




































[Expositions 5.1 (2011) 44-54]  Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747-5376 

 

 

Public Rhetorics and Homeless Chic 

PAULA MATHIEU 

Boston College 

 

 

Hobolicious: adjective: Looking homeless and yummy at the same time. Example: Robert 

Pattinson was seen in London buying extra large underwear and looking hobolicious. 

—The Urban Dictionary 

 

It's terrible to say, very often the most exciting outfits are from the poorest people. 

—Christian Lacroix
1
 

 

 

As a rhetorician and writing teacher who has spent more than a decade working with homeless 

writers at street papers in Chicago, Boston and around the world, I want to admit up front that I 

know very little about the world of fashion. Evaluating the work of designers like Christian 

Lacroix, John Galliano, or Vivienne Westwood is far outside my academic, writerly, or personal 

purview. As a writer with interests in public rhetorics, however, I look at the rise of homeless 

chic – and more importantly its migration to other media and cultural locations – as an issue 

worth exploring. Rather than asking, ―Why do designers create expensive fashions that mimic 

stereotypical images of homeless people?‖ – a question for which I can offer no real speculation 

– instead I will ask questions like these: What kinds of publics are being hailed into being under 

the banner of homeless chic? What gets highlighted and what gets hidden in such depictions? 

Who benefits and who gets hurt from these depictions? Why might this be happening now? And 

does our academic attention to this matter enlighten or merely fuel this spectacle? While I offer 

no concrete or definitive answers to these questions, I share some speculations as well as ways to 

think about this issue from the purview of public rhetoric. Rather than merely dismissing 

homeless chic and other homeless depictions as harmful, I would like to see what happens when 

we consider them as complex, important cultural material that helps shape public culture.  

 

What kinds of publics are being hailed into being under the banner of homeless chic? 

 

What began from John Galliano‘s 2000 boho-meets-hobo-chic haute couture collection and was 

brilliantly parodied in the Derelicte campaign in the 2001 comedy Zoolander, quickly spread to 

hipsters and celebrities dressing in rags, and even further to having contestants on America‘s 

Next Top Model pose as and with homeless women. All of these actions, whatever the motives, 

were initiated by celebrities, so I‘m not sure if they‘re representative of much beyond the fact 

that celebrities continually seek attention through various stunts. These actions become culturally 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hobolicious
http://www.street-papers.org/


45  Mathieu 
 

 

important, however, because they take place before a global media that is fascinated by celebrity, 

allowing these images of homeless chic to break free from their original rhetorical context and 

circulate widely, especially via the Internet. As people in the wider public repeatedly see images 

of homeless people conflated with fashion objects, some people pick up on and respond to the 

idea of homeless chic and morph it beyond the runway into other cultural venues. As Michael 

Warner argues, publics are formed by nothing more than the circulation of discourse itself: ―a 

public is self-organized: it exists by virtue of being addressed.‖
2
 In other words, the widespread 

circulation of homeless-chic images has created public forums and products based upon the 

aestheticization of real homeless people. 

A first example is a public-forum website, called homelesschic.com, which encourages 

visitors to view and ―catalogue images of people living on the street that exhibit a unique sense 

of personal style.‖ The site claims that this work is in no way ―made with the intention of 

mockery, but rather as a source of inspiration and social study.‖ And while the site boasts its 

―positive intention‖ and ―keen eye,‖ it accompanies photos of purportedly homeless people with 

captions like this:  

 

―She's telling us it‘s alllll about oversized, plaid, and on the move looks. The legendary 

Cookie never fails to impress, and she‘s the reason we always carry a camera with us 

downtown! We LOVE the shoelace necklace!! More pictures added regularly of our 

favorite Lil Tokyo homeless inspiration. ―I get all my clothes from black people,‖ 

explains Cookie. But of course.‖ 

 

The tone of the commentary seems to undercut its claimed intention, by echoing the very 

mockery it speaks against. Plus, it‘s unclear for whom or how the forum is intended to function 

as a source of inspiration.  

