Elvis and Gaining the Whole World
A new movie provokes questions about art, humanity, and greed.
What is the price of fame? And what are the limits of our humanity? These are the questions I’m asking myself after seeing the biopic, Elvis, out now in theaters. Our family has always loved Elvis Presley’s music, from “Blue Suede Shoes” to “Aint Nothin But a Houndog” to the ever-present “Blue Christmas,” heard around our home starting mid-November. Elvis’ voice and presence are iconic, even 45 years after his untimely death. Who else could spawn an industry of look-alikes in almost every city?
Yet there is something deeply tragic about the life of Elvis Presley, a sobering reality that this movie explores, even if some of the story arcs are embellished for the big screen. Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann centers the story around the mysterious figure, Colonel Tom Parker, a music pioneer who exploited Elvis’ young talent for his own personal gain.
I won’t give the movie away, but the theme is pretty simple. Parker, an amoral marketing and showbiz entrepreneur offers a young Elvis the opportunity for unlimited wealth and fame, the chance to showcase his singing talent on stages across the country. He’ll be able to buy his mama a nice house and car. All it will take is for him to agree to Parker’s terms (50% of profits!) and a few sacrifices. Actually, it would cost Elvis his life. The movie tells the story of a man who discovered Elvis, who made Elvis, but most importantly, was made by Elvis.
I went home from the theater with so many thoughts. First, about the way Elvis lost his humanity on the road to fame. So many people, Colonel Parker chief among them, were supported by Elvis’ art. As long as he was on the stage performing, everyone made money. He became less of a person and more of a machine, an ATM for everyone to draw from. There is a harrowing scene toward the end of the movie, where Elvis has collapsed and is clearly suffering from exhaustion and Parker orders the doctor to do whatever it takes to get him on the screen. Elvis’ hapless father, the “business manager” looks on in sheepish agreement as if to say, “Yes, all of us depend on him being on the stage so sure shoot him up with medicine so he can perform.”
Elvis, though, was not a machine. And eventually, he could be squeezed of his art no longer. He died at the age of 42, a tragic symbol of a life gone off the rails. On the one hand, he is the embodiment of the warning by Jesus, who asked rhetorically (Matthew 16:26), “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” The addiction to the stage, the roar of the crowd, the adulation of his fans, the indulging of every sensual pleasure—this did not lead to happiness and joy but to despair and ultimately death. There was a constant tension in Elvis’ life, between the genuinely good life offered in a relationship with God and the false gods described in 1 John 2:16: “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions.” Elvis was on top of the world, adored by everyone, but lonely. He chased after it all and he got it and it destroyed him. This is what false gods do. The world will promise you everything, but once it has extracted what it wants from you, it will leave you a shadow of yourself. “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death (Proverbs 14:2).”
There is another lesson here though beyond Elvis’ tragic pursuits. We should be sobered by the way in which he was exploited for his gifts. The movie clearly wants you to come away believing that it was Colonel Tom House who killed Elvis, by squeezing every drop of stage time from him, by signing contracts that would chain Elvis to the International Hotel so that maximum profits could be made by House so House could pay off his gambling debts. And it’s hard to deny that reality. Yet House also points to the fans, the crowds that jammed into his concerts, the people who demanded more and more of Elvis, more than he could humanly give. “You killed him as well,” he seems to say. And in this, he’s not absolved of his mendacity, but he’s also not entirely wrong.
Elvis Presley, before he was a gifted singer before he was a stage performer before he was a money-making star, was a human being, created with creaturely limits. The lie whispered to Elvis goes all the way back to Eden, this insidious idea that we can “be like God.” We tell ourselves that limits are for others, not us. Or we demand a lack of limits of others, exploiting them for their gifts. Few people who benefited from Elvis Presley’s prodigious gifts stopped to ask if Elvis the person, the human being, the show, was actually flourishing in his body and in his soul. Only his wife seemed to care, repeatedly telling him that she’d give up all the niceties in exchange for Elvis’ happiness. Everyone just seemed to keep coming back to the ATM to draw more from a depleting resource.
I’ve recently read the book, You’re Only Human by Kelly Kapic, which explores the Bible’s rich teaching on a concept called “finitude.” This theological term simply refers to the fact that humans were created finite. Our limits as creatures are a feature of our creation by an all-powerful, loving God, not a bug. Imagine if the people around Elvis and Elvis himself had lived by this reality. Perhaps he’d still be alive today, at the age of 87, sharing his gift of music in a way that didn’t destroy his life.
Elvis’ tragic life should cause us to rethink the way we see people whose gifts we enjoy, whether artists or athletes, speakers or writers, plumbers or pastors. Do we see and understand their humanity or do we view them as mere machines by which we extract benefits? How about the folks closest to us? Do we see our children as objects for our self-fulfillment and status in the world? Do we ask of our spouses what only God can give? Or do we see our loved ones as human beings with limits, who cannot bear the weight of what we demand?
There is a reason humans were designed not to be worshipped, but to worship God. When we worship humans, we exploit them. We demand from them things they cannot possibly deliver. There is a better way, the way of love, the way of Jesus, who cares for us as people, not performances.
I do hope you see the Elvis movie. I think, from now on, I will continue to enjoy his music as it streams through my home, but I will also mourn a little bit each time I hear him, for I now know the cost of his art.
Photo credit: Uncredited, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons