“Elvis brought Black music to White audience” Kareem Abdul Jabbar dislikes Tom Hanks’ movie
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Kareem Abdul Jabbar sounds off on the new Elvis Presley movie
Kareem Abdul Jabbar is on virtually everyone’s top 10 all-time greatest basketball player lists, on a significant percentage of top 5 all-time greatest basketball player lists, and on enough lists as the GOAT. The way he dominated the league almost half a century ago is almost impossible to recreate. He also remains the all-time leading scorer in NBA history with 38,387 points and he is also a record 19-time All-Star. Kareem is a big fan of music and Elvis Presley to be precise, however, he is not a fan of how his Biopic was made. The Lakers stalwart called out Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis to be a superficial production without any substance, story, or character development.
Wining 6 NBA Rings, while also grabbing 6 MVP awards, his last being at the age of 38 while beating the young guns of his era, Kareem’s is definitely on the top step for some, in the GOAT debate. The era in which Kareem dominated the NBA was far from easy, the competition and parity was insane. A team that had a shot at winning it all, could easily lose in the first round. The journey to the championship was just much harder, especially with the casts that Kareem Abdul Jabbar had for the latter half of the 70s.
“The movie is nothing more than a bland delivery system for the tasty soundtrack” – Kareem Abdul Jabbar slams the latest biopic on Elvis, claims Elvis was exploited for monetary gains.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s prime was longer than most NBA player’s careers. He was an exceptional accurate scorer, and a deadly center, making him one of the greatest players to grace the game, along with Michael Jordan and Lebron James. The Lakers legend has absolutely rips apart Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 movie Elvis as a bland and formulaic production to capture the intricacies of the life of a musical genius like Elvis Presley. In fact, Abdul-Jabbar expressed his discontent that the movie follows in the longstanding tradition of musicians’ biopics in portraying an artist as a victim of a predatory industry and his own creative desire.
In other words, the NBA veteran thought the movie didn’t do Elvis Presley’s dynamic character any justice whatsoever. He also criticized the director’s choice to select Colonel Tom Parker as Tom Hanks to be the story’s narrator. Here is what he has voiced in detail –
“I feel about Elvis the way I feel about most biopics of musicians: it will do until a good one comes along. That’s because these movies often are so rigidly formulaic that it’s like going on a blind date that turns out to be someone you dated once in high school 20 years ago—and they haven’t changed a bit. You already know everything they’re going to say—every joke, every anecdote, every everything. And the only reason you stay is that the band playing on stage is really good.“
“The biggest mistake was to treat Elvis’s story like a generic one-size-fits-all tale. Their determination to hit every music biopic trope left no room for the individual—or the artist—that was Elvis. Instead we get a bland carny’s pitch: Watch the movie. Buy the soundtrack. Get a t-shirt. I’m not a rabid Elvis fan.”
“I like some of his songs. I appreciate what he did for rock ‘n’ roll. I understand his enormous influence on pop culture. Thanks to Elvis getting his polio vaccine on camera, millions of hesitant teenagers chose to also get vaccinated. He broke new ground and released a lot of pent-up teen angst into the atmosphere. He paved the way for the Beatles and all that followed.”
Meanwhile, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explained a significant reason behind his disappointment in the movie. He felt that the movie should have portrayed that part of Elvis where he helps the artists get to their feet.
“Elvis deserved better. He helped bring Black music to White audiences which, though there was definite cultural appropriation happening, still helped lift Black recording artists to popularity with White audiences. Sun Records, which was Elvis’s first major recording label, was founded by Sam Phillips for the purpose of exposing America to Black artists playing rhythm and blues (code for Black music).“
“To keep Sun Records afloat, he added White performers like Elvis, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash. Without Sun Records and Elvis whetting the appetites of mainstream youth, Motown Records and Marvin Gaye might not have been as successful.”
Kareem has been one of the leading voices against discrimination in the country. In fact, the 75-year-old has paved the way for young athletes to voice their opinions on social and racial injustice. Kareem stated that Elvis deserved a better movie free from factual inaccuracies and unnecessary dramatics. However, everybody seemed to appreciate Kareem’s attention to detail, maybe he should start doing more movie reviews soon !
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