A second example began in 2007, when three California 20-somethings found their inspiration 

to start a fashion label in John Jermyn, a roller-skating homeless man they dubbed, ―The Crazy 

Robertson.‖ The ―Crazy Robertson‖ clothing offers a range of products, including a $98 hoodie 

that bears Jermyn‘s likeness and the slogan, ―No money, no problem.‖ The entrepreneurs call 

Jermyn ―their friend,‖ and offered him 5% of ―net profit‖ from clothing sales, according to The 

Wall Street Journal. He signed the contract, without speaking to an attorney or family members. 

But so far he has refused to accept cash, according to one of the label‘s founders, preferring to be 

paid in food, liquor and paper for his art projects: ―He tries not to involve money in his daily 

life,‖ one of the entrepreneurs told the Wall Street Journal.
3
 

While those involved with The ―Crazy Robertson‖ see it as a win-win situation, Jermyn's 

sister Beverly is less happy with the situation. She told the Wall Street Journal that she believes 

―The Crazy Robertson‖ founders are exploiting her brother's condition to build their brand. She 

reports that she seeks to manage disability compensation for her brother who suffers from a form 

of schizophrenia, refuses to take medication, and has slept in an alley near her house since his 

condition began deteriorating in the late 1970s.
4
 

http://www.homelesschic.com/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119498984049791758.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119498984049791758.html


Public Rhetorics and Homeless Chic  46 

 

 

The irony of a $98 hoodie proclaiming ―No Money, No Problem,‖ seems so obvious as to 

hardly warrant mention. While this direct use of a homeless man as the ―mascot‖ for a fashion 

label is controversial, to say the least, the owners have, perhaps more curiously, found a public 

interested in buying its products. The clothing line is sold online and at Kitson‘s, a trendy 

boutique frequented by Paris Hilton and others.  

A third example began when a member of the public in Ningbo, China, saw a handsome-

looking homeless man on the street in March 2010, took a photo of him and posted it online. 

―Brother Sharp‖ as online viewers named him became a web ―meme,‖ a phenomenon of 

homeless-chic style. As his image circulated virally via the Internet and was repurposed into 

various movie posters and fashion ads, online writers began speculating about him, spinning 

elaborate tales about a possible breakup with a college girlfriend that might have sent him to the 

streets, although news reports claimed he appeared mentally disturbed and not verbal when 

approached.
4
 As photos and discussion of him proliferated online, people began roaming the 

streets of Ningbo, hoping to catch a glimpse of ―Brother Sharp,‖ to talk with him, or get his 

photo. An online video shows a confused and scared man being chased by people with cameras, 

while he screams in fear or pain.  

Because of the intense media attention, Brother Sharp, whose name is Chen Guorong, became 

reunited with his family, and has become a bit more accustomed to the public spotlight. But his 

life remains strikingly public. He has appeared in fashion shows and plans are at work for a 

movie about his life.
5
 Whether or not this is a ―happy ending‖ for Guorong remains to be seen. 

What‘s also worth noting about these stories is that each represents public uptake of homeless 

chic fashion: people who were not celebrities deliberately taking and circulating images of actual 

homeless people, for their own edification or profit. The intense media attention given to 

Guorong – or similarly to Ted Williams, the ―homeless man with the golden voice‖ in the United 

States – is both unexpected and uninvited, and the ethics of such intrusion and its long-term 

effects remains unclear. Additionally each of these images builds its reality merely by looking at 

homeless people, by what Robert Desjarlais calls ―spectral means‖: 

  

The homeless can also be identified by how they look. To describe someone as 

‗homeless‘ announces a lasting identity. . . .Homelessness denotes a temporary lack of 

housing but connotes a lasting moral career. Because this ‗identity‘ is deemed sufficient 

and interchangeable, the ‗homeless‘ usually go unnamed. The identification is typically 

achieved through spectral means: one knows the homeless not by talking with them but 

by seeing them.
6
 

 

