#family youtube channel | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

joons · 2 months

Note

This may be a prickly subject, and I'm sorry if so. But I'm trying to learn more about Elvis, and every time I bring him up to people I know, they try to tell me he was this terrible person, and point me toward Priscilla's book, the movie made on it, and the discourse. Idk if you've talked about it on here (I tried searching your blog but couldn't find anything on it). If you're willing, I'd love to hear your take on it so I can see a more nuanced view.

The film Priscilla was greenlit roughly a month after Priscilla herself was informed that she was close to becoming financially insolvent in 2022. With a business partner, Brigitte Kruse, who allegedly helped broker the film deal, she established a limited liability company called Priscilla Presley Partners that was supposed to use her image and likeness to create several lines of merchandise to coincide with the film's release. That business partner is now suing Priscilla because she did not have the rights to her image or likeness, or any ability to use the Presley name, because she had already sold all of those rights and was no longer considered in good standing with Graceland or Elvis Presley Enterprises. The entire business deal, then, according to the lawsuit, was built on her misrepresentation of how much her image was worth.

The deal between the two of them fell apart after Riley Keough, Lisa Marie's daughter and Priscilla's granddaughter, settled with Priscilla to give her a lump sum of $1 million from Lisa Marie's estate and yearly amounts of $100,000. Priscilla sued very shortly after Lisa Marie's death because she thought Lisa Marie's signature on a will had been forged because Priscilla was not included in it. All of the assets were supposed to go directly to Lisa Marie's son, Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020, and her three daughters, two of whom are still teenagers. Now, part of those assets have been claimed by Priscilla and her other son, Navarone, who has no connection to the Presley family and has stated he is glad Lisa died.

Four months before Lisa's death, Lisa wrote to Sofia Coppola and made it clear she had strong concerns about the Priscilla film and was suspicious of the intentions behind it:

"As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father in this character. I don’t read this and see my mother’s perspective of my father. ... I will be forced to be in a position where I will have to openly say how I feel about the film and go against you, my mother and this film publicly."

Lisa was enormously grateful for efforts put into 2022's Elvis to find her father's soul and to restore his dignity in a world that often turns him and his family into a joke:

"You can feel and witness Baz’s pure love, care, and respect for my father throughout this beautiful film, and it is finally something that myself and my children and their children can be proud of forever."

It is such a strong and powerful statement, to see how much Lisa valued family, not just her father but her own children and their legacy, and how willing she was to speak up no matter what was going on in her personal life to say what was right. On this and many other things, Lisa and Priscilla's values have rarely been in alignment. A friend and EPE business associate, Joel Weinshanker, said of her, "Lisa couldn't be bought, she couldn't be pushed. If she felt that something wasn't in Elvis' best interest, it was never about money. And she really is the only Presley that you could say that about."

Priscilla, though, has adjusted her stories about her time with Elvis almost every time she discusses it. For a quick example, she said in her book, which was released in 1985, that Elvis insisted she do her hair and makeup a certain way, that he had control over her look and would get upset if she didn't dress how he wanted. But in an interview with Ladies' Home Journal in 1973, she said that she made a deliberate choice to attend makeup school so that she could learn how to style herself, and that it was her idea to wear big, black hair and big, black eyeliner. She said she was embarrassed for going overboard. She said, "I wish that Elvis had said something, but he must have liked it because he never commented." This lines up with recollections from Patti Parry, a platonic friend of Elvis' and a hairstylist, who said Priscilla always wanted Patti to do her hair in a "big boombah," but that Priscilla would then get upset when Elvis didn't notice or didn't like it.

These changes are impossible not to notice if you follow her for any length of time. At the film premiere, she said it felt just like watching her life and said she was consulted on everything, since she was an executive producer. After the film came out, she said she couldn't understand why Coppola had changed so much about the story and misrepresented events. In the '70s, she said she and Elvis lived almost totally separate lives, that she came and went as she pleased, and that she loved this freedom. Later, she said she felt completely stifled and trapped and never left the house, even though she had friends she went out with all the time. In 2019, she tweeted a forceful denial about a National Enquirer story: "This is the Enquirer folks... please don't believe everything you read. ... Never planned on being buried next to Elvis. What will they come up with next?" But part of her settlement demands in her lawsuit against Riley in 2023 asked "to be buried next to Elvis." This year, she said in two separate interviews that Lisa was with her when Elvis died and that Priscilla had to break the news to her, despite the fact that Lisa was at Graceland when it happened. She has said she gave Elvis the idea to wear belts on his jumpsuits, to have a lightning bolt as his logo, to sing "An American Trilogy," though none of that is true. She retells the story about forcing Elvis to burn all of his spiritual books to prove he loved her as an almost funny anecdote about debrainwashing him, while Elvis later said it was the worst thing he ever agreed to, a desperate attempt to make her happy by giving up the things he valued the most. (For the record, this is my opinion about their relationship on both sides: thinking they could change themselves and each other to make it work. It never did.)

