‘I’m Not Here’ at the London Short Film Festival: The Politics Of ‘Shop Girls’ And The Service Industry:
Halcyon Days: Radical Short Films of the 1990s was the first event to open at the London Short Film Festival; the films ranged from insects scurrying around to funky music, to “when something drastic happens you change your hair”, to a comedic exploration of history and culture in London. Amongst them all, Carol Morley’s I’m Not Here (1994), funded by Arts Council England, stuck out impressively amongst a myriad of experimental filmmaking. Morley’s fourteen-minute short is loaded with significant commentary about the service industry’s treatment of women shop assistants across three decades, highlighting misogyny and corporate blunders, whilst inspecting the monotonous effects the supermarket places upon its employees.
The BAFTA-nominated director and writer discusses the opening shots of the short in the Q&A that followed the screenings. Morley explains how a book of various newspaper clippings of ‘Miss London Stores’ 1970, was found and later gifted for her birthday by a friend. Curious as to why someone would keep these clippings and eventually discard them, she decided to venture into media coverage of ‘shop girls’, exposing the day-to-day experiences of carrying out the job.
A painfully exhaustive pan shot surveys the checkouts, some empty, some containing women workers whilst they are sat, waiting, probably attempting to think of anything but the place they are inhabiting. Capturing the assault of fluorescent lighting and pink uniforms cascading over hunched shoulders, we see and experience, in real time, the perpetual boredom of the workplace. Interrupting this, an article written by Arthur Marshall in 1980 titled, ‘Where are those charming shop girls now?’ for the Sunday Times sounds, claiming that the physical separation between a woman service worker and the male stranger is alluring, challenging men sexually. He comments how instead of the former title ‘shop-girls’, women opt into being named ‘female service workers’ proposing a less barrier-crossing workplace. Morley places the juxtaposing audio and visual together, displaying the ridiculous irony of how utterly unromantic the supermarket is, as if this was not obvious. Marshall wants a different kind of transaction, compared to the one these women are paid to do.
Women remain encouraged to utilise their sexuality and smile to ‘sell’ and ‘service’ far into the twenty-first century. Social experiments on TikTok show young women service workers styling their hair differently each day throughout the week, one day it may be a low ponytail, the next high pigtails, and usually, they receive more tips depending on the style they adorn (usually pigtails earn the most tips, suggestive of a pornified, infantilising view of young women). Often, this research exposes how there is an invisible transaction being made — it transforms from simply ordering a Sunday Roast or a pint to an extra few quid to look good during it. We have all witnessed the lingering eye of a customer, lurking around the corner, pulling up a barstool to the front, extending the conversation for as long as possible during the transaction. Women are expected to pander to this behaviour to ‘keep the customer happy’ adopting a tone and phrasing, a sort of language, that all of us who have worked in the industry have had to learn and navigate safely. Morley makes this language knowable, articulating the issues proposed by service work specifically harnessed against women.
Instead of only exposing this downside, Morley addresses corporate punishment for going against company image. As recreated from a real case, a fifty-two-year-old woman was jailed after stealing £3.60 worth of goods at the company she worked at — a tin of mince meat and a fruit loaf. A shaky close-up displays her frowning face as she bags items for customers, music denoting doom as if she is plotting a murder, the colour less saturated than in previous shots. Morley’s commentary on this case makes humour out of the petty corporate attitudes towards a crime that would barely make a dent out of their profit. Another scene recreates a training video shown at Harrods of a woman committing suicide after stealing from her workplace — both imitations of real-life cases document the continuous attempts made by companies to shame their women employees.
However, Morley does not only use male or corporate voices to address these issues. The hilarity of characters like ‘Mandy’, ‘Karen’, and ‘Edith’ voice women who are subject to negative treatment by both customers and employers, giving us a personal account of the service industry, and exposing ways to cope with boredom. Their familiar voices feel personal as if they are venting to you about their troubles; their quippy, smart remarks about customers represent real working culture, evoking scoffs and chuckles from the audience. Dealing with strangers every day results in a need to vent, to chronicle your experiences to others. In my time working in restaurants and bars, I would come home to anyone who would listen and talk about everything that distressed me that day— holding on to one’s frustration in the moment and containing the upset until you get home is necessary to get along in the service industry. Morley exhibits that even the baseline requirements for service work can pose challenges, but both company exploitation and misogyny is the cherry on top.
I’m Not Here tackles distinct and prevalent issues for working women, but not in a way that downtroddens them. It makes fun, it chuckles with its audience, it says ‘Look at this, is it not ridiculous?’ It does what many ‘shop-girls’ do — laughs and tells corporate to piss off.
Edited by Humaira Valera, Co-film & TV editor
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