All the information that visitors to homelesschic.com, buyers of The Crazy Robertson apparel, 

or internet follows of Chen Guorong have about their objects of interest is gathered exclusively 

by visual means, by looking at images that other people created about homeless people. People 

have become interested in looking at homeless people, as spectacles, of either pity, envy or 

shame. This visual focus seems to be common in homeless-chic culture in general. John Galliano 

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/brother-sharp-%E7%8A%80%E5%88%A9%E5%93%A5


47  Mathieu 
 

 

claimed that his original inspiration for his boho-meets-hobo-chic collection came to him by 

looking at homeless people along the banks of the Seine River as he embarked on his morning 6-

mile jog.
7
 Designer Vivienne Westwood, who created a 2010 line of homeless-chic clothing 

featuring men wearing makeup so their faces and hands would appear frost bitten, admits that 

her closest experience with homelessness was misplacing the keys to her house.
8
  

Many have argued that homelessness is hidden in our culture – that to be homeless is to be 

rendered invisible in plain sight – and that making the invisible visible is important. To that 

limited extent, one could argue that homeless chic does useful cultural work by reminding 

viewers that people are homeless. For example, Vivienne Westwood argues that circulating 

images of homeless fashion does ―raise awareness‖ about homelessness. She says, ―I want to 

involve the privileged people in the fashion world in the homeless scene.‖
9
 Within that logic 

―looking at‖ homeless fashion constitutes or stands in for actual involvement in the homeless 

scene. 

 

What gets highlighted and hidden in these public images? 

 

As images of homeless chic are disseminated in wider circles and media, this visual 

understanding of homelessness begins to circulate more broadly as societal metaphor, one that 

highlights and hides aspects of its referent. For example, a woman who writes a blog, ―Sunshine 

Cupcakes,‖ uses homelessness to describe how disoriented she feels during a move, titling her 

entry ―Homeless Chic:‖  

 

Since I moved out of my apartment in May and have been living with Ryan ever since, 

all my stuff has been in three different places. THREE. DIFFERENT. PLACES. […] I 

moved a minuscule amount of things into Ryan's house where I'd be temporarily 

homeless. People. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT SUCKS TO HAVE YOUR 

THINGS SPREAD OUT ALL OVER THE VALLEY OF THE SUN?! I'd go to take off 

my nail polish only to realize that my polish remover was at the new house. I'd want to 

wear this super cute yellow flowery top out on Mill but would remember that it was at 

my parents‘.
10

 

 

Accompanying this writing is a black-and-white photograph of a haggard-looking woman in a 

hooded sweatshirt, slumped against a concrete wall, sitting next to a shopping cart, filled beyond 

the brim with knapsacks, a blanket, and bottles of water. There‘s no caption to the photo and no 

explanation of its use other than, ―I had a lovely idea about how to lay out this post and WOW 

were there going to be pictures. Instead, I realized that my camera battery is dead and the charger 

is in another city. NEAT.‖ Absent pictures of her own, the blogger uses an image of a probably-

homeless woman to illustrate her own ‗homeless‘ predicament. In the picture and the entry‘s 

title, ―Homeless Chic,‖ homelessness operates as a metaphor for any kind of displacement or 

inconvenience. In a similar fashion, the Urban Dictionary, a sort of wiki for current uses of 

http://www.sunshine-cupcakes.com/2009/08/homeless-chic.html


Public Rhetorics and Homeless Chic  48 

 

 

language, contains several definitions of homeless that show it operating as a metaphor for 

someone or something troublesome, annoying, or ―amazingly lame beyond belief.‖
11

 

In such comparisons, homeless people are both familiar and alien. One can claim, ―I am 

homeless when I move,‖ and then, in turn, insult another by calling him or her ―so homeless.‖ 

