Pearl Jam – Do The Evolution

Elvis was not willing to accept traditional gender boundaries.  Even as a teenager in Tupelo, Mississippi, Elvis dyed his hair and enhanced the beauty of his eyes with eyeliner.  He wore a pink sport coat, in violation of gender norms, [...]]]> Richard Eskow makes the counter-intuitive argument over at Boing Boing. My two favorite points:

Elvis was not willing to accept traditional gender boundaries.  Even as a teenager in Tupelo, Mississippi, Elvis dyed his hair and enhanced the beauty of his eyes with eyeliner.  He wore a pink sport coat, in violation of gender norms, complemented by black peg leg slacks.  Yet he contrasted the seeming feminity of these gestures with hypermasculine body movements and abnormally large sideburns (facial hair being an evolutionary cue for male dominance.)

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Elvis transcended racial boundaries, too, adopting a singing style so African-American that when he was interviewed on Memphis radio for the first time the DJ asked him which high school he attended.  Why?  Because Elvis went to an all-white school in those segregated days, and the answer (Humes High, for trivia buffs) told surprised listeners he had slipped from bonds that his white peers assumed were genetically sealed.

Love it.

Slow Poison – The Bravery from Orion Tait on Vimeo.