MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Elvis has not left the building. In fact, Elvis Presley’s absence is made present in Graceland via the Graceland Cam, found at www.graceland.com (via www.elvis.com). Recognized around the world, Elvis’ image, voice, myth(os), and ‘swagger’ have all been appreciated and critiqued during the twentieth and now twenty-first century. And equally much writing has already focused on Elvis as an Algeresque, “rags to riches” American hero (he literally ‘shook up’ the American Dream), pioneer of rock n’ roll, and a deeply religious man (he was a practicing Christian, and fan of gospel music). However, my intention is to go beyond such historical, musical, textual, or religious readings of Elvis’ persona and career and ask: What is the purpose of the Graceland Cam to our understanding of how Elvis Presley the film and music star is communicated online and in the realm of today’s popular culture in cyberspace. The paper will explore the rhetorical nature of the popular and highly corporatized “cam” and seek to argue that the Graceland Cam complicates the viewer-image relationship and ways of ‘watching’ images on the Internet. That is, Graceland’s “liveness” vis-à-vis the Graceland Cam provokes immobility rather than mobility, the illusion of “nearness,” and a kind of 24/7 “monitoring” of the Southern mansion, which appears to be an anomaly amidst the showy nature of both the graceland.com (and elvis.com) web design. Just as Elvis redefined notions of “pop” and “the popular,” my paper will make an effort to put forward new knowledge and suggestions of how to read popular memorials through aesthetics of death captured and recorded online through the Internet.