The concept of being ―hobolicious,‖ homeless and good looking, as in Brother Sharp, circulates 

simultaneously. Homelessness thus both functions as a metaphor in society and becomes 

represented by metaphors that highlight a narrow visual stereotype of what homelessness looks 

like, and as a result hides everything else. And as language scholars Lakoff and Johnson tell us, 

metaphors fundamentally structure our conceptual system and deeply shape what we believe and 

feel: ―A metaphor in a political or economic system, by virtue of what it hides, can lead to 

human degradation.‖
12

 When one merely looks, one doesn‘t listen, feel, taste or smell the reality 

that they‘re describing, thus issues of pain, frostbite, or squalor become erased or aestheticized 

into a visual tableau. What all of these depictions hide is the complexity of actual homelessness: 

its pain, its causes, who becomes homeless and why, and everything else the individuals are or 

do in their lives other than being dislocated from housing. Also, in these depictions, 

homelessness functions as an identity or ―look‖ that exists for some – not a social condition that 

is caused or created by anything. British filmmaker Ken Loach, who in 1966 made a BBC 

teleplay about homelessness, told reporters in 1993 that he now feels that any depiction of 

homelessness is useless – or worse, voyeuristic – if it does not offer clear solutions to the 

problem. ―People must be shown that homelessness isn't an act of God,‖ he says, ―but a function 

of the way in which our society is organized.‖
13

 Images of homeless chic not only frame the idea 

of homelessness without a focus on solutions, it gives little hint that it‘s a problem at all. The 

danger is that such widespread images further normalize homelessness as part of the status quo, 

not as a problem to be addressed.  

 

Who benefits? Who Doesn’t? 

 

In 2009 the American Girl Company introduced a limited-edition homeless doll named Gwen 

Thompson. She wears simple-looking clothes and her back-story includes a father who walked 

out, nights of sleeping in the car with mom, and relocation to a shelter. The doll sells for $95 (not 

including accessories). The company claimed that the purpose of the doll was to raise awareness 

about homelessness and to prevent children from bullying or tormenting other kids who might be 

homeless. How the doll was meant to do that is not specified, but no proceeds from its sale 

benefited any homeless or any anti-bullying organizations. And while the idea of a $95 dollar 

homeless doll might seem oxymoronic, if not absurd, it was likely bought by many well-

intentioned parents, happy for an easy way to raise awareness of homelessness. On the Internet, 

one can easily buy other items sporting homeless images, both for the benefit of charities and 

not. Calendars, for example, depicting hand-drawn images of homeless people are on sale to 

benefit a Montana shelter, while others featuring photographs of homeless people on Venice 

Beach, benefits only the photographer. Under this vague banner of ―raising awareness,‖ various 



49  Mathieu 
 

 

interests sell and profit from homeless chic as an act of or possible replacement for social 

involvement.
14

 

More sinister portrayals of homelessness also bring profits to a select few, while directly 

harming vulnerable others. In 2002, Ray Leticia, co-created Bumfights, a video series that has 

sold hundreds of thousands of copies on the Internet, in which homeless people harm themselves 

or others on film by, for example, pulling a tooth or breaking a limb, in exchange for small 

amounts of cash. The first installment of the series grossed more than 6 million dollars in one 

month.
15

 Leticia explains the rapid sales of the video this way: ―Society has a fascination with 

homeless people, people living on the streets, almost a perverse fascination.‖
16

 

In 2005, a director of a Showtime documentary entitled Reversal of Fortune planted a suitcase 

filled with $100,000 cash in a dumpster for a homeless man to find, as part of a filmed social 

experiment to see what he would do with the money. In part because the homeless man feared 

that the money was discarded by criminals, he quickly spent the money on cars and gifts for 

family and friends. The documentarian and the homeless man both later appeared on Oprah to 

discuss how and why the man ended up broke a year later – emphasizing the man‘s personal 

failings, and not the coercive set up of the project.
17

 In these instances, homeless people were 

harmed and their lives interfered with in the name of entertaining others. That such a broad 

public appetite for this kind of coercive entertainment exists speaks is a troubling and perplexing 

reality of our culture today. 

