Modeling is a challenging occupation because employment is irregular, the physical demands are great, and competition is fierce. Success as a model requires the careful management of bodily capital and the performance of emotional labor. Drawing on participant observations and interviews with models in the Atlanta fashion industry, the authors examine how they do the former and why they do the latter. They manage their bodily capital by subjecting themselves to intense self-regulation. Models perform emotional labor to sell themselves to clients and agents, to create illusions for observers and the camera, and to find dignity in a job that is often degrading and humiliating.
Abiala, Kristina. 1999. Customer orientation and sales situations: Variations in interactive service work. Acta Sociologica42:207-222.
2.
Brenner, Jennifer B., and Joseph G. Cunningham. 1992. Gender differences in eating attitudes, body concept, and self-esteem among models. Sex Roles27:413-437.
3.
Chapman, Gwen E.1997. Making weight: Lightweight rowing, technologies of power, and technologies of the self. Sociology of Sport Journal14:205-223.
4.
Dorsey, David. 1994. The force. New York: Random House.
5.
Finlay, William, and James E. Coverdill. 2002. Headhunters: Matchmaking in the labor market. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
6.
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 1983. The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
7.
Hodson, Randy.2001. Dignity at work. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
8.
Johns, David P., and Jennifer S. Johns. 2000. Surveillance, subjectivism, and technologies of power: An analysis of the discursive practices of high-performance sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport35:219-234.
9.
Lawson, Helene M.2000. Ladies on the lot: Women, car sales, and the pursuit of the American dream. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
10.
Leidner, Robin. 1993. Fast food, fast talk: Service work and the routinization of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
11.
Maguire, Jennifer Smith. 2001. Fit and flexible: The fitness industry, personal trainers and emotional service labor. Sociology of Sport Journal18:379-402.
12.
Mann, Sandi. 1999. Emotion at work: To what extent are we expressing, suppressing, or faking it?European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology8:347-369.
13.
Massoni, Kelley. 2004. Modeling work: Occupational messages in Seventeen magazine. Gender and Society18:47-65.
14.
Montemurro, Beth. 2001. Strippers and screamers: The emergence of social control in a noninstitutionalized setting. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography30:275-304.
15.
Murphy, Alexandra G.2003. The dialectical gaze: Exploring the subject-object tension in the performances of women who strip. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography32:305-335.
16.
Oakes, Guy. 1990. The soul of the salesman: The moral ethos of personal sales. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International.
17.
Paules, Greta Foff. 1996. Resisting the symbolism of service among waitresses. In Working in the service society, edited by Cameron Lynne Macdonald and Carmen Sirianni, 264-290. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
18.
Pierce, Jennifer L.1995. Gender trials: Emotional lives in contemporary law firms. Berkeley: University of California Press.
19.
Ronai, Carol Rambo. 1992. The reflexive self through narrative: A night in the life of an erotic dancer/researcher. In Investigating subjectivity: Research on lived experience, edited by Carolyn Ellis and Michael G. Flaherty, 102-124. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
20.
Sass, James S.2000. Emotional labor as cultural performance: The communication of caregiving in a nonprofit nursing home. Western Journal of Communication64:330-358.
21.
Sharma, Ursula, and Paula Black. 2001. Look good, feel better: Beauty therapy as emotional labour. Sociology35:913-931.
22.
Smolak, Linda. 1996. The development of psychopathology of eating disorders. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
23.
Stenross, Barbara, and Sherryl Kleinman. 1989. The highs and lows of emotional labor: Detectives’ encounters with criminals and victims. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography17:435-452.
24.
Tolich, Martin B.1993. Alienating and liberating emotions at work: Supermarket clerks’ performance of customer service. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography22:361-381.
25.
U. S. Department of Labor. 2002. Occupational outlook handbook. Available at http://stats.bls.gov/ocohome.htm.
26.
Wacquant, Loic. 2004. Body and soul: Notebooks of an apprentice boxer. New York: Oxford University Press.
27.
Wesely, Jennifer K.2003. Exotic dancing and the negotiation of identity. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography32:643-669.
28.
Wharton, Amy S.1993. The affective consequences of service work: Managing emotions on the job. Work and Occupations20:205-232.
29.
Wharton, Carol S.1996. Making people feel good: Workers’ construction of meaning in interactive service jobs. Qualitative Sociology19:217-233.
30.
Williams, Claire. 2003. Sky service: The demands of emotional labour in the airline industry. Gender, Work, and Organization10:513-550.
31.
Wolf, Naomi. 1991. The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. New York: William Morrow.
32.
Wood, Elizabeth Anne. 2000. Working in the fantasy factory: The attention hypothesis and the enacting of masculine power in strip clubs. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography29:5-31.
33.
Wouters, Cas. 1989. The sociology of emotions and flight attendants: Hochschild’s Managed Heart. Theory, Culture & Society6:95-123.
