Presley ad infinitum. Lee Memphis King, a British Elvis impersonator, says ‘in his own words’:
I am a huge fan of Elvis and his music and my tribute is done with the utmost respect for the man.[20]
This performative utterance serves the double purpose of upholding the representation of Elvis Presley at the top of the hierarchy as the ‘King’ of everyone, and maintaining the impersonator in the lower, but safe and acceptable, position of fan. This asserts the impersonator as non threatening in that they are not trying to undermine Elvis Presley, repeatedly asserting his masculinity, nor are they under any belief that they think they are Elvis Presley in a crazy person kind of way, whether they actually believe that or not. The instigation that it is their ‘own words’ is also important, as it implies that there is no coercion in place, when it is exactly this performative power that coerces them to conform to the normative view by making a statement such as this.
This coercive power that the performative holds explains the dominance of the normative structures not just within Elvis impersonation but also within general society. The behaviours that follow a performative utterance become entrenched into the society through their repetitive use, sustaining and reinforcing the idea that they are ‘normal’. Using the example of the speech act “it’s a girl!” uttered at birth, the construction of a feminine identity is taken for granted, as if the reward for following the performative speech act is that of invisibility and an unsubversive position within society, providing a higher status than that of being ‘other’.
The different incarnations that Elvis takes throughout the assemblage of In Pursuit of Elvis examine Elvis impersonation as made up of repetitive performative actions; reinforced through the existing repetition that even a partial signifier can be enough to give the representation a sense of some kind of authenticity. Althusser defines performativity as not just a speech act but inclusive of the repetition thereafter, which in turn ‘creates an illusion’ of the action being within the space of the normative[21]. Performativity is dependant on repetition, but repetition cannot provide perfect replication of any subject as any replicant will never be the original copy, and each copy gets further and further away from the last version and from the original.
The multiple must be made, not by always adding a higher dimension, but rather in the simplest of ways, by dint of sobriety, with the number of dimensions one already has available – always n-1 (the only way the one belongs to the multiple: always subtracted). Subtract the unique from the multiplicity to be constituted; write at n-1 dimensions. A system of this kind could be called a rhizome. A rhizome as subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and radicles.[22]
According to Deleuze and Guattari the difference of every ‘copy’ within a rhizomatic structure, being the multiple with the original subtracted from it, supports the reality of Elvis impersonation. Of all the impersonators, there are never going to be two that are the same as each other, and even beyond representation the narratives behind each impersonator are going to be unique, so subtracting the ‘Elvis’ from them would create an enormous multi-faceted group of identities.
Judith Halberstam describes performative replication as a queer device that serves to create a homoerotic aesthetic and which also reinforces the potency of the original version[23]. The main purpose of the imperfect replication as Halberstam describes it is to bring the performance of the initial version into question, she uses photographs of couples of drag kings by Del LaGrace Volcano[24] as an example, by introducing the idea of perfect replication as impossible, the ‘original’ drag king was shown as being a copy or imitation.
In Pursuit of Elvis uses multiples of imagery where there is no original version; the pieces are not presented in a chronological order of manufacture, or in any other structured order. Halberstam’s drag king examples showed the ‘original’ as being a dominant figure, and therefore the other version was termed the copy. In Pursuit of Elvis does not provide a visual representation of Elvis that could be seen as dominant but in terms of process and the video pieces could be seen as dominant because they are active in a temporal sense to the drawing’s passive, where the action has passed.
The drawings of In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Favourite Colour was Blue), see figure 2 below, use both repetition and a method of drawing related to blind contour drawing where the gaze is only on the subject of the drawing and the hand that is drawing is not looked at while it is active. These drawings fragment Elvis to represent him as just a head and shoulders, a comment on the convention of cropped imagery relating to an iconic status and contradicting the idea that Elvis Presley was the original and therefore whole.
Fig. 2: Detail of In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis' Favourite Colour was Blue) by Kate Pelling
Apart from the more obvious commentary on the gaze in relation to celebrity, this mass production of images have a curious form to them, while still recognisable to a certain extent, they are relentless in their repetition and in their differences. The set consists of twenty six drawings and no two are the same, with the process allowing only for concern with the subject and a laissez faire attitude towards the product.
Considering other visual artists who have used the representation of Elvis as a subject a good example, particularly in terms of repetition and representation, is Andy Warhol’s Elvis, 1963, see figure 3 below, a series of screen prints taken from a still of the film Flaming Star[25]. In representing this moment in time Warhol takes advantage of the point at which Elvis Presley’s desire to be taken seriously as an actor was refused him, exposing the difference between a public identity and a personal identity, questioning whether they can exist comfortably in the same space. Following Deleuze and Guattari’s thinking on the reductive nature of repetition, the removal of the original from the representation would leave a narrative around the emptiness of celebrity, personal desire and ambition.
Fig. 3: Elvis by Andy Warhol 1963
Warhol chooses a particularly macho representation of Elvis as a cowboy from which to make his repetitive images, laying claim to an almost exclusively heterosexual set of ideas, which sits comfortably aside the idea that it was Elvis’ chance to be a ‘serious’ actor and therefore more masculine by trait. Masculinity is often defined in terms of independence and isolation, Lee Clark Mitchell’s[26] writing on Westerns uses an example of the lone, morally ambiguous man that protects honour by way of a shoot out in the street as a measure of dominant ideas of masculinity.
In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis in Pieces) see figure 4 below, is performed in the street, and there is definitely a sense of conflict between Elvis’ desire to be philanthropic and give back to the community and the subsequent attitude of the community in their taking of the gifts. Elvis states “I’m a religious man” and while the performance and visual signifiers do not provide a performance of masculinity in terms of identity as the performative utterance would require, the situation or narrative makes clear the reference to masculinity following Mitchell’s terms.
Fig. 4: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis in Pieces) by Kate Pelling
In subverting this assumed masculinity I am allowing my own performance to engage with other Elvis impersonators, where with each replication the Elvis impersonator performance becomes both reinforced by each other and more disrupted away from Elvis Presley. If we consider that Elvis Presley was himself a combination of performances of other cultural concepts then it makes a clear parallel between Elvis impersonation and thinking around gender, as Judith Butler said:
Indeed, the parody is of the very notion of an original; just as the psychoanalytic notion of gender identification is constituted by a fantasy of a fantasy, the transfiguration of an Other who is always already a “figure” in that double sense, so gender parody reveals that the original identity after which gender fashions itself is an imitation without an origin.[27]
Dominant, or hegemonic, masculinity can only truly exist within discourse; it occupies the position of a status to be attained, rather than one that any real person can occupy. With masculinity in itself being an object of pursuit it is understandable to see that Elvis impersonation offers an available route for adopting a borrowed masculinity, and there is certainly a lot to desire about the Elvis Presley representation of masculinity in terms of handsomeness, virility and success. Elvis impersonators use performative utterances to set up this double identification, both to sustain the masculinity of Elvis Presley and to allow the statement to reflect back on their own sense of masculinity.
Elvis impersonation is highly dependant on the representation of a specific type of masculinity. Elvis Presley’s masculinity, while masquerading as a normative white heterosexual working class masculinity is actually more of a spectacular masculinity, it is a peacock-like masculinity highly based in aesthetics and overly concerned with display and exhibition. Chaftez wrote that masculinity is by definition unconcerned with appearance[28] and does not include vanity or flashiness, but this refers only to the dominant form of masculinity in society. Spectacular masculinity is a minority masculinity, a position against the dominant form of masculinity; it is still within the masculine rather than necessarily defaulting to being defined as femininity, but it is a queered masculinity because it lies outside of the dominant masculine position.
The story goes that Elvis wore jumpsuits because they made him feel like the superheroes in the comic books he read as a child. The same change occurs when an impersonator puts on a jumpsuit, or a baggy suit, or the black leather. They become superheroes, twice removed.[29]
The wearing of masculinity is a key concept in Elvis impersonation; curiously likened to obtaining super powers through the donning of the costume. Elvis impersonators of different races are widely accepted as amusing variations of possible Elvisness, but female and gender queer variations create much disruption of what ‘should be’, the performative mantra of the illusion of Elvis Presley being perceived to belong exclusively within the realm of dominant masculinity and to be performed by men.
In Vested Interests Marjorie Garber discusses the dominance of the white Vegas jumpsuit in the three phases of Elvis costume; the Gold Lame period of the fifties, the Black Leather period of the sixties and the Vegas Jumpsuit period of the seventies, also commonly called the Aloha Years following the famous concert in Hawaii in 1973:
Why do most impersonators choose the third phase, often believed to mark the decline of Elvis’s career? This “question that has plagued Elvologists” was answered by the session leader in two ways: on the one hand, the seventies were the most visually exciting of Elvis’s career; on the other, the “midlife demographics of the impersonator subculture” (largely over 40, largely working class) made the baritone, overweight Elvis an object of more ready – and more convincing – impersonation. As will be clear, I am suggesting a third reason for the appeal of the Vegas jumpsuit Elvis, and also a link between among the three vestimentary phases – a link for which “unmarked transvestism” might be thought of as a common term.[30]
This ‘wearing’ of a minority masculinity as a performance further indicates a relationship with drag and drag kings if it is to be considered as wearing masculinity. Elvis impersonation is a performed vanity of costume, make up and wigs that, depending on what attributes the individual possesses initially, can be entirely fabricated through prosthesis. Men in male costume, or “unmarked transvestism” brings to the genre a gender subversiveness and a low status, along with drag kings, that immediately makes it ‘other’ than the hegemonic masculinity that it alludes to be.
Garber also notes it as significant that after the Elvis’ death, comparing him to Liberace, Elvis’ costumes survived him by being displayed on mannequins and open to the public, implying that the costumes have a life of their own. In terms of stage performance there is very good reasoning behind that iconic white Vegas jumpsuit; the white suit allows the whole figure to be seen from a distance, the jewels further add to the visibility of the suit. So the suit provides a visibility beyond the spectacular, a universal visibility that is concurrently a mask for the underlying identity of the impersonator, Garber notes it as ‘unmarked’ but it is unmarked in a highly visible way.
Garber sees the adding of costume or prosthesis as a feminisation by default, including all notions of embodiment within this concept. While the feminisation of the performance does create a more visible association between Elvis costume and drag I do not think that it is especially constructive to look at it from a feminine position, especially when the costume can be explained in terms of masculinity. If hegemonic masculinity cannot be embodied in a subject outside of discourse, minority masculinities such as spectacular masculinity have the potential to explore discourses on masculinity much more comfortably without the need for radical feminisation of the subject.
Fig. 5: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis' Blow Job) by Kate Pelling
In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Blow Job), see figure 5 above, is also a good example of how In Pursuit of Elvis sets up Elvis as a constructed masculinity, without necessarily feminising the subject. In the video Elvis talks about receiving blow jobs from fans after a performance, but during the performance there is specific reference made to my breasts and the shape of my actual figure, rather than an illusionary male figure, which indicates that there is a physical conflict in terms of receiving a blow job but at no point is this performed as impossible or inactive, retaining the masculinity of the subject but within a potentially a hybrid space.
In Pursuit of Elvis uses drag as a means of subverting the normative positions of both Elvis impersonation and general society. Using the narrative that Elvis Presley faked his death in order to become a drag queen disturbs the status of the ‘original’ Elvis and therefore every subsequent Elvis is also disturbed. However, the notion of drag is present all along, simultaneously ‘unmarked’ and marked, and this is evident in the relationship between the complexity of gender in terms of drag and the idea of celebrity, a theme that is addressed by In Pursuit of Elvis (The King of Rock and Roll Became a Queen), see figure 6 below.
Fig. 6: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (The King of Rock and Roll Became a Queen) by Kate Pelling
In Pursuit of Elvis (The King of Rock and Roll Became a Queen) introduces the double meaning of ‘pursuit’, both the impersonator pursuing Elvis and concurrently being pursued by heteronormative society as a ‘deviant’ character, which is quite important to the conceptual contradiction that forms that basis of the entire assemblage. This pursuit positions my Elvis performance, and Elvis impersonation as a whole, as outside of the normative, pursuing, through the performative, a position within the normative but ultimately only ever being in the flux-like state of ‘becoming’ as something ‘other’.
As a queer identity is an identity without an essence, a fluid identity that is positioned outside of the normative, the only collective asset being that of its own identity; it requires an assertion of identification in order to separate itself from the normative values of gender and sexuality. But the utterance of an identity and the subsequent performance of that identity is a performative reinforcement of that identity. The power and momentum of identification that is involved when this is repeated in every possible combination possible, such as with an estimated 85,000[31] Elvis Impersonators, is immense.
Elvis impersonation is also responsive to social norms, particularly in that has established its own hierarchical systems and its own idea of an Elvis impersonator ‘normative’ which is dominated by the professional impersonators who are more ‘authentic’. However, as well as always being relational to both Elvis Presley and non-Elvis society, there is no one person that actually embodies Elvis impersonation, rather it is a set of signifiers that are collected together in different variables, the one common idea to all those defining themselves as Elvis impersonators is their identification of being Elvis impersonators. Queer is therefore a term that is highly appropriate to use around Elvis impersonation.
Underpinned by an understanding of identity as being linguistically and ontologically incapable of expressing complex human behaviours. ‘Queer’ (Jagose, 1996: 96) is fundamentally indeterminate, ‘always ambiguous, always relational’, but its use is ‘widely perceived as calling into question conventional understandings of sexual identity by deconstructing the categories, oppositions and equations that sustain them’ (1996: 97).[32]
However while considering Elvis impersonation as a queer identity it remains important to think of it as not necessarily solely an identification with a fluid set of traits that might make up an identity of ‘Elvis impersonator’; it is also relational to Elvis Presley, who presented multiple versions of what ‘Elvis’ was. This multiplicity of identity as well as being a queer identity more closely follows a model related to Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of the rhizome, the reductive notion of the multiple, likened to a “subterranean stem and absolutely different from roots and radicles”[33] where roots and radicles refer to traditional philosophical metaphors for knowledge, the rhizome is an approach to knowledge and identity that is based in surface and multiplicity.
Elvis impersonators are not just pursuing a replication of the clothes and masculinity of what Elvis offers but also the American dream of the white working class man who has become successful. This is deeply flawed of course because Elvis’ image was drawn from many influences outside this political representation and his success was not maintained until his death, the drug and food abuse being the most obvious alarm bells, but the desire for fame can lead to people ignoring negative aspects of being famous and narratives around Elvis Presley reiterated by the impersonators, and Elvis Presley Enterprises who control his representation, have become selective.
The American dream also offers a reason for the proliferation of Elvis impersonation, that by becoming a copy they might also occupy the success and power associated with Elvis Presley. The attraction of the American dream stretches much further than the US alone, it provides a possible reason as to why Elvis impersonators come from every corner of the world; attracted by alluring nature of the American culture and the American dream.
The performative nature of Elvis impersonation both reinforces the pursuit of political power in terms of dominant masculinity and through the American dream through the maintenance of dominant traits and practices within the culture. This pursuit of a normative existence through the performative connects Elvis impersonation with society where it retains the position of ‘other’. This connective concept however affords Elvis impersonation with the status of being in pursuit of status and of the normative, making it a journey towards being ‘right’ as opposed to an acceptance of being deviant or ‘other’ and remaining within the multiplicity of ‘becoming’.
By disrupting the performativity within Elvis impersonation In Pursuit of Elvis introduces the idea that Elvis impersonation could be seen as a tautology, in that it is both an instance of redundant repetition and a statement that is logically true in itself. Considering the many incarnations of Elvis such as such as the Elvis the wedding celebrant or Elvis the skydiver, there is no negative position to Elvis impersonation. Elvis is as Elvis does.
If Elvis impersonation is tautological concept though there is a conceptual tension in also describing at as a queer identity, which is by definition a position of illegitimacy and deviance. However if the tautology is dependant on that it is right because it is always wrong, then it could be considered to lie within this framework. The logical truth to Elvis impersonation is that there is no negative position to it, it is a negative position in itself; nothing that can be excluded from the position and this is reinforced by the repetition of Elvis after Elvis after Elvis. A tautological concept refers to a redundant repetition, or a statement which is always ‘true’ because there is no wrong way to go about it, the repetition providing a reflection of the performativity within Elvis impersonation and ‘truth’ making reference to authenticity.
Chapter 2: In Pursuit of Authenticity
Most criticisms of Butler’s concept of gender construction through performativity are centred on the issue of agency; she does not consider the self to have any particular input into the formation of identity, having been constructed from external political forces. Bulter’s writing on the relationship between the performative and gender performance supports the idea that there is no such thing as an essential or authentic self. Joel Feinberg discusses performative language in terms of author and responsibility using the term ‘ascriptive’ language, where the author is identified and therefore a sense of responsibility is included within the act:
A simple-action sentence is used ascriptively only when a question of personal identity has, for one reason or another, arisen. ‘Who was that man who smiled?’ one might ask, and another might chime in ‘Oh, did someone smile? Who was it?’ Now the stage is set for an ascription. An ascription of simple action is about an identification of the doer of an already known doing.[34]
But whereas responsibility of action can be claimed for the doer through the use of language on a simple level, it is not possible for an individual to take responsibility for the entire construction of the self as external influences always apply. Feinberg attributes this inability to ascribe responsibility for actions as the actions in themselves being ‘vague’, as opposed to ‘wholly factual’. The construction of identity certainly falls into this ‘vague’ category and according to Feinberg, it is causal; the relationship is only of practical interest when the protagonist is looking to control the action.
The pursuit of authenticity within identity is a quest for control over the content of the category of the self; also being dependant on how the idea of self is constructed. Conflict arises between seeing the self as unique and different from the world, and considering the self as embedded in a world that clearly contains other people and influences. Stated as a doctrine authenticity can be thought to be self-defeating, defining it clearly within the bounds of Elvis impersonation, which can be understood as an irresolvable striving to become Elvis; a task that can never be achieved as no impersonator will ever actually become Elvis Presley.
Becoming as a process, pitched against the notion of being, creates a position of being in perpetual motion: never reaching the state of ‘being’, where it is no longer ‘becoming’, nor being able to remain as its original self from before the ‘becoming’. Becoming involves a multiplicity rather than the singularity that ‘being’ implies, further distancing the context from the subject’s relationship with authenticity of the self.
Becoming is not an evolution, at least not an evolution by descent and filiation. Becoming produces nothing by filiation; all filiation is imaginary. Becoming is always of a different order than filiation. It concerns alliance.[35]
Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of ‘becoming’ as having no relationship with its closest relations, occupying a distinct space to ‘being’ at any point during its process, supporting the thinking that the individual self can seek its own solution to authenticity independently of competing external ideologies. This is because in Deleuze and Guattari’s terms the action of ‘seeking’, or ‘becoming authentic’, is creating a distinct space that has no relationship with authenticity, with the self, nor with the external ideologies, it only establishes an agreement that is a multiplicity of ideas between the concepts.
A criticism of the possibility of authenticity within the individual self is that it involves some necessary compromise to allow unique individuals to co-exist in a way which is acceptable to all of them, therefore public ethics or morality may be a limit on authenticity. The society view of Elvis impersonation as a deviant behaviour provides a limitation for the impersonators before they have even donned their costumes. Authenticity is a difficult concept to rigorously define, but American philosophy has eagerly pushed the authenticity ideal, seeing it as central to the values of individuality and independence prevalent in American society and making it an appropriate term for the discussion of Elvis impersonation.
Theodor Adorno, a German writer and philosopher concerned with the notion of authenticity, used the example of jazz music as a false representation that could give the appearance of authenticity but that was as much bound up in concerns with appearance and audience as many other forms of art. Heidegger’s notion of authenticity in terms of the self described it as a reductive process, appearing from the “bracketing”[36] of its empirical existence as a full subject, a complete removal from any external influence beyond nature. Adorno disputes Heidegger’s view as impossible, saying that without any relation to real existence, termed as the ontic, there can be no such entity as a perfect subject as after the removal of all external influence there is too little left to be anything approaching self:
Self is only intelligible in relation to this content, as it were. It is impossible to subtract the ontic and leave the ontological self as a remainder, or to preserve it as a structure of the ontic in general. It is senseless to assert, of something so thinned down, that it “exists authentically.”[37]
Other writers who have written about authenticity in the twentieth century have considered the dominant cultural norms to be inauthentic by default; not only because they were seen as forced on people, a view related to social construction and the criticism of social construction in terms of agency, but also because cultural norms require people to behave inauthentically towards their own desires, obscuring true reasons for doing things. While it may be easier to describe cultural practices in terms of inauthenticity, the negative space of authenticity is easier to define, it is more challenging to explore cultural practice with the complexities and paradoxes of authenticity.
Adorno’s example of jazz music as a false representation that could give the appearance of authenticity also applies to Elvis impersonation. While it can be difficult to apply a concept that only exists within discourse to a cultural practice that exists in the real world it can still be a useful exercise as there are layers to the meaning of authenticity, allowing for authentic representation on the surface within a real space, beyond discourse alone, with an inauthentic base for that representation.
Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome is very concerned with surface and if we consider Elvis impersonation as occupying a rhizomic structure, then it is possible to explore authenticity in these terms. If authenticity can only really be discussed within the arts as a surface deep device, concerned with appearance of authenticity rather than ever actually being authentic in any way, then this shallow device forms the top of the hierarchical structure that the ETAs covet so much. In this way authenticity could be interpreted as the cause of the hierarchical structure within the practice of Elvis impersonation.
Hegemonic masculinity occupies the top of another hierarchical structure and is also a concept that cannot be embodied by an individual person, but the strongest masculine element within Elvis impersonation is not tied to representation or desire but competition and ranking. Competitiveness is both a trait of hegemonic masculinity and necessary for the perceived organisation and control of the phenomenon of Elvis impersonation, supposedly giving it structure, rather than being a random collective of varying degrees of queerness.
The term ETA is used industry-wide for the purpose of separating the professional Elvis impersonators, or tribute artists, from the rest of the group that would include all non-professional varieties, usually subcategorised as amateur or comedy. The distinction between ETA and all other categories could be reduced to those that are measured by ‘authenticity’ and approaching an embodiment the masculinity of Elvis Presley and those that are queer and subverting the masculinity of the Elvis performance. Although as already discussed Elvis impersonation as a whole can be fitted into a definition of queer identity and therefore those that embody the supposedly higher status of ETA are occupying a space that is only masquerading as a normative performance of masculinity.
On this surface level professional ETAs are absolutely preoccupied with authenticity. It is the dominant formal criteria for success within ETA competitive performance, as illustrated in information provided for participants in the Blackpool Contest and Convention in 2008, Europe’s largest Elvis Contest:
Contestants will be judged on the following –
1. Vocals: Ability of the ETA to match the sound and quality of Elvis’s voice.
2. Appearance: Ability to create a look and style that well represents Elvis.
3. Performance: Ability to perform as Elvis in a style in which he would have performed.
4. Stage Presence: Ability to re-create the charisma Elvis created when performing on stage.[38]
Judging panels are usually made up of experienced ETAs who are no longer performing competitively or by people close to the Elvis Presley narrative in some way. The judgements are made entirely on the ETA’s performance in relation to the narrow representation of Elvis Presley, who is assumed to be the ‘original’ Elvis, providing a measurable quantity for judgment; it relies only on how much they can occupy the performance that they are imitating and suppress bringing anything of their own personality to the performance.
Fig. 7: Detail of In Pursuit of Elvis (Memories and Manifestos) by Kate Pelling
In Pursuit of Elvis (Memories and Manifestos), see figure 7 above, explores the application of a measurable quantity within an artistic practice through a series of drawings. The piece consists of a series of eight drawings but instead of being the drawings from memory that the manifesto describes, they are the manifesto itself, the rules for making the drawings, repeated over and over again. This is done using my usual handwriting, so that there is a sense of a direct unprocessed link with myself within the piece, recognising handwriting as considered to be a method of identification. The important thing about the piece is that while the rules are engaged with over and over again, the product does not manifest, as the product would not be authentic, being neglected or impossible in some way, only the rules can be authentic.
Where authenticity within representation is the key to success for Elvis impersonators, In Pursuit of Elvis is seeking the opposite effect. In order to subvert Elvis impersonation the assemblage is pushing the idea of how far away from authentic the performance can be while still being within the remit of Elvis impersonation. So performance of Elvis, instead of being reduced under the terms of authenticity, is tested as to how much can be added to it with the concept being able to support the additional material. In this way drawing and writing is included within the assemblage as being a part of the performance of Elvis. Another important position that In Pursuit of Elvis takes is the use of language pertaining to actually being Elvis, such as the use of “My name is Elvis Presley” throughout:
Unless you are making a joke, never introduce a song by saying, “I did this number in nineteen seventy three…” Because you did not. Because you are not Elvis. If you cannot remember this, you are part of the problem. After all, a serious impersonator sees himself as one part entertainer and one part historian.[39]
In contradiction to the desire of authenticity within competitive setting, the most important rule when it comes to Elvis impersonation, especially at the ETA end of the scale, is that the performer does not say, or believe, that they actually are Elvis Presley. They must remain themselves at all times and in their performance they are attempting to be close to Elvis’ performance as a tribute, rather than actually wanting to be him or believing that they are him. This point of conflict requires them, within one performance, to be both as authentically Elvis Presley as they can and remain authentically themselves at the same time.
