Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, Race, Racism and the South African Nexus

Abstract

ABSTRACT TIME magazine film critic Stephanie Zacharek avers: “ … when Luhrmann first announced he was making an Elvis movie, back in 2014, the question might have been ‘Why now?’ But in 2022— especially now that we’ve seen how politically, racially, and culturally fractured our nation could become—the many faces of Elvis form a sun mosaic that raises more questions than it answers” (74). Using Luhrmann’s film as my launch pad, I explore the problematics of race in the lebenswelt of Elvis Presley while forging a nexus with racism in South Africa where a Presley movie was banned. 1