Hot Topic regularly partners with popular film properties, both new and classic, for merch sales, and the company is particularly well known for fast-fashion versions of superhero costumes. As such, an Across the Spider-Verse line was an inevitability.
However, some fans are expressing their strong opposition to this clothing line, with a focus on one item in particular: Hobie Brown’s punk leather vest.
Hobie Brown, a.k.a. Spider-Punk, lives in a dystopic version of Great Britain and is shown in the movie to be a staunch anti-capitalist, an anti-establishment not-hero, and a general rebel with a cause.
This makes his leather vest being part of a fast fashion clothing line ironic, to the point of bordering on poor taste.
Fandom folk who have been around for the past decade might be reminded of the merch for The Hunger Games, a similarly anti-capitalist book and film series; suddenly, the excess of the Capitol was meant to be admired and emulated by fans, rather than critiqued. It’s also made worse by the fact that the fashion being used in this case is Punk.
Punk fashion being appropriated by mainstream clothing brands has been a major point of contention in fashion and music circles and Hot Topic has been at the center of that conversation for decades, ever since the company first brought its mass-produced punk aesthetic to malls across America.
This kind of appropriation is controversial because these outfits were a visual reflection of a larger punk movement, and were meant to be customized, DIYed, and made at home, not mass manufactured for the profit of large corporations. Punk is many things, but it’s definitely not a $70 fake leather vest that doesn’t have half of the buttons, patches, or spikes on the original.
Across the Spider-Verse isn’t the only movie to explore punk fashion. Heck, it’s not even the only one to have a Hot Topic collection. Cruella (2021) was another movie that explored punk fashion as a counterculture force utilized by Cruella in her fight against her rich employer … only for her to end the movie by joining the upper class she previously stole from and protested against. In many ways, the movie (intentionally or unintentionally) acknowledged how businesses and selfish individuals like Cruella can appropriate counterculture movements in order to get what they want. They aren’t rebels, they’re con artists who pretend to be allies for their own benefit.
On the plus side, many of Hobie’s fans have rejected Hot Topic’s fast fashion vest, in favor of making their own leather jackets or shopping vintage/small business, all of which are much more in line with the values of Spider-Punk. Some have even gone so far as to negatively review the item on Hot Topic’s webpage, stating “Don’t buy it. Instead make your own!!!!!! Spider punk would of wanted that.”
I can’t help but agree. Aligning with a rebel character’s values will always be better than aligning with their aesthetics.
(featured image: Marvel Comics)
