Elvis Presley: Threat of Open Sexuality

When discussing the affect of John Osborne in the British theatre and how he exploded onto the stage what was only seen behind closed doors, David Hare brought up the parallel affect that Elvis Presley had on American music:

“To a boy growing up in the US heartland Elvis rampant had been an almost unbearable threat.  Obviously, like everyone else, you had to say you liked him [. . .] but secretly you were scared stiff.  Elvis’s gyrating hips, the insane sexuality and throb of his music, the public example of someone managing at once to be both so rebellious and so impossibly cool, seemed to bring home to the young [pop historian Greil] Marcus everything that he himself was missing in his life, and implicitly therefore, in his character” (40-41).

Apparently, Marcus admitted to feeling relief when Elvis was conscripted--clipping his wings--making Elvis acceptable to American mainstream society.

Here is a clip from The Milton Berle Show in 1956 with Elvis performing "Hound Dog":

His hips caused such a ruckus that soon his televised performances were shown only from the waist up, as seen here with "Don't Be Cruel":

There was this perceived threat of publicly displayed sexuality and fears of what might happen to America's youth if they were exposed to it, even something as tame as swiveling hips.  Elvis features prominently in the second scene of The Blue Room between the Cab Driver and the Au Pair.  The Cab Driver is clearly a fan, as he is completely moved by the music: "Don't you just just love that bit? Don't you just love it?" (TBR 12).  The music is in part the catalyst that brings the Cab Driver and the Au Pair together and leads them to eventually have a sexual encounter in the storeroom off the dance hall.