THE FUN NEVER ENDS
 


Walk a Mile in My Shoes
(Free to all Graceland Visitors)

Presented at the theater in the middle of the visitor center plaza, this specially produced 22-minute film, in a fast-paced, fun, and sometimes touching way, takes you through highlights of the
exciting and fascinating career of Elvis Presley. If you're a fan, you'll relive lots of familiar and favorite moments. If you've never really studied his life and career, you'll likely get to know some facets of Elvis that you never knew existed
(Elvis Presley's Graceland 1992).

 
 

AS YOU EXIT THE FILM, YOU ENTER A GIFT SHOP.



At Graceland Plaza the opportunities to enact your cultural identity by shopping, buying, and collecting officially licensed objects seem endless.
 

Get what you want. WE'LL MAKE MORE. LIVE THE DREAM.
 
 
 
 

Gathered artifacts--whether they find their way into curio cabinets, living rooms, museums of ethnography, folklore, or fine art--function within a developing capitalist "system of objects" (Baudrillard 1968). By virtue of this system, a world of value is created and a meaningful deployment and circulation of artifacts maintained. For Baudrillard, collected objects create a structured environment that substitutes its own temporality for the 'real time' of historical and productive processes: '. . . the environment of private objects and their possession--of which collections are an extreme manifestation--is a dimension of our life that is both essential and imaginary. . . " (Baudrillard 1968, 135). (Clifford 1988, 239-240) 

 

Even funs share in the dream of creating culture through associations with objects. If you're a fun, you won't want to miss all Graceland Plaza has to offer YOU:

*Fans to ridicule

                *Souvenirs to laugh at

                               *Access to over-priced popular culture kitsch

                                                *Inside jokes with friends

                                                                    *Postmodern Identity Construction

Graceland Plaza is the ultimate in FUN. Be part of a popular culture phenomenon without the messy strings of commitment that come with fandom. Enjoy Elvis on your own terms. Exercise your rights as a consumer. Or if you're a participant-observer fun looking to enact your culture through play, try to blend in with the crowd (BE AN ELVIS FAN FOR A DAY) at the end of the day, try on a different persona; it's all part of the fun of being a FUN at Graceland Plaza.



 
 
 
 
  

where YOUR memories live again

God, no, I'm not a fan! Shit.
Do I look brain damaged? . . .
I just come here to look at the freaks.
It's kind of cool. Not them; coming here.
It's a college thing, you know? . . .
I've listened to some of his songs, mostly by accident.
Of course, you can't get away from 'em here!
Shit. 
You'd think they'd get tired of hearing 
the same old songs, much less that corny hick stuff. . . .
Shit. All this crap!
It's definitely not worth what you have to pay for it,
but some of it's cool.
I got this cool, well, I don't know what they call 'em-- 
a beer cooler? 
Cold keeper?
It goes around the can--
cozie, yeah, a cozie!
Thanks, man. 
It's just a piece of crap, 
but it's fun to buy it while you're here, I guess. . . .
This is my third time at Graceland. 
People are gonna start thinking I'm an Elvis-freak,
or something! It's just amazing.
I mean, I don't try to blend in or anything.
I don't dress up like Elvis; 
I'll wear a t-shirt, but I wouldn't really 
want people thinking I love Elvis or anything. . . .
um, I haven't been mean to any of them, per se.
I'll laugh at them if they look like total freaks,
like the old guys with the Elvis hair
or the fat old ladies with the blue eye shadow, 
but I wouldn't be intentionally mean to 'em. . . .
Oh, yeah, except that time when my friend pretended 
to have an "Elvis attack" in a gift shop. 
He fell to the ground yelling,
"No, Elvis, why did you have to die?"
and all these old chicks were looking at him 
and shaking their heads and I was kind of mean to them. 
I told them to get over it,
like we were being sacrilegious or something.
Shit.

Kevin, fan-abusive fun
Nashville, TN
(Personal Interview, August 14, 1993)
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