Doss believes that the power and ubiquity of Elvis Presley’s image provides insight into the cultural values of contemporary American culture. By looking at the consumers, “protectors,” and owners of Elvis’s image, we can understand how he has been appropriated by different social groups and interpreted to mean conflicting and mutually exclusive ideas of American values. The success of his image is predicated on this malleability, as is American identity, leading Doss to criticize those who would seek to control and limit Elvis’s image in the name of profit.

Various ideas of Elvis, including his image as a saint, sexual icon, and symbol of white purity, all conflict and elucidate gender, race, and identity issues in the United States and, due to Elvis’s global popularity, possibly even around the world. Americans construct their own identities through their understanding of Elvis—in essence, what they see in him says more about themselves.

Elvis Inc., by seeking to “clean up” and sterilize Elvis’s image in order to maximize profit potential, is possibly neutering Elvis of exactly what made him so popular in the first place. Interestingly, Doss proves that during Elvis’s lifetime, his period of least influence was during his years of attempted self-sterilization in the 1960s before the comeback special. When Presley was challenging notions of sexual identity in the 1950s and 1970s, he was at his peak influence. By “uncomplicating” Elvis, Elvis Inc. risks undermining the exact elements that connected Elvis with audiences during his lifetime.

Doss has shown that popular culture icons serve well as a lens into American identity—by understanding how fans see such icons as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, or Madonna, we can understand how Americans idealize their values. Elvis being imaged alternately as masculine and feminine, sexual and saintly, rebel and model citizen, shows that Americans have a complex and conflicting view of American cultural values and American identity. ( )