[July 19th was a doubly significant day for Elvis Presley: on July 19, 1954, his debut single was released; and on July 19, 1977, what would be his final album dropped. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of layers to the Elvis mythos, leading up to a special post on cultural representations of Presley!]
On the
Medal of Freedom as a unifying occasion or a partisan instrument.
First
things first: I’m on record, in this
space and most everywhere else, as Bruce Springsteen’s biggest fan; and
I’m also on record in this space as significantly less of a
fan of Elvis Presley. On that latter point, Bruce and I disagree very
fully—he famously jumped the
wall at Graceland while on tour in 1976 in an attempt to meet
his idol; and Bruce has recorded no less than (and probably many more than) a dozen
covers of songs by the artist he has called one of his greatest inspirations
since he first saw Elvis’s controversial performance on the Ed
Sullivan show. I promise (Bruce, myself, you all) to keep an open mind and keep
giving Elvis the old college try, but in any case this post isn’t about the two
artists themselves; it’s about how Barack Obama’s 2016 Presidential Medal of
Freedom tribute to Bruce Springsteen and Donald Trump’s 2018 Medal tribute to
Elvis Presley (posthumously, of course) reveal (as does most everything else
about the two presidents) two distinct and fundamentally opposed visions of
what something like the Medal of Freedom means, for the president and for the
nation.
At the November
2016 ceremony honoring Springsteen and 20 others, President Obama said of the
Medal that “it’s a tribute to the idea that all of us, no matter where we come
from, have the opportunity to change this country for the better….These 21
individuals have helped push America forward, inspiring millions of people
around the world along the way.” About Springsteen more specifically, he added,
“The stories he has told, in lyrics and epic live concert performances, have
helped shape American music and have challenged us to realize the American
dream.” As has so often been the case with Obama’s speeches and public
statements, his use of first-person plural pronouns here is crucial,
establishing the medal and occasion as a collective expression and reflection (and
amplification) of that communal experience and identity. That choice purposefully
downplays both Obama’s own individual action (despite of course being the
president giving the Presidential Medal) and the larger 21st century
narrative of a divided America whose citizens might or might not all celebrate
such figures (while it boggles my mind that anyone wouldn’t celebrate Bruce,
there’s no doubt he has become
increasingly linked to progressive politicians
and causes).
While
Elvis Presley has at times been associated with the (overstated,
I’ve argued) narrative of white artists capitalizing on black music, it would
nonetheless be easy and appropriate to present him with a posthumous Medal of
Freedom in much the same unifying terms. But it will come as no surprise to
anyone who has been alive and awake for the last five years that President
Trump did not talk about Elvis in that way shortly after
awarding him that November 2018 medal. In contrast with Obama’s “we,” Trump
linked Elvis to himself, claiming that he didn’t want to sound “very conceited”
but noting that, “other than the blond hair, when I was growing
up they said I looked like Elvis. Can you believe it? I always considered
that a great compliment.” And he went on to connect Elvis to one of the
moment’s most divisive issues, that of the
so-called “migrant caravan” making its way to the Mexican American
border; “They're not going to put in Elvis in there,” he stated, going out of
his way to differentiate the iconic American artist from a community he sought
time and again to define as a foreign threat to the U.S. There are literally
countless ways we could trace the changes and gaps between 2016/Obama and
2018/Trump, but their frames for these two rock ‘n roll medals do the trick
nicely.
Last
ElvisStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other takes on Elvis?
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