Darlene Alderson's "Hacker Chic"
Written by Zia Lee
“When I was young there were beatniks. Hippies. Punks. Gangsters. Now you’re a hacktivist. Which I would probably be if I was 20. Shuttin’ down MasterCard. But there’s no look to that lifestyle! Besides just wearing a bad outfit with bad posture. Has WikiLeaks caused a look? No! I’m mad about that. If your kid comes out of the bedroom and says he just shut down the government, it seems to me he should at least have an outfit for that.”
— John Waters for The Wall Street Journal, 2012
As a zillennial youth, my immediate reaction to this quote is defensive, rejecting the idea of an uncool hacker, or the supposition that the stylish rebel has died with my generation. Beyond this knee jerk reaction, though, my mind also supplies a blazing counterexample, in the form of one notable television character.
The critical hit series Mr. Robot(2015-2019) features a whole host of compelling characters. The protagonist, Elliot Alderson: reclusive, and perpetually hoodie-clad hacker played by Academy Award winner Rami Malek. His counterpart, the titular Mr. Robot(Christian Slater): the chaotic anarchist co-founder of hacker collective fsociety. My personal favorite, however, remains the main character’s sister Darlene. From the moment she first appeared onscreen, wearing plastic pink headphones, a leopard print stole, and sunken dark circles under a black-rimmed, glaring gaze, Darlene Alderson(Carly Chaikin) caught my attention and held it.
As a member of fsociety, Darlene, along with her brother, plays a central role in taking down the global conglomerate E Corp and the ruthless hacker collective Dark Army. Darlene’s cynical, jaded personality, along with her skilled cybersecurity exploits, makes her captivating to watch throughout the show’s run.
A year before the WSJ piece, Waters had made a similar quip on hackers in a 2011 FADER article, questioning, “What is hacker chic? I can’t think of it, you know?”
Most avid movie and television watchers could think of a couple pop culture examples that they might find suitable for the “hacker chic” label. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander would spring to mind first, an indelible goth-punk wardrobe of blacks and greys. A young Angelina Jolie as Acid Burn sporting cyberpunk Vivienne Westwood with the rest of the Hackers cast. In the realm of anime, we can find stylish cyber criminals in characters such as the tomboyish Edward Wong from Cowboy Bebop or skinsuit-clad, purple-haired Tsugumi from Guilty Crown.
However, Waters was speaking to real life and not fictional media in these interviews, humorously quipping about existent underground movements of the past and now. And in reality, it’s much easier to guess that Anonymous is probably some guy hidden in a basement and sweatpants; Elliot Alderson, with his woefully blah black hoodie, is the prototype.
Despite its high-octane heist sequences and deep worldbuilding, Mr. Robot stays as grounded in our reality as possible, even to the point of creating a convincing in-universe Obama speech addressing the characters. At times when the show creatively spins into something more surreal, the references are vintage, taking inspiration from sources such as 80s movies and retro 90s sitcoms rather than creating a shiny dystopian mythology. Wardrobe-wise, we never see anything too colorful, too polished, or decidedly post-2010s futuristic from the members of fsociety. But Darlene stands out, both from the rest of the show’s cast and from the roster of other hacker concepts in pop culture. She is believable as an American hacktivist, yet costume designers Kim Wilcox and Catherine Marie Thomas express her character through a unique language of style, without veering too referentially into an existing subculture. Not science fiction, less in-your face punk, and more of a thrown-together, thrifted grunge.
The Staples:
Heart-shapes sunglasses.
Darlene’s signature item is her pair of heart-shaped sunglasses. Although the immediate association that comes to mind with this accessory is still Lolita, we see it in a different light on this character. Although the heart is still an iconographic symbol of romance and love, on Darlene it is no longer a sickly red saccharine erotic twist. It instead serves as a black and gold-rimmed ironic reminder of what the character’s worldview is not: idealistic or romantic.
Military-style & flight jackets
The green army jacket Darlene wears throughout several episodes is also one of her most recognizable closet items; to me, it is reminiscent of what Robert De Niro wears in Taxi Driver, another New York-set story of an anarchist protagonist. She also wears other military style/flight jackets throughout the series, marking her as a kind of soldier and sometimes a general of a larger movement that seeks to effect deconstructive(destructive) political change.
Fur-trimmed coats
Darlene is also seen wearing a few fur-trimmed coats. Archetypally an article of clothing associated with upper-class women, hers always seem thrifted rather than ordered straight from a boutique.
Black swan
There’s a notable costuming moment for the show in the eighth episode of Season 1, which opens with Darlene and Angela Moss, coworker and childhood friend of Elliot, taking a ballet class together. Angela represents naiveté and innocence in the series, and has a much more feminine, conservative style. The differences between them- their personalities, approaches to trauma, and political sentiments- are as stark as those between the White Swan and the Black Swan, yet this scene is meant to show that they regularly maintain their friendship from when they were children.
During her lower moments and in the later seasons, Darlene’s outfits become simpler and toned-down, while keeping the darker palettes and tones; in especially destabilized emotional states, she wears uncharacteristically playful patterns and colors.
However, her first and overall impression as a keen dresser is no doubt seared into the cultural memory of every viewer, and makes her outfits as iconic as Elliot’s minimalist, ever-present black hoodie.
Darlene, along with her brother Elliot and their childhood friend Angela, is permanently marked by the loss of a parent to the Washington Township Scandal, an in-universe event in which E Corp is responsible for(and covers up) a toxic waste leak that kills 26 people. The motivations, traits, and trajectories of each of their characters represent what corrupt corporations steal from us, and Darlene’s dauntless attitude represents a life lived in bold defiance of that theft. It is her perseverance in her mission, as well as her charming costumes, that makes her the ultimately compelling ideal of the computer age rebel.
amazing😭😭😭