I found very interesting what Marshall Cohen states. Basically I distinguished three main ideas. First he's saying that as the retail environment is becoming more and more competitive, the methods of capturing consumers' awareness of a brand are changing and evolving. At the same time being able to find what he calls a ''walking billboard'', which means good looking people who would represent the brand, is becoming critical. And at the end he says that the young fashionable market, which is the most appealing , wants to see good looking people in the stores where they go shopping. That's the reason why the retailers defend their approach to hiring based on image as necessary.
In general I agree with Cohen's arguments, but still not with everything. I think he's right when he is saying that the retailers try to capture the consumers' attention in different ways and that they have mostly chosen to ''use'' the beauty as a factor of appeal. That's why I also agree when he is saying that people want to see mainly good looking gals in stores. But I believe that not everyone wants this. In fact adfirm this kind of thing, means that you think that the whole population is superficial and racist (if we can define this as racism against not very good-looking people). I don't think so, even if I believe that a huge percent of us values much more physical appearance rather then real skills.
Just think about how many magazines, TV shows and movies focus on what's the perfect beauty and how a ''normal'' person can reach it. The messages we receive from the media are ''be perfect, because if you are not, you're an outcast''. And I don't know why, but physical appearance has become synonym of perfection. From my personal experiences, I can say that in Italy you really feel this ''pressure'' and in these years more than before. If you turn on an Italian TV and you choose any kind of channel, you will see mainly naked (or almost) women, who exhibit their bodies in front of a huge audience. No doubt that these 20/25 year women look like models. What happens next? Teenagers (12/13/14 year old..and so on) assume that the goal of their lives is to look like them. But the biggest problem is not that they have this dream; the thing is that many of their parents encourage them in this sense. Everything is about beauty. It's necessary for a good and long relationships, to find a job (as in the case we are talking about), to feel totally part of the society.
So why shouldn't these companies have the approach of hiring mainly good-looking people? That's what the crowd wants. They just follow an already existing path. During one of my English class, we went through a couple of fashion advertisements. I must say that I found more impressive to look at the American Appereal's one more than the one from Abercrombie & Fitch. I would define A&F chaste and innocent compared to the obscene pictures of American Appeareal. Basically both advertisements focused on the beauty of the young models, but the use that they made of it was different. As I said, American Appearel thought that pornography would represent them better than anything else. But the common feature was there, clear and obvious: beauty. Different kinds of beauty: A&F prefers blond tall boys and girls,well fed and athletic. American Appearel prefers skinny bodies and an androgyne look. They choose this kind of models for their advertisements, so why they shouldn't apply the same idea when they hire people in the stores? They want people who would represent they brand in every way they can do it.
I don't know how many of us already realized that this is the way it works in many cases. Not always, but often. I would say that, according to a general opinion, physical appearence it's still not considered by a majority as the main requirement that a person needs to work in a store. I can understand that a model is ''required'' to be good-looking or at least not a ''common'' beauty. But since when clerks should look like Andy McDowell? I felt a bit shocked after I read the article about how A&F tries to hire customers. You could either have no experience in that kind of job or maybe you could be an irresponsible person, and they don't care (very much). You could have no qualifications at all, but they would offer you a job only because you have a hot body and nice face. So after that moment you can proudly shout that you are good-looking enough to sell A&F clothes. Great. Sad, I would also say.
The big idea I see behind all this issue is that, decade by decade, we don't consider anymore people as human beings, but as objects. Objects to sell, to buy, to use and abuse. Because it's all about money. You are useful if you make money. And beauty is a huge source of money. I have already talked about this kind of businesses. There's no morality in it. And the ''justification'' the retailers give for the way they act, only hide their big lack of morality. I am sure that if the trend was being ''ugly'', they would have hired only not good-looking people. And now we would about how is wrong discriminate good-looking guys.
As long as our culture is going to develop following this path, I think we will have a lot of time to discuss this kind of topic. As I already said, I basically agree with what Cohen is saying. He makes objective considerations. I just want to add a personal advice to what I wrote. We should focus more about the whole cultural/economic system that brought to these actions and behaviors, in this case the protagonists of the act were the retailers, rather than the specific topic, which is only a consequence of something bigger.