 

Why is this happening now? 

 

Since I‘m not a psychologist or a sociologist, I can‘t speculate about the complex psychological 

processes that must be at work in the rise of homeless chic as an object of public fascination. I 

can say, however, that it‘s not entirely new and it also responds to this specific historical context.  

While homeless chic and its many manifestations is relatively recent, it is part of a much older 

and much broader context of public fascination with homelessness that extends well beyond the 

realm of fashion. Since 2001 I‘ve been teaching a course at Boston College entitled Literature of 

Homelessness, which allows students and me to examine representations of homelessness in a 

wide variety of public venues, including literature, news sources, pop culture, film, TV, and 

consumer items. In the class we read academic studies, policy papers, journalism, popular 

literature, science fiction, memoir, children‘s books, self-help books, etc. The field of ―homeless 

literature‖ itself is staggeringly big, indicating that lots of people are interested in reading and 

writing about homeless people; and increasingly homeless people are writing about their own 

lives. The public appetite for homeless stories is longstanding. As early as 1879, we see 

examples in popular literature of a now well-worn cliché of homeless literature and film: the idea 

of a prosperous person ―trying out‖ the homeless lifestyle on a wager, who either becomes lured 

to evil or learns how to be a better person. One such title itself tells the story: A tight squeeze, or, 

The adventures of a gentleman : who, on a wager of ten thousand dollars, undertook to go from 

New York to New Orleans in three weeks, without money, as a professional tramp.
18

 



Public Rhetorics and Homeless Chic  50 

 

 

And while the field of homeless literature is surprisingly broad and does not easily fit into 

simple generalizations, one can find a recurring theme of fascination with homelessness that 

walks the line between benign and sinister. For example, in her 2001 nonfiction essay, 

―Following Nancy Home,‖ which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Linda Lawson chronicles 

the weeks she and her friends spent surreptitiously following a homeless woman around 

Cambridge, MA. In the story, Lawson admits to a deep-seated resentment toward ―Nancy,‖ 

whom she believes has a better life than she and must not really be homeless.
19

 When teaching 

this essay, I engage students in sharing stories they have heard about panhandlers driving 

Porsches or other longstanding myths that pair a simultaneous distaste for and envy of homeless 

people.  

Public images of homeless people are also widely circulated in film. And while this topic is 

way too broad to engage here, I will make a few passing comments to help inform the context in 

which homeless-chic fashion arose. US films have played a key role in circulating both 

stereotypes and archetypes of homeless people for more than a century. Film scholar Linda 

Fuller has found that nearly every top director has tackled homelessness. Early portrayals tended 

to stereotype homeless people as tramps, capable of villainous actions; later representations 

painted them as lowlife or streetwise mystics. Films both define and circulate powerful cultural 

stereotypes of homelessness, as seen during the 1991 filming of Curly Sue.
20

 For a scene that 

called for homeless people, the filmmakers decided to put out a call to hire extras from Chicago 

shelters. Ultimately, none of the homeless people were hired, because casting directors thought 

they looked ―too clean.‖
21

 In more recent years, Fuller notes, portrayals have shifted toward 

having homeless characters painted as intellectually or spiritually superior, mystical, or magical. 

An example of this archetype is the ―homeless man with a heart of gold,‖ such as Joe Pesci in 

With Honors,
22

 who plays a homeless man who teaches a Harvard student important life lessons. 

Fuller argues that both the negative stereotypes and idealized archetypes offer cultural excuses 

for not dealing with homelessness as a problem and function to maintain the status quo.
23

  

The status quo of the current moment includes widespread homelessness and economic 

insecurities. Growing up in the 1970s, I didn‘t regularly see homeless people on the streets, not 

even in urban centers. When I tell students that homelessness was not a ―normal‖ part of my 

urban landscape growing up, they are usually quite surprised. Today‘s youth live in a country 

where visible homeless can be seen almost anywhere, at the same time that the vast majority of 

homeless people are not visible to passersby. 