As already discussed, an Elvis impersonator’s performative protestation that positions them at a lower status than Elvis Presley lends to the authenticity of Elvis impersonation because it reinforces that the action is one made out of love and respect for Elvis, implying that Elvis Presley is ‘original’ and ‘authentic’. The repeated protestation is a refute of a queer identity, and while it puts the impersonator in an inferior position in relation to the masculinity of Elvis Presley, it is seen as a more authentic position than the alternative of being a self-promoting exhibitionist or worse still that they might be mentally unbalanced in some way because they believe that they are Elvis. The impersonator is asking the audience to believe their performance, something that can only be achieved through this ‘authentic’ surface status.
The phenomenon of Elvis impersonation and the continuing popularity of Elvis as an artist and cultural icon is in part due to the way that Elvis’ multiple personas provide something that everybody can identify with. Dr. Susan Doll explains this in an article following the exhibition Elvis + Marilyn: 2 X Immortal at the San Jose Museum of Art, California, in 1997:
He was a country singer, a rock singer, a movie star, a Southern boy, a Las Vegas performer and so many other things. And each of his personas spoke to a different group of people.[40]
This multiplicity within one person might be another reason why Elvis impersonation is so popular, providing both the possibility of a one to one relationship between the object and the fan or impersonator, it is not a case of identifying with every part of the Elvis narrative but more about picking out a part of the puzzle and running with it. This more abstracted notion of identity both supports the thinking around Elvis impersonation as a queer identity and how In Pursuit of Elvis disjoints the Elvis signifiers to make new narratives around the Elvis mythology that the viewer must put together themselves. El Vez, real name Robert Lopez, a Mexican Elvis impersonator based in the US, is a good example of this abstracted picking and choosing of what parts of ‘Elvisness’ to identify with:
“In the '60s, my uncles had the continental slacks and slicked-back hair," he says. "They looked like Elvis in 'Fun in Acapulco.' I remember as a kid thinking, 'Elvis must be Latino, like us'." But Lopez was encouraged by his parents to assimilate. He lived in a white neighbourhood and didn't hear Spanish until high school. "The whole trip to El Vez-ness was a search for identity," he says. "How brown can I be? What are my roots?" Lopez believes that beyond the kitsch factor, El Vez has potential to spread good will. He's tapped into an American ideal: that anyone can be Elvis, no matter which race, creed or jumpsuit size he is. "When you come to an El Vez show, you walk away proud to be a Mexican," he says. "Even when you're not."[41]
El Vez shows in his performance that the Elvis-ness is something that is recognizable even when delivered in partial format. For example El Vez’s jumpsuits include one made from leopard print fur fabric and another in red PVC, he manipulates the original Elvis songs to promote his own political agenda, such as G.I. Ay, Ay! Blues[42], and he talks in his own Mexican accent. El Vez’s Elvisness has to be looked for in his performance just as he is looking for his own ‘Robert Lopez’ authenticity from within the performance; ending up a combination of all the identities, it is still Elvis impersonation because he says that it is. His impersonation is transcribed to include a sense of the Mexican community and what it means to be Mexican.
Where El Vez’s identification with the Mexican content of Elvis Presley’s persona is an abstracted context, there has been much written about the impact on Elvis Presley from the local black culture in Memphis; that he was influenced not only in his musical style but very much in the way that he moved and looked. Eric Lott writes:
Presley’s not-quite and yet not-white absorption of black style was inevitably indebted to a musical tradition of racial impersonation.[43] Mimicking him, Elvis impersonators impersonate the impersonator, a repetition that nearly buries this racial history even as it suggests a preoccupation with precisely the blackface aura of Elvis (as do, more literally, impersonators’ renditions of Dan Emmett’s 1859 blackface standard, “Dixie”, in the context of Presley’s “American Trilogy”). In any case, this double mimicry everywhere implies that Elvis’s “otherness” is a partial motive for his impersonators [44]
But before any ‘double mimicry’, race could be seen as another limit on authenticity, as it is largely an engagement with others on the basis of external attributes when considered locally. This is going to be important when discussing Elvis impersonation, as authenticity around this point also needs to be considered within a temporal and geographical context. Discussions on authenticity in terms of race have a different context in 1970’s Memphis, USA, around the time of Elvis Presley’s death, than twenty first century London, United Kingdom, where In Pursuit of Elvis originates.
The In Pursuit of Elvis assemblage uses whiteface in more than one performance in order to explore the context of race around Elvis Presley and the ‘originality’ of his performance. Drag has a history that is closely tied to clowning, which also makes use of whiteface, and it seemed appropriate to combine these two conceptual trains of thought in order to explore whether the mask worn by Elvis in this way could be interpreted as an extension of the use of drag.
Figure 8 below is a still image from the video In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Sandwich) that shows the use of the whiteface in the assemblage. The piece also explores the direction of the gaze in respect of who is looking at, and desiring, whom. The mask provides a diversion to this gaze, dislocating the authenticity of what the viewer is looking at; there is an element of deception that requires the viewer to trust what is being provided in terms of information, while being aware that there must be something other beneath the mask.
Fig. 8: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis' Sandwich) by Kate Pelling
In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Sandwich) explores how Elvis represents himself; during the video he draws on the wall behind him, in an attempt to create an external representation of the internal multiplicity of identity. Throughout the piece eye contact is consistently maintained with the viewer, this could be interpreted as a look of identification or of looking into the lens as if talking to an individual. There is a definite sense of a one to one conversation happening as well as a reversal of the direction of the gaze, the performer is meant to be looked at, which according to Laura Mulvey[45] is a traditionally feminine role, as being looked at is cast as a passive action, but Elvis is actually purposefully looking back at the viewer, and engaging with them as an individual person and not an anonymous group.
Throughout Elvis impersonation although it is widely known that Elvis Impersonators do not just study Elvis Presley but are influenced by and use each other to copy and follow, as more immediate or nearer versions from which to study. This also provides a space where they can share their experience of being an Elvis impersonator, something that Elvis Presley had no experience of directly. This can be from swapping tips on costume in the dressing room before a show to studying another’s performance in order to learn moves, as Shawn Klush, the winner of the first Elvis Presley Enterprises sanctioned Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest 2007, speaks about in an interview published in 2005:
Do you ever find that people are stealing your moves?
Yeah, I find that quite a bit. You see some people in the audience that come to your show and see what you do and then incorporate it into their own show and make it theirs. It’s a little frustrating.
So one might argue that there are some Shawn Klush impersonators out there?
Yeah. It’s just funny how that sounds, but yeah. …[46]
This copying of other impersonators is frowned upon because it implies an ‘inauthentic’ process, one that is tainted by non-Elvis identities. Legitimacy is a recurring theme that keeps emerging throughout the examination of Elvis impersonation, specifically relating to competitions where the competitions attempt to legitimise the practice and are continually attacked for being fixed and consequently illegitimised. Drag also makes a point of reference with illegitimacy, a low status occupation both in terms of society and of performance.
Legitimacy is an important point when discussing anything within a queer framework, as the normative is assumed to be the ‘legitimate’ position and queerness to be a deviant position. The specific language used around Elvis impersonation, relating to legitimacy, especially from the ETAs, is of ‘sincerity’ and ‘respect’, which implies that any other kind of Elvis performance is one that does not ‘respect’ the memory of Elvis. The entry form for the Blackpool contest in January 2008 required the contestants to sign a declaration that states:
CONTESTANT will at all times be respectful of Elvis before, during and after his performance[47]
This notion of ‘respect’ is an incredibly subjective term, at the Blackpool contest I witnessed an overweight impersonator in a poor quality white Vegas suit dancing on stage with his clearly visible genitalia swinging beneath the white nylon; all of the females in the audience were laughing at him, but the rules deem him more ‘respectful’ because he is male and white, which makes it clearly a political rather that performance related reasoning.
‘Sincerity’ and ‘respect’ are ultimately coercive performative utterances that provide a connection between the performative and authenticity, although both operate on a purely surface level, a rhizomatic device that provides a deflection of the gaze so that any insincerity or inauthenticity is not seen to be lying beneath the surface.
