Gate People: Fan History Before Elvis Heritage at Graceland
dc.contributor.author | Duffett, Mark | |
dc.contributor.editor | Duffett, Mark | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2024-09-27T14:37:33Z | |
dc.date.available | 2024-09-27T14:37:33Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2024-12-01 | |
dc.identifier | https://chesterrep.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10034/629049/GatePeople.pdf?sequence=3 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Duffet, M. (2024). Gate people: Fan history before Elvis heritage at Graceland. In M. Duffet (Ed.), Rethinking Elvis. Oxford University Press. | en_US |
dc.identifier.isbn | 9780190094102 | en_US |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10034/629049 | |
dc.description.abstract | Academic accounts sometimes suggest that Graceland tourism began when Elvis’s mansion was opened to the public five years after his passing. Disputing such assertions, this chapter provides a comparatively inductive, “hidden history” of early fan visits to the Graceland gates. Its methodological approach is deliberate. Academic discussions about fan tourism are, whether consciously or not, often shaped by existing ideas and paradigms. Unless researchers inductively investigate, and increase the resolution of their scholarly gaze, they will not be able to make the distinctions that move our understanding beyond the unproductive myths and generalizations that can inform academic research as easily as they can shape commercial writing. Using historical evidence, the chapter shows that there were several overlapping eras defined by different types and scales of fan activity. These include an early phase exemplified by the disabled fan Gary Pepper, the development of intelligent networks, ritual bus tours and birthday celebrations, and finally a “massification” period associated with larger crowds and negative press stereotyping. The chapter suggests that the famous Graceland music gates physically separated the star and his fans, but they were not “prison gates.” Instead, the Graceland gates functioned as a kind of semi-permeable membrane, allowing ordinary visitors limited entry into Elvis’s world. To conclude, the piece suggests that gate vigils have now become “imagined memories” in guidebook accounts whose real participants have been made comparatively anonymous so that contemporary consumers can imagine themselves occupying the fortunate positions of the actual “gate people.” | en_US |
dc.description.sponsorship | N/A | en_US |
dc.publisher | Oxford University Press | en_US |
dc.relation.url | https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rethinking-elvis-9780190094102?cc=pl&lang=en&# | en_US |
dc.subject | Elvis Presley | en_US |
dc.subject | Elvis fans | en_US |
dc.subject | Mass culture | en_US |
dc.subject | Imagined memories | en_US |
dc.title | Gate People: Fan History Before Elvis Heritage at Graceland | en_US |
dc.type | Book chapter | en_US |
dc.date.updated | 2024-09-26T21:35:26Z | |
dc.title.book | Rethinking Elvis | en_US |
dc.date.accepted | 2024-08-06 | |
rioxxterms.identifier.project | N/A | en_US |
rioxxterms.version | P | en_US |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2024-12-01 | |
rioxxterms.type | Book chapter | |
dc.date.deposited | 2024-09-26 | en_US |