According to reports published by the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), the 

number of homeless people in the United States is on the rise at the same time that emergency 

shelter is decreasing, and cities are passing legislation that criminalizes homeless activities. 

Additionally, violent, random crimes against homeless people are at record levels. 

Over the course of a given 12-month period, the National Law Center on Homelessness and 

Poverty estimates that approximately 3.5 million people experience homelessness in the US, and 

this number is may increase in the future due to the foreclosure crisis, increases in poverty, and a 

pattern of steady increases in family homelessness.
24

 Several cities, in their reports to the US 



51  Mathieu 
 

 

Conference of Mayors, reported an increase in employed homeless people and homeless 

families, which according to the survey account for 25% of all homeless people. Most homeless 

people work hard not to be visible.
25

 

At a time of additional needs for emergency shelter, many cities do not have adequate shelter 

space, leaving homeless people no choice but to struggle on the streets. The streets, however, are 

doubly more dangerous than before: cities are increasingly adopting laws that criminalize 

sleeping, sitting, loitering, or panhandling in order to move poor or homeless people out of a 

visible downtown areas; and more disturbing, random violence perpetrated against homeless 

people in public places is an increasing worldwide trend.
26

 According to the NCH, 2010 was the 

most violent year in recorded history for hate crimes against the homeless: More than 100 violent 

attacks against homeless people in public spaces was recorded, and a third of those attacks were 

fatal – setting people on fire, public beatings, group attacks by young men on people on the 

street.
27

 

Given that homelessness is more visible at a time when the economy remains shaky, it is not 

surprising that homeless chic arises now. Homeless chic is occurring at a time when many 

legislators respond with gestures to hide or push homelessness off the main stage. As Maureen 

Dowd asked in the New York Times, ―So which is worse? A Paris fashion designer who wants to 

look at the homeless as aesthetic objects, or a New York mayor who does not want to look at 

them at all?‖
28

 We live in a moment of deep cultural contradiction. In many ways, one could see 

homeless chic as a continuation and expansion of the homeless archetype: homeless are more 

beautiful and have a better fashion sense than those of us who actually have money to spend on 

clothes. And perhaps this depiction functions as a kind of cultural pressure valve during a time of 

increased economic vulnerability of the middle class and increasing homelessness. 

 

Does academic attention enlighten or further fuel the homeless-chic spectacle? 

 

In agreeing to contribute to this discussion, I worried whether my description and analysis would 

add anything productive, or whether I‘m merely facilitating the broader circulation (and broader 

public reception) of aestheticized, spectral homeless images. In The Economics of Attention 

Richard Lanham argues that we have transformed from an information economy to an attention 

economy, and what is valuable in today‘s world is eyeballs. Attention to an issue makes it 

valuable.
29

 It doesn‘t matter if the attention is positive or negative, applause or critique. I think 

his description of our current moment has merit. And while my concerns did not preclude me 

from writing this article, I think it‘s useful to acknowledge the limits of academic critique within 

the broader realm of public rhetoric: while I believe that depictions of homelessness that 

circulate publicly are worthy of critical attention, critique must be the beginning point of an 

effort to circulate fuller and more humane images, and not an end in itself. 

Many writers, artists and alternative press publications around the world take on the mission 

to tell different and richer stories about people living in poverty. Take, for instance, in 2000, a 

group of homeless writers and artists in Chicago staged Not Your Mama’s Bus Tour, an 



Public Rhetorics and Homeless Chic  52 

 

 

alternative public bus tour of Chicago, in response to city efforts to hide homeless people.
30

 Or 

another example, Michèle Ohayon‘s 1993 documentary, It Was a Wonderful Life,
31

 chronicles 

the lives of six women who once lived prosperous lives and became homeless. These are women 

who try hard not to be visible, to blend in, and are homeless because of illness, divorce, and 

unemployment. It‘s a hidden story of homelessness but it‘s strikingly common today. Stories that 

create greater empathy and more complex understanding of people and situations help us move 

beyond specters to see more of the picture rather than less.  