Every secondhand Elvis account has to be treated lightly and only valued for its consistency with known facts and other witnesses. I try to give enormous benefit of the doubt to anyone in the Elvis world because they often only have partial knowledge of what Elvis may have been thinking at any given time, and there are numerous examples of people who were taken advantage of by unscrupulous journalists who changed the story they wanted to tell. But Priscilla's stories sometimes are not even consistent with her own statements, which makes them very poor options indeed to base anything on. However careful we are about noting potential biases and inaccuracies in other memoirs, we have to be triply, quadruply careful with anything in which Priscilla involves herself because she has a vested interest in generating discourse today in order to make money. Unfortunately, Priscilla has a habit of stifling other accounts or making sensationalized statements each time there is a possibility that she will lose some of the cachet that comes with being an Elvis Source—after Elvis' death, when she believed she was going to inherit his airplane and disinvited everyone that Vernon said could fly in it to his funeral; when she sued the parents of one of Elvis' ex-girlfriends after he died because he had allowed them to live rent-free in a house he bought for them; when she claimed that Elvis wanted to reunite with her before his death, despite the fact that he was engaged to someone else and told many people he couldn't see a reunion ever happening with her; before Vernon's death, when she convinced him to make her an executor of the Presley estate until Lisa came of age; after Lisa came of age, when she convinced Lisa to let her stay on as partner; when Lisa accused Priscilla of misspending Lisa's money, during which time anonymous sources cropped up to say Lisa was in debt and drug-addled; when Priscilla was removed from her position as an EPE spokesperson but kept collecting $900,000 a year from the company; when Lisa died, and Priscilla sued once she learned she wasn't in the will; when Priscilla was no longer associated with EPE and decided to do another adaptation of a book that she has since recanted parts of and has contradicted before and after its release.

When Priscilla thinks there is a threat to her image and position, she does new interviews and projects to muddy the waters and stir public interest, whether it is true or false, positive or negative, laudatory or defamatory. She gets corrected by Elvis' surviving family members, girlfriends, friends, and fans, but these stories do not get the same reach no matter how much they are backed by contemporaneous documents and witnesses, or how many resources there are to educate the public on how Elvis' and Priscilla's attitudes about marriage and relationships changed—along with the rest of society—between 1960 and 1970.

I think almost any single-source project is not going to advance our understanding of Elvis in any way because no one individual can speak for him, and we are kind of obligated to include all the context we can in order to appreciate his character, his successes and failures, flaws and virtues—and to treat both himself and those around him as fully three-dimensional people who have their own blind spots. Priscilla is far too aware of her own image, and far too willing to change it to suit the audience, to be particularly valuable here.

She is next scheduled to appear at the Lexington (Kentucky) Comic & Toy Con.

#please know that for each of these stories i have tried to see things from her perspective #and then something happens again #and again and again #so i have simply stopped trying and accepted that i don't like her or find her credible as far as these things go #i don't imagine i should be privy to all their family drama so of course some of this may change over time #but there are far far far better sources for learning about elvis!#an easy gateway would be ashley's adventures and elvis fans matter on youtube!#ashley does a lot of fun documentation of graceland and efm is the family channel of billy and jo smith #they are elvis' cousin and his wife who were with elvis a lot and they have good human stories #same caveat goes for them: they might not know everything #but i just like the format better than books

82 notes · View notes

hijinxinprogress · 6 months

Text

YouTuber!Stephanie

Stephanie has a youtube channel (she 100% gives it a name like gotham_after_dark or bat_interpreter) where she follows Batman and mocks him, she definitely also makes content on tiktok and instagram

She’s recording fights with rogues and him interrogating questioning people and doing voice overs in a goofiest growl she can for batman but she also does voices for everyone else (it gets to the point where penguin puts a hit out and is actively trying to expose the youtubers identity bc steph does this terrible whiny british accent when she’s imitating penguin)

She starts her channel right after Bruce fires her from Robin and still does it to this day

Bc if she’s gonna get shit for not being Tim might as well go all the way right?? She’s just doing the opposite of what Tim’s doing or outright copying him depending on which would annoy them the most

Stephanie records batman dangling some guy off a roof for the 37th time this week while going “You said the cheese on the nachos at your restaurant was imported directly from Italy but I saw you…THIS CHEESE IS FROM A GROCERY STORE…in GOTHAM… do you know what batman does to liars??”

