As many of you probably heard, yesterday was the 30th anniversary of Elvis' death. His daughter, Lisa Marie Presley , decided to honor the occasion by singing "In the Ghetto" in a video with her late father.
It's totally disturbing on many levels. Elvis is sweating a lot and Lisa Marie's eyes roll back in her head. Her hair is also in her eyes too much, which bothers me. But mostly what bothers me are the images of babies with guns. Now granted, we could be seeing lots of clich? video of poor black children running around the projects. That certainly would have been the safer choice, but not necessarily the better. But the babies and the guns, in their cribs?
Tony Kaye directed the video -- he also directed the 1998 film American History X , which I loved. It doesn't seem like he gave this much attention. The whole thing is composed of a series of intense close-ups of Elvis, Lisa Marie, and babies in cribs with guns. It terribly mediocre and, it seems to me, if you're going to sing with your dead father (and your dead father is Elvis!!!), you might go the extra mile, you know what I'm saying?
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