It is difficult to do justice to a profession most people consider deviant behaviour. So in self-defence, impersonators cultivate standards and codes of conduct. It is easier to ignore people who don’t respect you when you know in your heart that you are doing something right. Although even when you know what you’re doing, sometimes it’s still hard to tell.[48]
This issue of ‘respect’ excludes any performers that might subvert the normative of Elvis impersonation that is performed by the ETAs, automatically excluding any Elvises that are female, gender queer, disabled or ‘different’ from the standard in any way, although variations are generally allowed in terms of race and ethnicity. The double standard of the ETA being in a profession that is low status in terms of general society, “deviant behaviour” as one ETA puts it above, and yet it is the ETAs and the judges of the competitions that hold the power to allow or disallow who deserves the ‘respect’, forming a hierarchical structure that always places them near to the top and everybody else below. The power that creates this structure comes from a combination of performative utterances around the devotion to the authenticity of Elvis Presley as the ‘original’ Elvis and a non-disclosure of any inauthenticity as a defensive move.
Fig. 9: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis' Secret) by Kate Pelling
In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Secret), see figure 9 above, is more about non-disclosure and the maintenance of the hierarchical status than any actual revelation of a secret, even though it appears to be revealing, in that Elvis is clearly vulnerable and a little needy of the viewer, but he never does disclose the secret that is promised and therefore retains his power. Here, the idea of ‘respect’ is put against the confidence being kept; the viewer is being asked to respect Elvis, something that is usually offered by impersonators only towards Elvis Presley.
Gossip, which could be considered as a queer device in itself because of its sense of illegitimacy and the non-linear form that it takes, also plays a large part of the Elvis contest industry; with the fans of the impersonators building up information through gossip as very little information is provided by the impersonators themselves or by any official means. In my own experience of talking to fans at contests I was indulged with information about many things including alleged homosexuality of certain ETAs and lots of gossip about the fixing of contests. This has a performative power in that the disclosure and closeting of the gossip has an effect on the status of the impersonators, for example with the non-disclosure of being gay an impersonator retains a higher status than being openly gay.
Continuing the blurred lines between the performance and the performer, the current king of all the impersonators is Shawn Klush. In proportion with the amount of accolade and ‘respect’ that Klush has received from the industry, there is a significant amount of gossip surrounding him including that he has won through contest fixing and also having allegedly had plastic surgery in order to enhance his resemblance to Elvis Presley, see figure 10 below.
Fig. 10: Shawn Klush with some fans after a performance Peabody Hotel, Memphis, August 2007 Photo by Kate Pelling
With or without contest fixing or plastic surgery, Klush’s pursuit is of the manifestation of detail and all encompassing representation; by contrast, throughout the performances within the assemblage of In Pursuit of Elvis it is never entirely clear whether my performance of Elvis is complete in it’s immersement of the subject. ‘Kate’ remains a dominant figure in the performance of Elvis, which both serves the purpose of a conceptual exploration of that notion of authenticity and simultaneously grounded in a sense of multiple identities that are explored concurrently, unlike Elvis Presley’s which manifested as serial personas beyond their construction. This concurrent multiplicity compounds the queerness of the space that In Pursuit of Elvis occupies; the non-linear pursuit of a linear subject provides potential for the disruption of the dominant context of masculinity and for subversion of the cultural dominance, and the implied authenticity, of linear narrative.
In Pursuit of Elvis (Blood, Sweat and Tears), see figure 11 below, is a good example of how In Pursuit of Elvis explores this concurrent multiplicity of personas. While the video is engaging with the idea of the pursuit of the American dream, it also provides a combination of Elvis describing Graceland as “my house” and then a description of the experience of being in the house as a tourist, with “twenty people stood in front of you”. This transition is neither sequential nor separated, with the personas existing within the same space at the same time.
Fig. 11: Still from In Pursuit of Elvis (Blood, Sweat and Tears) by Kate Pelling
In Pursuit of Elvis queers the drive for authenticity in Elvis impersonation by the additive nature of its narrative structure and appearance in terms of costume and processes such as editing. The variety of narratives inherent within Elvis impersonation, including personal narratives of the impersonator, sightings made after Elvis’ death and other conspiracy theories, can be read as an assemblage in their own right; in these terms there cannot be an authentic identity as there are multiple connections between other identities and narratives, the connective relationships contaminate any sense authenticity.
Having discussed authenticity as a surface based masquerade of representation only; I have to include discourses on desire and gender melancholia in relation to drag. Butler’s essay Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification[49] makes a connection between the performative representation of gender and the outward expression of unresolved desire. Butler takes Freud’s psychoanalytic exploration of mourning and melancholia and produces a re-reading, suggesting that the object formation in terms of desire has a relationship with melancholia. Butler argues that in not forming any desire based attachments to a specific gender a sense of loss, and therefore grief, is experienced and that in this line of thinking the grief might be articulated by the external expression of the performed gender.
Following this theory the strictly straight male person would in fact be a melancholic homosexual man as they express a masculinity in terms of representation as a compensation for all of the masculine objects that they have “never loved” and “never lost”[50]. Applying this theory to Elvis impersonation, which has such a close relationship with grief and melancholia as I will discuss, it makes sense that the vast majority of Elvis impersonators are straight men, and that they don their costume in order to represent the male objects that due to the prohibition of homosexual desire they will never love and never lose, and more specifically the object being Elvis Presley who they will never love and never lose as expressed in the costume of choice. This theory runs right through the entire assemblage of In Pursuit of Elvis, for example the video In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis’ Sandwich) is very concerned with the sadness around desire, specifically in being looked at but not being able to reciprocate that desire; a melancholic resignation of lacking the power to cease being looked at.
The thinking around Elvis Presley in terms of grief and mourning is not purely theoretical, there is a strong situational narrative of death around the singer. Elvis’ twin brother was stillborn, and his mother’s death at the age of only forty six (although it was initially reported as forty two) was devastating for Presley:
Elvis told the Press-Scimitar the death “broke my heart”.[51]
Liberace, likened to Elvis in many ways and another example of spectacular masculinity, is often cited as one of Elvis’ influences especially in terms of costume. But there is also a parallel between the two performers of grief concerning a sibling that was never known to them:
But something else, even more uncanny, ties Elvis and Liberace together. Both of them, remarkably, were twins, each born with a twin brother who immediately died. Both, that is to say, were – in the sense in which I have been using the term – changelings, changeling boys, substitutes for or doubles of something that never was.[52]
In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis and Gladys), see figure 12 below, is an exploration of these two major events around Elvis Presley’s life. The piece is effectively an impersonation of a commentary on these events, taken from Elaine Dundy’s Elvis and Gladys[53] the text is copied but written out by the use of my left hand, when I am usually right-handed. This process renders the copy to be virtually unreadable, implying a difficulty and struggle within the process. The copying of an existing document reflects the Elvis impersonators copying of second hand information, with all known information about Elvis Presley being filtered through cultural documents and practices, such as the press.
Fig. 12: In Pursuit of Elvis (Elvis and Gladys) by Kate Pelling
Elvis’ own early death at the age of forty two cemented both his iconic status, as an early death preserves the history of the star without committing the unforgivable social faux par of growing old, and solidified his relationship with grief as an available object, with many impersonators believing that they serve the purpose of ‘keeping him alive’. Elvis Presley’s death also provided a point of reference for a large majority of his fans, who along with their grief for him and their one to one relationship with their idol, they could attach this grief to their undisclosed personal griefs and act them out in public amongst a community which supports and encourages them.
This idea of a borrowed mourning, where personal griefs are replaced with a public grieving for Elvis Presley, is also an issue of authenticity. Freud writes:
Reality-testing has revealed that the beloved object no longer exists, and demands that the libido as a whole sever its bonds with that object. An understandable tendency arises to counter this – it may be generally observed that people are reluctant to abandon a libido position, even if a substitute is already beckoning. This tendency can become so intense that it leads to a person turning away from reality and holding on to the object through a hallucinatory wish-psychosis.[54]
This reluctance to give up the lost object makes a transference of object onto the highly available Elvis Presley understandable as the lost object does not have to be given up at all. Mourning for Presley is a collective activity rather than an isolated activity of mourning a personal object, see figure 13 below which shows a section of the crowd, an estimated 50,000[55] people, at the candlelit vigil outside Graceland, Memphis, the evening before the thirtieth anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. Mourning Elvis Presley is an activity that contains such ritual and circumstance that it can be maintained and even added to as time goes on, rather than the personal mourning which, in a normal case, after a period of time comes to an end as the person comes to terms that the object is no longer there.