Batman’s chasing the joker? Again? Here comes Stephanie with her fucking camera “Joker baby, you know that fight with Cobblepot meant nothing to me” “You know what, Bats? Fight whoever you want!” “Why are you going to Cobblepot’s lair with a grenade launcher? Baby…?” “Well, if the wellbeing of fucking Oswald is sooo important to you, you fucking cheater ☹️ I’m gonna kill him” “HUH” Stephanie’s joker voice is pretty good but she stops when Jason follows her channel after admitting he watches it (however Damian gives zero fucks and edits in his scarily accurate joker impression and will break into Jason’s apartment at random to do his joker impression)

Stephanie’s Duke impression is just her making puns in a bad robot voice and Duke hates it sm bc she’s saying shit like “Don’t signal for backup bc I’m already Signal-ing this ass whooping” “The yellow is the Signal for you to run” “Hey hey hey, night time is when you do this stupid shit rn is Signal Time” “The sun is my Signal to be vigilant-y” “Setting off that alarm should’ve been enough of a Signal for you stop” (Dick made tshirts and Duke refuses to talk to him when he wears them)

You legally have to be a level 79 hater to be a vigilante in gotham so most of Steph’s videos esp after Bruce has pissed her off are just her shitting on batman in a terrible growl “Damn, I’m getting too old for this…my knees hurt so much” “Nightwing thinks he’s funny, asking me if I remember the dust bowl…mf I remember the fucking big bang” “I’m so good at this, I don’t think anyone knows I’m a vampire” “Bruce Wayne owns gotham general and can’t cure Alzheimer’s?? I hate that asshole, I don’t even remember where tf I’m going” “I wanted to be Spider-Man and now I’m this” “Ooh, I’m Batman and I hate fun, happiness, and joy” “Don’t do crime, be like me…perpetually bitchless and breaking kneecaps” “Some people need coffee for a pick me up but I just need to see a purse snatcher piss their pants” “I don’t actually meld into the shadows, I just have Apple Maps and it takes me the long way”

Batman’s fighting or arguing with black mask? Stephanie has been waiting for this moment so every video with black mask is just her making fun of black mask to the point where there’s barely any batman slander “My real names fucking Roman so I had to go all out with this stupid ass costume…I’m not even a real gothamite, I’m from metropolis” “Sionis…I don’t care… you blew up thirteen hostages” “ITS NOT MY FAULT, OKAY?! Did you know you’re supposed to wash masks? Especially if you wear the same one everyday? Bc I fucking didn’t” “…Sionis…” “THERES MOLD ON MY FACE and this mask smells like ASS” “Everyone knows that, you moron…How do you think I found you? I can smell your stench from damn near two miles away…” “I’m like scary though right??” “No, Sionis, you just have poor hygiene…and issues” “Dammit, I’m like a dollar tree version of two face” “Not quite, what’s lower than that? Dollar tree is too good for you…don’t tell joker but Harvey’s way-”

Stephanie has a two hour video of batman grappling across Gotham just shitting on metropolis and sixty seven minutes of it is just Superman slander in a terrible growl

There’s short clips of cass suddenly disappearing or appearing out of nowhere before and after dismantling someone with the michael myers theme playing in the background (Cass does dramatic flips and landings every time steph records her)

When Bruce complains about the threat to their identities and compromising ongoing missions/investigations, Stephanie (who is purposely trying to piss him off) just looks him dead in eye and goes “Well, you’re not the boss of me sooo” so Tim gives a presentation and shuts down every single argument Bruce makes just to be contrary bc he’s a fucking asshole

Tim only has a problem with it when Stephanie and Damian start working together bc Damian does concerningly accurate impressions and Damian keeps making Tim sound like a fucking idiot and it’s worse bc he can mimic his speech patterns (“I can’t do this anymore… I’m sad and pasty… Call the fifth robin, you know…the only competent robin…”)

Like Damian’s repeating one of Tim’s caffeine concoction induced rants about bagels in Tim’s voice while Steph is growling at him to focus in her batman impression

When Tim brings his complaints to Bruce about Stephanie’s youtube account, Bruce cites Tim’s own argument back to him so Tim takes over editing and recording to be an asshole