Elvis (2022) vs Priscilla (2023) - The Battle of the Biopics

The absurd height difference between Cailee and Jacob Elordi works so well. She looks like a literal child next to him as she should because Priscilla is a child.

the male vs female perspective is such a major difference in both of these films

"this makes my father look predatory" he was 24 and she was 14 what are you on about

the way that Elvis barely brought up the fact that Priscilla was FOURTEEN and made it such a little deal and that in Priscilla it was a major part of the plot really shows something

When I walked out of Priscilla, my first thought was "I LOVE that they didn't use any of Elvis's music. It was a brilliant artistic choice that really kept the focus on her instead of him." When I found out it was because they were not allowed to use his music, it made me laugh because the Elvis estate basically, imo, made a decision that ironically improved the movie.

When considering Lisa Marie's reaction to the Priscilla biopic I couldn't help but be reminded of this Bonnie Burstow quote. "Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate."

Lisa Marie was NINE when Elvis died. Of course she doesn’t see her father in the way he was portrayed in “Priscilla.” She grew up only knowing the version of him from when she was a kid + the world speaking highly of him/his legacy. Priscilla may have contributed to that fanfare, but doesn’t mean what Elvis did to her was ok.

Honestly Lisa Marie’s reaction to Priscilla is really sad to me. Her mother finally gets a chance to share her story literally based on her memoir and with her as an executive producer and her own daughter diminishes her experiences to “protect her”. It seems like Priscilla did her best to shield her daughter from realising her father’s sh!tty behaviour, but when she was finally ready to open up about it her daughter wasn’t willing to support her.

In a way, I understand Lisa Marie Presley's anger towards the film and denial about the actions of her father. When I was a child, my grandpa was my grandpa whom I loved and was a fun person I enjoyed being around. As I got older and after he passed away, I learned that he was an abusive alcoholic who preyed on my grandma when she was 16 and he was 24. In the years I knew him, he had "mellowed out" so to say. It's still difficult for me to reconcile the reality of who he was in his past and the man who was my grandpa.

The thing is, priscilla's life was elvis. She was isolated from her family, she didn't have friends, elvis managed money and everything. I think the movie depicted the grooming process perfectly. She was a child that got grommed by a famous person, that's the story the movie tells and everyone being horrified by that is just because it was elvis...

I think it is good to contextualize that Lisa Marie had a fraught relationship with her mother. She grew up having Elvis as the "better" parent compared to Priscilla, who was a much more strict and demanding parent than her ex-husband. It did not help that Priscilla introduced Scientology to Lisa Marie and disregarded her daughter's pleas when she was being h*r*ssed by her then-partner. Comparing the two, it's no wonder Lisa Marie idolized her father. Even until the very end, I think it was hard for her to reconcile who Elvis really was.

i went into priscilla with a jacob elordi obsession, and left with a cailee spaeny obsession. she’s amazing and so beautiful, and she really should have had more recognition after the film came out

Dolly Parton actually wrote the song to describe parting ways with Porter Wagoner, a mentor of hers. So Elvis wanted ownership over a very intimate piece of story telling, something we know he had a habit of. Go Dolly for holding on to it! She sings the songs in a duet with an Elvis impersonator on her recent rock album!

I felt Lisa Marie's email was incredibly disrespectful to her mother. Like... she doesnt understand whats being made? Shes too incompetent to have accurately described and experienced her own life? Okay.

It's telling that Elvis featured more in Priscilla's biopic than she does in his. While Elvis loved Priscilla and Lisa Marie, he was too consumed by his addictions and fame.

the way you pause halfway through talking about the portrayal of Elvis' affairs to say "I just realised I look like the Sims robber if he slayed" and then go right back to the point you were making... nobody does it like Jordan Theresa fr

Fun fact about Tom Hanks accent it drove me so insane when I watched the movie that I looked up interviews with the Colonel from around the exact same time and he actually had quite an American sounding accent because he’d lived there for a while so it is even more insane as a choice

I think Lisa Marie’s stance on the Pricilla film was more about protecting the business of Elvis’s legacy, than him as a person. She was 9 when he died, and Pricilla put a lot of energy into preserving his legacy so she had something to inherit. Pricilla’s autobiography is kind of wild. She describes him grooming her in detail, but romanticizes it. It’s genuinely quite sad.

i didn’t like elvis as a film just in general but i especially found the way it treated both the Priscilla situation and Elvis stealing music from black musicians so insensitive and borderline dangerous… i loved priscilla on the other hand and thought it was so gentle and tasteful (e.g. by never showing them actually having sex), i understand the criticism of ending the film when she finally leaves elvis, but if the real priscilla presley was part of the production and happy for her story to be told like that, then i don’t see a major problem with it

No one wants to believe their parent did monstrous things but the truth is, Elvis used his power and fame to seduce a very young girl. He may not have done it sexually (we don't truly know) but the power imbalance is so large that it makes sense that Priscilla fell for him fast. It is entirely possible that Elvis was a good father the Lisa Marie but was too young to understand or see how he treated her mother in the later years. In the original miniseries "Elvis and Me" (available on YouTube), there was an instance of marital rape that Priscilla felt the need to walk back on. I'm she did feel (and clearly was) violated but that would never be accepted by Elvis fans nor her daughter. Having grown up in his shadow, I can understand the need for Lisa Marie to defend her father but she would never get the chance to know him as her mother did.