Fig. 13: Candlelit Vigil outside Graceland, Memphis August 2007 Photos by Kate Pelling
This public spectacle of mourning as a social phenomenon creates an acceptable form of social melancholy, driven by the fans and a kind of performative power. The public mourning expressed in 1997 when Princess Diana died is a parallel example to that of Elvis Presley, with conspiracy theories abounding and the sheer numbers of people that took to the street to engage in the grief on offer. The momentum of social melancholia and the notion that Elvis Presley, as an object of attachment, is not lost but lives on, amplified by time, perpetuates the attachments that are substitutes for the personal objects that have been lost by the fans and impersonators.
This point of identification with the Elvis Presley persona in terms of mourning, and in turn melancholia when it is unresolved, is another explanation of why the phenomenon of Elvis impersonation is so vast and so widespread. Grief and melancholia, either as gender melancholia or through the loss of an object where the attachment is not based in desire, is universal. The human potential to enter a state of hallucinatory wish-psychosis, to use Freud’s phrase, is also universal.
The largest group of people that provide the momentum that keep the Elvis Presley industry going being not the impersonators but the fans. The fans also express the loss of their object by the use of clothing or costume, the vast majority of the attendees at the Candlelit Vigil in 2007 were wearing unisex t-shirts with representations of Elvis Presley on them. In this sense, these unisex t-shirts provide a further version of Elvis drag, in Butler’s terms, understood as being an external expression of internal unresolved desires, as discussed in Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification:
Given the iconographic figure of the melancholic drag queen, one might ask whether there is not a dissatisfied longing in the mimetic incorporation of gender that is drag. Here one might ask also after the disavowal which occasions the performance and which performance might be said to enact, where performance engages “acting out” in the psychoanalytic sense. [56]
While Elvis impersonation demonstrates the performative incarnation of drag and grief on a global scale, In Pursuit of Elvis demonstrates the process of performance and the exploration of the melancholia on an intimate scale, one to one with the viewer. The one to one experience, of fan and icon and of performer and viewer, is crucial to both the body of work that makes up In Pursuit of Elvis, and with any Elvis impersonator’s relationship with Elvis Presley. I was very conscious when I was making In Pursuit of Elvis that I was an isolated person, attempting to discuss a practice who’s dominant feature is the sheer amount of people involved and the multiplicity that it contains as a group. This I realised was a further queering of the genre, the isolation of an impersonator to see how they fare without collective knowledge. Having already considered Elvis impersonation as a tautology this provides an important link to authenticity as Adorno talks of Heidegger’s notion of authenticity around tautological terms:
“But he applies the most inwardly tautological relation of self and self-preservation as if it were, in Kantian terms, a synthetic judgement. It is as though self-preservation and selfhood defined themselves qualitatively through their antithesis, death, which is intertwined with the meaning of self-preservation.”[57]
Adorno suggests that, in Heidegger’s terms, death is the only authentic state that the self can occupy, as at that point there is no longer any outside influence. This in turn led me to think about the authenticity of the isolated individual, isolation as a defensive mechanism that could be used to retain a sense of authenticity. One might think that an individual identity without external influence would be an original identity and authentic in itself, but as I have discussed already, if Elvis Presley is considered to be the original Elvis but is actually a construction, any Elvis impersonation is at least twice removed from any authenticity. However, as El Vez said, the performance of Elvis becomes more about an exploration of the self of the impersonator, and therefore an isolated performance could be deemed to be following a path towards an authentic performance, if such a thing was actually possible.
There is also the issue of time and space, in that moment in that place, there is no other performance happening and no other people or performers there at all, so what is happening is authentic in that it’s the only performance in that moment. My own experience of this situation does not necessarily confirm any specific authenticity of the performance but it does show, from the knowledge gained from exposure to the performative process of Elvis impersonation that the authenticity comes from a new construction of identity, a fluid and shifting identity that is new in it’s every combination and permutation, all of which is inauthentic and authentic at the same time.
The methodology of the assemblage of In Pursuit of Elvis held the same level of importance as any resulting product. The research process was approached as a queer methodology; a fluid approach, using improvisational performance and methods of drawing that allow for spontaneity and unstructured results. In contrast to professional ETAs where the desired result is a performance closely approaching that of Elvis Presley, my focus was on queering that performance. The queered understanding of Elvis impersonation remains within the remit of Elvis impersonation because I identify it as such, the subject is directly experienced through my performance, so the research becomes a part of the culture that it studies, rather than developing as a discrete object made from second hand information.
The fluidity of the Elvis impersonator identity, a queer identity without an essence, is something that is key to the assemblage of In Pursuit of Elvis. The queering of Elvis impersonation has the most cultural resonance when it is positioned alongside the more conventional representations of Elvis impersonation and is therefore most appropriately discussed in tandem. The queering of an already queer practice creates a multiplicity in a spacio-temporal sense, expressed by performances within the assemblage occupying the persona of both ‘Elvis’ and ‘Kate’ at the same time; an exercise in multiplicity within an already rhizomatic structure. The fluidity of the assemblage is also evident in the narratives within In Pursuit of Elvis, where it is up to the viewer to disseminate the information that is given and the space is open for the viewer to make their own narrative around the subject.
This paperpaper explores the conceptual tension between performativity and authenticity, following Austen and subsequently Butler, performativity relies on the power of the repetition and repetition in itself is problematic, as according to Deleuze and Guattari no copy can ever be identical to the first object and subsequent copies get further and further away from any ‘original’ producing a reductive process where no copy can ever be authentic. In the case of Elvis impersonation the ‘original’, Elvis Presley, is a constructed persona, an impersonation in terms of masculinity as a gender performance and a combination of other borrowed identities that make up an image that is then projected to the world as an individual authentic identity available for everyone to explore in their own way.
Further conceptual tension exists in Elvis impersonation in terms of masculinity. Elvis impersonation could be described as a spectacular masculinity, a minority masculinity overly concerned with aesthetics and display, with a highly developed relationship with drag in the sense of male costume. This relationship is driven by a masquerade of adherence to the dominant form of masculinity and the pursuit of the American dream.
In Pursuit of Elvis demonstrates the performativity of Elvis impersonation by the structure of the piece, being an assemblage of different parts that form variations on representations of Elvis. The assemblage explores the use of language and visual repetition within Elvis impersonation, subverting the dominant themes around the verbal and visual signifiers throughout demarcates the performative action as a constructed entity rather than an assumed truth.
Authenticity is a very subjective term and according to Adorno it can only be understood on a surface level on terms of any artistic pursuit, disputing Heidegger’s model of a reductive state of authenticity in relation to the self as impossible, as external influece will always be a factor. In Pursuit of Elvis attempt to queer Elvis impersonation adds to the subjective notion of authenticity; subjective in its ownership of that identity of Elvis impersonator and putting into question the presence of the required ‘respect’.
In Pursuit of Elvis also explores the authenticity of performance when it is the only performance existing in that space at that time. It is possible to explore a phenomenon that is dependant on multiples of participants from an isolated position because of the power of the performative repetition within the performance, therefore it is possible to reflect the scale of the cultural impact by the use of one persona, in different guises, to test how far an already queer identity can be queered.
There is a sense of repetition running throughout the assemblage without need for evidence of repetition in terms of bodies on screen, the work prefers to allow for the construction of gender and masculinity in particular as a demonstration of the performativity of the subject, and the authenticity of identity is certainly identified as a complex area that is inherently contradictory. In terms of performativity the isolation of the individual performer may be limiting, but isolation works well as a device to explore authenticity.
One of the strongest themes throughout the assemblage of In Pursuit of Elvis is the sense of melancholia, and I have identified that this is very tied up with the issue of authenticity in terms of melancholia being a displacement of a lost object onto a substitute object. Melancholia, added to the self reflexive content of the work, forms the strongest point on which to base criticism of the assemblage, melancholia in itself can be rather self indulgent although I don’t think that In Pursuit of Elvis necessarily crosses this line.
It would have been easy to resort to the self indulgent or vulgar, there is so much kitsch imagery readily available around Elvis Presley, and the assemblage also ran the risk of being marginalised under a banner of other works that are and conceptually empty. Griel Marcus discusses the exhibition Elvis + Marilyn: 2 x Immortal in 1997:
"Elvis + Marilyn" says as much about the presence of the icon and the disappearance of the human being as anyone needs to hear.