In the years I‘ve worked with homeless people, I have found that fewer and fewer 

generalizations about homelessness are true, even most of the time. There are so many different 

images, faces and stories of homelessness. The Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie, speaks 

about how impressionable people can become in the face of a ―single story,‖ when we see poor 

people as only poor, or see homelessness only through a visual lens. She calls on us all to move 

beyond ―the danger of a single story‖ about any place or person toward more complex 

understandings of the world.
32

  

Homeless chic is a single story, one that can‘t exist without homeless people – who are not 

merely specters or public spectacles. Having homeless people on our streets is a statement about 

our entire society. They should not be enjoyed or overlooked as fashionable parts of the scenery. 

 

 

Notes 

 

1. Quoted in Katharine Viner, ―Hand-to-brand-combat,‖ Guardian, September 23, 2000, 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/sep/23/society.politics. 

2. Michael Warner, Publics and Counterpublics (New York: Zone Books, 2002), 67. 

3. Jon Weinbach, ―In West L. A., A Homeless Man Inspires New Brand,‖ Wall Street 

Journal, November 14, 2007, 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119498984049791758.html. 

4. Clifford Coonan, ―Handsome Chinese Vagrant Draws Fans of ‗Homeless Chic,‘‖ The 

Independent, March 4, 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/handsome-

chinese-vagrant-draws-fans-of-homeless-chic-1915812.html. For a picture of Brother 

Sharp juxtaposed with a real model: http://blog.yaoyuan.org/article/1280.html. 

5. See Zoe Li, ―Carl Ng to Play Brother Sharp in World‘s First Internet Meme-Inspired 

Movie,‖ CNN International, July 7, 2010, http://www.cnngo.com/hong-kong/carl-ng-

play-brother-sharp-worlds-first-internet-meme-inspired-movie-277561. See also 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j_BmpTAY-s&feature=player_embedded. 

6. Robert Desjarlais, Shelter Blues: Sanity and Selfhood Among the Homeless (Philadelphia: 

University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 2. 

7. Fashion Forum. ―John Galliano – Biography,‖ http://www.fashion-forum.org/fashion-

designers/john-galliano.html. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/sep/23/society.politics
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119498984049791758.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/handsome-chinese-vagrant-draws-fans-of-homeless-chic-1915812.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/handsome-chinese-vagrant-draws-fans-of-homeless-chic-1915812.html
http://blog.yaoyuan.org/article/1280.html
http://www.cnngo.com/hong-kong/carl-ng-play-brother-sharp-worlds-first-internet-meme-inspired-movie-277561
http://www.cnngo.com/hong-kong/carl-ng-play-brother-sharp-worlds-first-internet-meme-inspired-movie-277561
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j_BmpTAY-s&feature=player_embedded
http://www.fashion-forum.org/fashion-designers/john-galliano.html
http://www.fashion-forum.org/fashion-designers/john-galliano.html


53  Mathieu 
 

 

8. Elke Swart, ―Fashionably Homeless,‖ Haag Straatnieuws, January 17, 2011. Street News 

Service, http://www.streetnewsservice.org/news/2011/january/feed-264/fashionably-

homeless-.aspx. 

9. Ibid. 

10. Kara, ―Homeless Chic,‖ Sunshine-Cupcakes.com, August 10, 2009, 

http://www.sunshine-cupcakes.com/2009/08/homeless-chic.html. 

11. ―Homeless,‖ Urban Dictionary, 1999-2011, http://www.urbandictionary.com/ 

define.php?term=homeless&page=3. 

12. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of 

Chicago Press, 1980), 236. 

13. Julian Petley and Sheila McKechnie, ―Why Cathy Will Never Come Home Again,‖ New 

Statesman & Society, April 2, 1993: S23(3). 

