defractum:
concernedlily:
maxamori:
Without even considering trousers, socks, and underwear, Eggsy’s iconic outfit in the movie is over $800. Throw those missing details in there and I’m pretty sure we’re looking at a solid grand, give or take.
This is the outfit that the movie uses to narratively distinguish Eggsy as “a poor person.”
I don’t want this to be mistaken for a “poor people can’t have nice things” argument. We all know that’s a load of bollocks. The crux here is that Eggsy is not a real poor person–he’s an imaginary poor person, consciously pieced together by creative teams with the expressed purpose of projecting poverty as a central part of his character.
This is the outfit that gets Eggsy turned away from that nice, posh club on his honey pot mission.
This is the outfit that Eggsy wears when he walks with Harry to the tailor’s and has that little conversation about how being a gentleman isn’t about sensory cues, but about how a person wears their own skin.
Poverty is a huge theme in Eggsy’s plotline, and in his relationship dynamics with Harry. Wealth, privilege, and entitlement are central in the plot of the entire movie. The whole point is that the villain garners the cooperation of rich, privileged individuals who feel that they are more entitled to live than others. When Harry brings Eggsy in as his recruit, he draws a direct allusion to bringing new blood into the aristocracy. Arthur’s betrayal is centered around a sentiment that refined individuals who come from money are more deserving. Eggsy’s first conversation with Harry is all about “us” vs. “you” and silver suppositories. The climax of the movie’s central conflict is seeing the 1%’s heads quite literally explode.
So as the film-makers are building this huge symbolic narrative, so fundamentally focused on wealth and class, they choose to dress their working class protagonist in a thousand-dollar outfit.
It’s not just that the outfit is expensive. It’s that it’s meant to be interpreted as “poor people clothes.”
This is offensive in the same way that getting 35-year-old women to play the mothers of 25-year-old men is offensive. Or getting someone who is of an average weight to play a “fat” character. (You know, when the dialogue seems to constantly establish that they’re struggling with 50 extra pounds when what your eyes are telling you is the complete opposite?) In toxic Hollywood culture, older women are undesirable. Fat people are undesirable. And poverty is undesirable.
So when they want to portray those things, they give us something that is not those things, and say, “Hey, here’s the thing!”
They give us stylized, prettified, glossy, symbolic versions of the thing that more resemble what it’s not.
Make no mistake: the Eggsy Unwin of the Kingsman movie is “poverty chic.” The clothes he wears are designer interpretations of poverty. They’re artistic extrapolations of poverty aesthetics. They’re a slap in the face to absolutely any poor person watching the movie, because the audience is legitimately asked to participate in this artistic farce.
The fandom isn’t completely innocent, either. While I usually see the topic treated honestly (and, in many cases, from an experienced perspective), there are still many fics where Eggsy’s impoverished background is a clumsy, fetishized, reductive plot device that is utilized for the pleasure of the author with an astonishing lack of self-awareness. While I firmly believe that fan fic writers should be free to write about anything (and I mean anything) to bring pleasure to themselves and their readers, I feel agitated enough about this phenomenon to call it out in a general way, without targeting any works in particular. I think it’s something that’s worth talking about; something worth considering.
Humbly submit Eggsy is not living in poverty. Class is a central part of his character, yes. Class is a huge theme in Eggsy’s plotline, and his relationship dynamics with Harry, yes. This is separate to the issue of wealth.
Eggsy is part of the criminal underclass when we meet him: we know this because in his intro scene his bedroom has three or four different boxes for trainers in it, his living room is full of electronics almost certainly off the back of a lorry, and Dean takes out a sheaf of notes and hands him twenty quid for a cheap errand; and because he has a record of criminal behaviour including drugs and petty crime. I would therefore argue that he’s not only not in poverty, he is specifically shown onscreen as having access to money.
So if Eggsy isn’t ‘poverty chic’, what is he? He’s actually set up to play on a stereotype of a particular kind of working class conspicuous consumption - a stereotype very recognisable in UK media. Is it fair to expect the film’s global audience to read that correctly? Maybe not. But that’s the point: the old recognisable stereotype of the suave besuited upper class agent, vs the new figure of the chav.
Also “Arthur’s betrayal is centered around a sentiment that refined individuals who come from money are more deserving.” is a misapprehension - Arthur thinks people who inherit their furniture are more deserving. Upper class =/= from money.
tl;dr - class and wealth in the UK are complicated!
Also humbly submit a little expansion on what we would colloquially and derogatorily call a ‘chav’.
They are known, infamous almost, for wearing a lot of designer clothing despite being working class - traditionally Burberry. From the wiki page: “the chav stereotype includes wearing branded designer sportswear, which may be accompanied by some form of flashy gold jewellery otherwise termed as “bling“”
Designer clothing can be fakes, fenced or second hand from charity shops.
tl;dr - Eggsy’s clothing is actually exactly what he should be wearing.