“Elvis + Marilyn" is housed in museums, not amusement parks or county fairs, but it's no less vulgar for that - vulgar in the sense of exploitative, morally cheap and emotionally false. Here the bad art puts a film of corruption over the good. A lot of the art looks like bad advertising, and as if it's the artist who's being advertised: As if playing around with a blank cultural symbol - or making it more blank, blanking it out in favour of the self-presentation of the artist over the muteness of the symbol - might be a good career move.[58]
The avoidance of vulgarity, or self-promotion, is also a measure of success for In Pursuit of Elvis, quite a challenge when the assemblage relies on my own performance of Elvis. Self-reflexive research could be criticised in this way but as a whole this is not the case for In Pursuit of Elvis, which explores the practice of Elvis impersonation from both personal experience and a wider context. Markus suggests that one piece in the exhibition Elvis + Marilyn: 2 x Immortal stands out as successful where the others fail, showing that it is possible to make visual art that challenges the genre.
![[Joanne Stephens: Homage to Elvis]](InPursuitofElvis__files/image021.jpg)
Fig. 14: Homage to Elvis, 1991, by Joanne Stephens from Elvis + Marilyn: 2 X Immortal, 1997
Markus describes Joanne Stephens’ Homage to Elvis, pictured above in figure 14, as:
Beautiful, absurd, entrancing, its detail obsessive, its received, third-hand, automatic conception undeniable. In other words, the work is too obsessive to be fake and too received to be real; it is absolutely contradictory and it makes no sense. That's what draws you in: Why would anyone work so long and hard, so lovingly and so carefully, on a parody?
Because, the work answers, this is not a parody, this is a setting. In Stephens' piece, the altar contextualizes the heart of the work just as the exhibit as a whole contextualizes her piece, by providing a phoney palace for a moment of life. It's the TV set on which the altar rests that holds the drama.[59]
The inclusion of the television in Stephen’s piece provides both the point of contradiction and the most appropriate conceptual connection between the artist and Elvis Presley and the notion of being simultaneously real but not real. Stephens’ piece is appropriate to the subject following Markus’ questioning of the authenticity of the piece, Markus comments that it is too true to be real but too obsessive to be fake. This observation could also be used to summarise the sense of authenticity within In Pursuit of Elvis, the assemblage provides images that visually bear no immediate relation to Elvis Presley but there are enough partial signifiers of Elvis impersonation to be understood as something approaching an recognisable persona, in the same way that a convention or contest of Elvis impersonators creates an illusion of a whole Elvis Presley from a collective of impersonators.
It was important that the assemblage was put back out into the culture and I chose initially to show the work in similar venues to where you would be likely to find Elvis impersonators, to keep the cultural context of the piece. Videos from the assemblage were shown the Internet, in the back room of an East End pub and on interactive TV with this in mind[60]. However as the work progressed I realised that the context was wider than that of just Elvis impersonation, the assemblage included genres such as drag and therefore would be appropriate to be shown in a queer cabaret venue[61] and ultimately the USA needed to be part of the context, so some of the video pieces have been shown in several film festivals in the USA[62].
The strength of In Pursuit of Elvis lies with its queering of a structure that has grown up around an icon who had the potential to violate and disrupt race, class and gender in the first place. While many Elvis impersonators may seek to view Elvis impersonation from a normative white working class position of dominant masculinity, In Pursuit of Elvis highlights the queerness of the identity, particularly in terms of masculinity, and the possibilities that lie within it for disrupting normative patterns within society.
Thank you very much.
Notes
[1] Garber, Marjorie, Vested Interests: Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 1992) p. 374
[2] See Appendix 1 for Contents of In Pursuit of Elvis by Kate Pelling. In Pursuit of Elvis can be found in its entirety at http://www.katepelling.com
[3] Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: Continuum, 1988) p. 4
[4] Spinoza, Benedict de, The Ethics [Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata] Translated from the Latin by R. H. M. Elwes eBooks@Adelaide 2007 http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/spinoza/benedict/ethics/[Accessed 19/09/08]
[5] Elvis Impersonators Reach an All-Time High ScienceWorld Online 3rd December 2000 http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/shows/2000.12.03.htm
[6] Garber, Marjorie, Vested Interests: Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 1992) p. 367
[7] Statistic given in 2000 - ELVIS IMPERSONATORS REACH AN ALL-TIME HIGH ScienceWorld Online 3rd December 2000 http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/shows/2000.12.03.htm [Accessed 11/08/08]
[8] Austen, J.L., How To Do Things with Words (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975)
[9] Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990)
[10] Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Epistomology of the Closet (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1990).
[11] Halperin,David M, Saint=Foucault: Towards a GayHagiography,(New York/Oxford,Oxford UniversityPress, 1995)p.62
[12] Magni, Sonia and Reddy, Vasu, Performative Queer Identities: Masculinities and Public Bathroom Usage Sexualities 2007; 10; 229 Published by Sage Publications
[13] Freud, Sigmund, On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia (London: Penguin Books, 2005)
[14] Improvisation in Action Author(s): Mary M. Crossan Source: Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 5, Special Issue: Jazz Improvisation and Organizing, (Sep. - Oct., 1998), pp. 593-599 Published by INFORMS http://www.jstor.org/stable/2640301 [Accessed 04/08/2008]
[15] Austen, J.L., How To Do Things with Words (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975) p. 22
[16] See note 15 above
[17] Extracts from Gender as Performance: An Interview with Judith Butler Interview by Peter Osborne and Lynne Segal, London, 1993 http://www.theory.org.uk/but-int1.htm [Accessed 30/08/08]
[18] See note 15 above
[19] Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley (RCA Records, 1969)
[20] Lee Memphis King – The Voice of Elvis.pdf http://www.elvislegend.entsinfo.net/Memphis_King.htm [Accessed 07/06/08]
[21] Brickell, Chris, Masculinities, Performativity, and Subversion: A Sociological Reappraisal Men and Masculinities 2005; 8; 24 (SAGE Publications, 2005) [Accessed 24/03/2008]
[22] Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: Continuum, 1988) p. 6
[23] Halberstam, Judith, In a Queer Time & Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York/London: New York University Press, 2005)
[24] Del LaGrace Volcano The Geezers: Double the Trouble, 1999 and Elvis Herselvis and Elvis Herselvis Impersonator, 1999
[25] Flaming Star Directed by Don Siegel (1960)
[26] Mitchell, Lee Clark, Westerns: Making The Man in Fiction and Film (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)
[27] Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990) p. 175
[28] Chafetz, Janet Saltzman, Masculine/Feminine or Human? An Overview of the Sociology of Sex Roles (Itasca, Illinois: F. E. Peacock, 1974)
[29] Rubinkowski, Leslie, Impersonating Elvis (Winchester, MA: Faber and Faber, 1997) p. 68
[30] Garber, Marjorie, Vested Interests: Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 1992) p. 371
[32] Magni, Sonia and Reddy, Vasu, Performative Queer Identities: Masculinities and Public Bathroom Usage Sexualities 2007; 10; 229 Published by Sage Publications [Accessed 29/03/08]
[33] See note 20 above
[34] Feinberg, Joel, Action and Responsibility in White, Alan R, The Philosophy of Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968) p. 109
[35] Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: Continuum, 1988) p.238
[36] Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time (Malden/Oxford/Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 1962) p. 168, 307
[37] Adorno, Theodor, The Jargon of Authenticity (London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973) p.111
[38] Blackpool Contest and Convention Contest Info http://www.elviscontest.co.uk/elvis%20contest%2009%20contest.htm [Accessed 26/07/08]
[39] Rubinkowski, Leslie, Impersonating Elvis (Winchester, MA: Faber and Faber, 1997) p. 70
[40] The King And the Showgirl By Zack Stentz http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/11.21.96/art1-9647.html [Accessed 01/08/08]
[41] ElVez Myspace http://www.myspace.com/myelvez [Accessed 02/08/08]
[42] GI Ay, Ay! Blues, Semaphore 51002 & Big Pop 0910-2 (extra track)
[43] Eric Lott appropriates the terms of Bhabba, “Of Mimicry and Man”
[44] Race and the Subject of Masculinities ed. By Stecopoulos, Harry and Uebel, Michael (Durham/London: Duke University Press, 1997)
[45] Mulvey, Laura, Visual and Other Pleasures (Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave, 1989)
[46] Kings and Things: Shawn Klush http://biboland.blogspot.com/2005/01/shawn-klush.html [Accessed 10/08/07]
[47] Blackpool Contest ETA Entry Form http://www.elviscontest.co.uk/elvis%20contest%2009%20print%20pro%20entry%20form.htm [Accessed 26/07/08]
[48] Rubinkowski, Leslie, Impersonating Elvis (Winchester, MA: Faber and Faber, 1997) p. 63
[49] Butler, Judith, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford/California: Stanford University Press, 1997) p.132-150
[50] See note 49 above p. 138
[51] Dundy, Elaine, Elvis and Gladys (Mississippi: University Press of Mississipi, 2004) p. 324
[52] Garber, Marjorie, Vested Interests: Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 1992) p. 364
[53] See note 49 above
[54] Freud, Sigmund, On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia (London: Penguin Books, 2005) p. 204
[55] Vigil Night Revisited by Christopher Blank, August 16th, 2007 http://www.goelvis.com/2007/08/16/vigil-night-revisited/ [Accessed 09/09/08]
[56] Butler, Judith, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford/California: Stanford University Press, 1997)
[57] Adorno, Theodor, The Jargon of Authenticity (London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973) p.111
[58] Way Dead Elvis: A Tribute to the King Proves That His Posthumous Legend has Become Equal Parts Sincerity and Trash. http://www.salon.com/aug97/wanderlust/greil970812.html [Accessed 14/08/08]
[59] Way Dead Elvis: A Tribute to the King Proves That His Posthumous Legend has Become Equal Parts Sincerity and Trash. http://www.salon.com/aug97/wanderlust/greil970812.html [Accessed 14/08/08]
[60] Full listing of showings available at http://www.katepelling.com
[61] 24th July 2008 The Royal Vauxhall Variety Performance, Vauxhallville, The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Vauxhall, London and 13th March 2008 As Elvis - Winner of Best Dressed at 'What a Drag' Vauxhallville Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Vauxhall, London
[62] The Bearded Child Film Festival, Minnesota, USA, August 2008, www.beardedchild.com, The Milkbar Film Festival, California, USA September 2008, www.milkbar.org, Oculi Experimental Film Showcase, North Carolina, USA, September 2008, www.bottegagallery.com and NY Experimental The Tank, New York, USA www.thetanknyc.org September 2008 to date.
