ABSTRACT
Elvis Presley has always formed a body of controversy. Hy Gardner's word 'hysteria' is part of the gender politics of the Elvis panic. The Elvis panic was integral to that major social anxiety of the period the 'juvenile delinquency' problem. The fan response to Elvis was probably more multiaccentual than that of the power-bloc. The power-bloc homogenized Elvis and in their panic saw only his threat. The teenage body was the heartland of the teenage territory. Elvis may have been a white impersonation of Black, but traces of the Blackness were essential parts of his appeal. The deep social anxiety over 'juvenile delinquency' was fed by an even deeper anxiety that Black social formations, too, were beginning to demand greater control over their social conditions. Its existence within one of the wealthiest nations in the world is a sharp piece of social criticism.
