White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch
netflixThe adolescent experience of the late 90s and early 2000s was one of tremendous pressure. With a changing world rapidly connecting individuals and ideas, there quickly grew an urge to be cool. More than ever before, the idea of being cool was being defined and promoted as an exclusive higher level of being that saw strict requirements and ideals. At the center of this push was the store Abercrombie & Fitch. Pushing boundaries in creating an ideal look that could be sought by most while ultimately unattainable minus a select group, the company made more than just fashion. It made a lifestyle that seemed equally as close as it did far away. While seductive to many, the ultimate truth regarding the brand was that it was unhealthy. From an absolute defiance against featuring any sort of diversity beyond the fit, white body to harmful practices behind the scenes to its employees, the brand self-imploded throughout the 2000s as more and more became aware of what Abercrombie & Fitch truly was selling. Naturally, this true story has made its way to Netflix screens with Alison Klayman's White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch. Giving a voice to those both included and excluded by the brand, the documentary attempts to find a grand thesis regarding the turbulent path Abercrombie & Fitch walked but fails overall to find much worth actually talking about.
When introducing a problematic slice of culture, documentaries have to follow a careful path to find success with mass audiences. This especially rings true when the subject is niche, as many audience members might not fully be able to grasp the content of the film with just the knowledge they have when starting the feature. Before one can get to the juicy twists and turns and the nuances of the story being told, it is important for films to define their subject itself. This is immediately where White Hot begins to struggle. Specifically in the voices that the film decides to follow, there is a clear lack of cohesiveness and true understanding as to what the actual message of the feature is going to be. In even defining what made the brand stand out in the simplest terms, the feature struggles with a messy and overall lackluster understanding of the brand and culture. From what feels like an outside perspective looking in, it settles on the rather basic theory that hot shirtless men are attractive to many with incredibly lackluster side points – like the queer community being worked in. To claim to be exploring the history of a brand yet play ignorant to major objective points of history – like the launching of Hollister or Gilly Hicks – is beyond questionable. The simple answer to why this foundation is so weak is that the film is actually not concerned with capturing the history or wider theology behind the brand, it simply wants to make an example of it.
This is seen better nowhere else than in the talking head segments. Bringing together a seemingly random group of individuals, ranging from the Chief Diversity Officer of the brand to those who worked in its stores, there is something off about how these individuals bring to life the world of Abercrombie & Fitch. While the higher-ups refuse to comment on much of substance, those who worked in the stores immediately bring a darker look at the brand and their experiences of feeling like outsiders to the company. This builds and builds until the grand reveal that the majority of talking head subjects are not random perspectives, but rather are those who sued the brand. While these perspectives are absolutely worthwhile in a holistic story of Abercrombie & Fitch, choosing for these to be the perspectives to use to define the entire story is not only weak, but it is simply lazy. There is a clip shown where these individuals are all together on the news sharing their experiences and it feels almost obvious that this is the basis for the film. Rather than add anything new, it reappropriated the story these individuals have been telling and don't even bother to expand. Of course, having the culture of a brand be defined by those who never felt at home with it would result in lackluster results.
There is also something rather gross about how the film treats its story, specifically with that of Abercrombie & Fitch's Chief Diversity Officer Todd Corley. The film presents hiring Corley, a black man, as a cheap excuse from the brand to show their efforts towards diversity and eventually builds a case against him to be almost delusional regarding the race relations found within the brand. Corley is unable to speak on the matter but the film works this in, almost treating his silence as further proof of guilt. To highlight a person of color and promote them as the face available to represent the company and its racist core is honestly disturbing and only further shows the mediocre thought and energy that went into the production. For a film that is so clearly trying to attract the praise of "woke" audiences with points towards subjects like systemic racism, homophobia, fatphobia and more, it refuses to actually give any of these subjects the time of day they deserve and, instead, feels like it is using these perspectives as generalised talking points. The thesis is never clear when discussing these topics and the film borders on feeling exploitive, even.
This lack of strength in voice comes together to cause White Hot to not only feel gross but also incredibly boring. With nearly no direction or momentum, the film begins to feel like a messy lecture. By the end, nothing new is gained or heard of, with a Wikipedia search almost being mandatory to understand the full picture. When a documentary that is supposedly capturing the rise and downfall of Abercrombie & Fitch can neither give a full understanding of the objective history of the brand nor find anything new to say subjectively regarding the brand, one has to wonder what the purpose of the project even is? It is a film that achieves nothing and more than anything else, feels like a cheap attempt for clicks within the Netflix algorithm, which has found itself overrun with shocking stories of true events based in modern culture. Sadly for both the service and the film itself, White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch is no Tiger King and is bound to get lost in the endless catacombs of the Netflix Original Library by the end of the week.