Books
Adorno, Theodor, The Jargon of Authenticity (London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973)
Austen, J.L., How To Do Things with Words (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975)
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture (London/New York: Routledge, 1994)
Butler, Judith, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (London: Routledge, 1993)
Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990)
Butler, Judith, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford/California: Stanford University Press, 1997)
Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: Continuum, 1988)
Deleuze, Gilles and Parnet, Claire, Dialogues II (London/New York: Continuum, 1987)
Dundy, Elaine, Elvis and Gladys (Mississippi: University Press of Mississipi, 2004)
Foucault, Michel, Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984 Vol 1-3 (London: Penguin Books, 1994)
Foucault, Michel, The Will To Knowledge, The History of Sexuality: 1 (London: Penguin Books, 1976)
Freud, Sigmund, On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia (London: Penguin Books, 2005)
Freud, Sigmund, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud Vol 7 (1901-1905) (London: Vintage, 1953)
Garber, Marjorie, Vested Interests: Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 1992)
Halberstam, Judith, Female Masculinity (Durham/London: Duke University Press, 1998)
Halberstam, Judith, In a Queer Time & Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York/London: New York University Press, 2005)
Halperin, David M, Saint=Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)
Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time (Malden/Oxford/Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 1962)
Hughes, Judith M., Freudian Analysts Feminist Issues (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1999)
Kosofsky Sedgwick, Eve, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2003)
Lacan, Jaques, Feminine Sexuality (New York/London: W W Norton & Company, 1982)
Lee, Laura, The Elvis Impersonation Kit: A Step-By-Step Guide to Becoming The King (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2006)
Marcus, Greil, Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession (United States of America: Harvard University Press, 1991)
Mitchell, Lee Clark, Westerns: Making The Man in Fiction and Film (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)
Mulvey, Laura, Visual and Other Pleasures (Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave, 1989)
O’Sullivan, Simon, Art Encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Thought Beyond Representation (Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)
Performativity and Performance Parker, ed. By Parker, Andrew and Kosofsky Sedgwick, Eve (London/New York: Routledge, 1995)
Phelan, Peggy, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (London/New York: Routledge, 1996)
Phelan, Peggy, Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories (London/New York: Routledge, 1997)
Race and the Subject of Masculinities ed. By Stecopoulos, Harry and Uebel, Michael (Durham/London: Duke University Press, 1997)
Rubinkowski, Leslie, Impersonating Elvis (Winchester, MA: Faber and Faber, 1997)
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Epistomology of the Closet (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1990).
Volcano, Del LaGrace and Halberstam, Judith, The Drag King Book, (London: Serpents Tail, 1999)
White, Alan R, The Philosophy of Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968)
Websites
Andy Warhol, Elvis, 1963 http://www.nga.gov.au/warhol/IMAGES/LRG/45234.jpg [Accessed 06/09/08]
Blackpool Contest and Convention Contest Info http://www.elviscontest.co.uk/elvis%20contest%2009%20contest.htm [Accessed 26/07/08]
Blackpool Contest ETA Entry Form http://www.elviscontest.co.uk/elvis%20contest%2009%20print%20pro%20entry%20form.htm [Accessed 26/07/08]
Brickell, Chris, Masculinities, Performativity, and Subversion: A Sociological Reappraisal Men and Masculinities 2005; 8; 24 (SAGE Publications, 2005) http://jmm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/24 [Accessed 24/03/2008]
Crossan, Mary M, Improvisation in Action Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 5, Special Issue: Jazz Improvisation and Organizing, (Sep. - Oct., 1998), pp. 593-599 Published by: INFORMS http://www.jstor.org/stable/2640301 [Accessed 04/08/2008]
ElVez Myspace http://www.myspace.com/myelvez [Accessed 02/08/08]
Elvis Impersonators Reach an All-Time High ScienceWorld Online 3rd December 2000 http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/shows/2000.12.03.htm [Accessed 11/08/08]
Extracts from Gender as Performance: An Interview with Judith Butler Interview by Peter Osborne and Lynne Segal, London, 1993 http://www.theory.org.uk/but-int1.htm [Accessed 30/08/08]
Jones, Ann Rosalind, Writing the Body Toward an Understanding of l'Écriture feminine http://webs.wofford.edu/hitchmoughsa/Writing.html [Accessed 15/09/08]
Kate Pelling – Equivocate http://www.katepelling.com [Accessed 24/09/08]
King of Kings: Elvis-Jesus Similarities http://www.worldofbadger.co.uk/2004/01/12/king_of_kings_elvis_jesus_similarities/ [Accessed 03/08/08]
Kings and Things: Shawn Klush http://biboland.blogspot.com/2005/01/shawn-klush.html [Accessed 10/08/07]
Ryle, Gilbert, Improvisation Mind, New Series, Vol. 85, No. 337, (Jan., 1976), pp. 69-83 Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association http://www.jstor.org/stable/2253256 [Accessed 04/08/2008]
Spinoza, Benedict de, The Ethics [Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata] Translated from the Latin by R. H. M. Elwes eBooks@Adelaide 2007 http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/spinoza/benedict/ethics/[Accessed 19/09/08]
The King And the Showgirl By Zack Stentz http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/11.21.96/art1-9647.html [Accessed 01/08/08]
Vigil Night Revisited by Christopher Blank, August 16th, 2007 http://www.goelvis.com/2007/08/16/vigil-night-revisited/ [Accessed 09/09/08]
Way Dead Elvis: A Tribute to the King Proves That His Posthumous Legend has Become Equal Parts Sincerity and Trash including Homage to Elvis, 1991, by Joanne Stephens from “Elvis + Marilyn: 2 X Immortal” Exhibition 1997 http://www.salon.com/aug97/wanderlust/greil970812.html [Accessed 14/08/08]
TV/Film/Music
Almost Elvis Dir. John Paget (2002)
Flaming Star Dir. Don Siegel (1960)
GI Ay, Ay! Blues by El Vez (Semaphore 51002 & Big Pop 0910-2)
Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley (RCA Records, 1969)
The World’s Greatest Elvis (BBC1 22nd & 29th September 2007)