Beyond Good and Elvis

The word fan is the shortened form of the word fanatic, from the Latin word fānāticus, an individual belonging to a particular temple, from fānum, meaning temple. The fanatic, in contrast to the dilettante—someone having only a casual or superficial interest in an art or discipline, a “dabbler”—is characterized by excessive (obsessive) enthusiasm and deep, uncritical devotion to an art or discipline. I claim no original insight in the observation that the investment of deep emotional energies in a particular person or object—what Freud called cathexis—reveals that fanaticism is actually a form of fetishism.

The connection of fanaticism and fetishism is conveniently revealed in a video currently available on youtube.com that I consider required viewing for anyone interested in the phenomenon, consisting of an excerpt from Thomas Corboy’s short documentary Rock ‘n’ Roll Disciples (1986). A range of Elvis fans are interviewed, including Artie Mentz (an Elvis impersonator), Jenny and Judy Carroll (identical twins who believe they may be Elvis’s illegitimate offspring), and Frankie “Buttons” Horrocks, who has devoted her life to the witnessing and the celebration of Elvis. There’s a moment in the video during which Horrocks observes that no true female Elvis fan denies her deep desire to have had sex with Elvis. As she speaks, she is shown posing with the Elvis statue now standing in Memphis, her hand firmly gripping its crotch. Greil Marcus observes the image “is reminiscent of nothing so much as the statues of Catholic saints that in present-day Europe good Christian women straddle in pagan ecstasy, telling anyone who asks that their mothers said it was a good way to ensure fertility” (Dead Elvis 119)—that is, the image reveals the nature of the relationship between the fan and the fetish object.

Cowry Shell

Simon Frith has observed that music “is more like clothes than any other art form” (Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music, 1996), suggesting, among other things, how the consumption of music can be considered a fashion statement, that is, as a statement of taste. But what can we say of music about clothes? Legend has it that Carl Perkins, upon hearing the story of the prized pair of blue suede shoes, was chagrined that a man actually would value his lowly shoes over a beautiful girl. Put in another way, Perkins wondered how it is possible that a signifying object (even one possessing materiality, such as a pair of blue suede shoes) could provide even the partial satisfaction of the instinctual object (a beautiful girl). The paradox certainly confounded Freud as well, and would seem to be the primary reason for Freud’s interest in fetishism, especially in those cases where the fetish is unrelated to the instinctual object by metonymy, e.g., when a cowry shell, for instance, is more mysterious to the fetishist than the female foot. Unlike the cowry shell, though, at least the shoe is metonymically related to the foot. The paradox is why the shoe should have more affective import than the foot. The psychiatric literature describes broadly two kinds of fetishes: the form fetish, in which the object and its shape presumably is the most important, such as the high-heeled shoe or spiked boot; and the media fetish, in which the material out of which the object is made carries the affective import, such as (blue) velvet or leather or lace, the case with the majority of the songs below. In some instances the actual nature of the fetish is ambiguous, as in Dylan’s “Boots of Spanish Leather” – form, or media fetish? The ambiguity reveals the limited analytical value of the form-media distinction, as it tells us nothing whatsoever about the meaning of the fetish itself. In any case, in each of the songs listed below, the peculiar nature of the sexual fetish is transformed into a public spectacle by the singer, and the fetish object is both celebrated and made explicit.

A Few Explicit Fetishes:
Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones – Black Slacks
Tony Bennett – Blue Velvet
Big Bopper – Chantilly Lace
Dee Clark – Hey Little Girl (In the High School Sweater)
David Allan Coe – Angels in Red
Derek and the Dominos – Bell Bottom Blues
Bob Dylan – Boots of Spanish Leather
The Eagles – Those Shoes
Brian Hyland – Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
The Hollies – Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress
Kenny Owen – High School Sweater
Carl Perkins – Blue Suede Shoes
Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels – Devil With A Blue Dress On
Rod Stewart – You Wear It Well
Royal Teens – Short Shorts
Conway Twitty – Tight Fittin’ Jeans