Posthumous Representations of Elvis

Abstract A number of processes of mediation have prevented the King from resting in peace since his death. Fans and impersonators have kept him alive via interactive performances and personal memory and through visits to the Graceland memorial. In recent decades, his translation into fictionalized form has embodied a broken, refracted, and often voiceless Elvis, usually nameless or referred to as “Bubba.” These representations draw on post-mortem understandings and portrayals of Elvis as a signifier of contemporary cultural issues. We argue that these mediations are also responses to fear of trademark infringement and right of publicity laws. Elvis resonates because of the cultural myths that encircle him, and multiple and contradictory ways he is connected to such myths. However, commercial use of Elvis’s image by his estate, Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE), and their concentrated efforts to control the meanings of those images, transforms Elvis into a trans-propertied commodity form exploiting new uses of the right of publicity. By examining fictional accounts and tribute artists, we argue that the image of Elvis propagated and policed by EPE has been highly sanitized and limited. EPE and their partners have succeeded in keeping Elvis Presley’s celebrity narrative alive and in the public eye by interacting with fan culture, by negotiating, fighting, and dominating contested spaces of cultural performance and by creating new “content” that reinforces their position as intellectual property rights-holders and custodians of Presley’s legacy. The corporation that owns the image of Elvis has now taken the first and last word on him.