14. Ryan McCarthy, ―American Girl Homeless Doll Causes Controversy,‖ The Huffington 

Post, September 29, 2009, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/american-girls-

homeless-d_n_302981.html. 

15. Michael Stoops, ―Bumfights: An Incitement to Hate Crimes,‖ Street Spirit, September 

2005, http://www.thestreetspirit.org/September2005/bumfights.htm.  

16. Michael Squires and Juliet Casey, ―Film Cashes in on Street Scenes,‖ Las Vegas Review-

Journal, May 05, 2002, http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2002/May-05-Sun-

2002/news/18662641.html. 

17. Internet Movie Database, Reversal of Fortune (TV), 2005, http://www.imdb.com/ 

title/tt0838195/. 

18. William Staats, A tight squeeze, or, The adventures of a gentleman : who, on a wager of 

ten thousand dollars, undertook to go from New York to New Orleans in three weeks, 

without money, as a professional tramp (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1879). 

19. Linda Lawson, ―Following Nancy Home,‖ Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, 3.2 

(Fall 2001): 162–174. 

20. Curly Sue. Dir. John Hughes. Warner Bros., 1991. 

21. David Ellis, ―Actors with Dirty Faces,‖ Time, Jan 21, 1991: 19. 

22. With Honors. Dir. Alek Keshishian. Warner Bros., 1994. 

23. Linda K. Fuller, ―From Tramps to Truth-Seekers: Images of the Homeless in the Motion 

Pictures,‖ in Reading the Homeless: Media’s Image of Homeless Culture, ed. Eunjin Min 

(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), 159. 

24. National Coalition for the Homeless, ―How Many People Experience Homelessness,‖ 

July 2009, http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/How_Many.html. 

25. Ibid. 

26. See Paula Mathieu and Diana George, ―Not Going It Alone: Public Writing, Independent 

Media and the Circulation of Homeless Advocacy,‖ College Composition and 

Communication 61.1 (September 2009): 130–149.  

http://www.streetnewsservice.org/news/2011/january/feed-264/fashionably-homeless-.aspx
http://www.streetnewsservice.org/news/2011/january/feed-264/fashionably-homeless-.aspx
http://www.sunshine-cupcakes.com/2009/08/homeless-chic.html
http://www.urbandictionary.com/%20define.php?term=homeless&page=3
http://www.urbandictionary.com/%20define.php?term=homeless&page=3
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/american-girls-homeless-d_n_302981.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/american-girls-homeless-d_n_302981.html
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/September2005/bumfights.htm
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2002/May-05-Sun-2002/news/18662641.html
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2002/May-05-Sun-2002/news/18662641.html
http://www.imdb.com/%20title/tt0838195/
http://www.imdb.com/%20title/tt0838195/
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/How_Many.html


Public Rhetorics and Homeless Chic  54 

 

 

27. National Coalition for the Homeless, ―Hate Crimes against the Homeless: America‘s 

Growing Tide of Violence,‖ August 2010, http://www.nationalhomeless.org/ 

publications/hatecrimes/hatecrimes2009.pdf. 

28. Maureen Dowd, ―Haute Homeless,‖ New York Times January 23, 2000,  

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/23/opinion/liberties-haute-

homeless.html?scp=1&sq=haute+homeless+maureen+dowd&st=nyt. 

29. Richard Lanham, The Economics of Attention (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 

2007). 

30. See Paula Mathieu, Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in English Composition 

(Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann, 2005). 

31. Ridgebury Films, 1993. 

32. Chimamanda Adichie, ―The Danger of a Single Story,‖ TED Conferences, July 2009, 

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.

html. 

 

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/%20publications/hatecrimes/hatecrimes2009.pdf
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/%20publications/hatecrimes/hatecrimes2009.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/23/opinion/liberties-haute-homeless.html?scp=1&sq=haute+homeless+maureen+dowd&st=nyt
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/23/opinion/liberties-haute-homeless.html?scp=1&sq=haute+homeless+maureen+dowd&st=nyt
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

