Good Genes and Bad Genes

DNA in Popular Culture
  • Dorothy Nelkin
  • M. Susan Lindee
Chapter
Part of the Sociology of the Sciences book series (SOSC, volume 21)

Abstract

In popular biographies, Elvis Presley appears as a genetic construct, driven by his genes to his unlikely destiny. He has succeeded, the story goes, because of his genetic heritage — and failed because of his family’s history of inbreeding. Elaine Dundy, for example, attributes Presley’s success to the qualities of will, ambition, and fantasy passed down to him from his mother’s multi-ethnic family.1 Dundy traces Elvis’s musical talents to his father who “had a very good voice” and his mother who had “the instincts of a performer.” They did provide a musical environment, she notes, but “even without it, one wonders if Elvis, with his biological musical equipment would not still have become a virtuoso.”

Keywords

York Time Popular Culture Good Genes Serial Killer Casual Misuse 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes and References

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1999

Authors and Affiliations

  • Dorothy Nelkin
    • 1
  • M. Susan Lindee
    • 2
  1. 1.Dept. of SociologyNew York UniversityNew YorkUSA
  2. 2.Department of History and Sociology of ScienceUniversity of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphiaUSA

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