| This project examines the early 20th century fascination with the shopgirl, the paradigmatic consumer/spectator of mass culture, in order to expose and explain the conditions of the contemporary sales associate, a figure who tends to represent social invisibility despite retail being the largest employment sector in the U.S. Simultaneously, it explores historical and ideological relationships between film and fashion. The tenacious, flexible, interstitial position of the shopgirl (representing at once the store, the worker and the consumer) provides a unique lens through which to examine the shifting ideals and realities of low-wage, white-collar workers in the context of mass culture and globalized labor. I focus primarily on two moments in the shopgirl story: the period from about 1925 to 1940, when the figure and genre were most prevalent, and from about 1985 to the present, as retail came to dominate the U.S. labor market. These cross-historical representations encapsulate and open up new questions surrounding a central theme of my project: how changes in modes of production and distribution - of narratives, of representations, of fashion, the channels through which we appear to and see others - impact subjectivity. This project emphasizes the importance of denaturalizing what have come to be understood as "feminine" occupations and challenging the stratification of labor along the lines of gender, race, class and nation. Past studies have approached "the shopgirl" from the perspective of political economy and labor history, or as a literary or popular cultural figure. I articulate these perspectives, and go further, exposing the stakes of her representation. Through representation, labor is given meaning, and possibilities for (collective, politicized) subjectivities can be imagined or foreclosed. |
