Jennifer Buhrow

There are just somethings that entertainment and marketing professionals have to deal with that members of the other professions do not. Imagine this scenario:

A young, smart, highly qualified female lawyer walks into a recruiter's office to discuss a potential position with a firm. It's a good-paying job and the lawyer has a resume that demonstrates she is a perfect candidate. The recruiter is also a woman with an impressive list of accomplishments and clients.

The lawyer sits down in the office. The recruiter says to her, "You didn't get the job. You're not sexy enough."

If this scenario played out in the corporate world, the lawyer would become incredibly wealthy as a result of this conversation. Hiring bias based on sexuality is illegal...in every industry except the entertainment industry. And if you're an actress, it's likely an everyday occurence.

Let's set aside the absurdity of the statement, and let's also ignore the fact that sexiness is in the eye of the beholder. The fact is that beautiful young actresses and models (and to a much lesser degree, actors) are held responsible for measuring up to an arbitrary, ever-changing standard of beauty.

In the recent Archetype project seeking actresses to create edgier headshots, I chose Jen for the "musical theater ingenue" archetype. Jen has some experience with some of the smaller area dinner theaters, but would really like to break into the world of Marriott and Drury Lane. Jen is a full-time actress and model, and much of that is as a professional spokesperson. In a recent conversation an agent who only sent her on assignments sporadically told Jen that she didn't get the jobs because her pictures weren't sexy enough.

This is exactly the type of situation that Archetype Images is dedicated to addressing. So, not only did we create an image targeted at musical theater (see website), we actively discussed creating a "sexy businesswoman" shot. This discussion was incredibly interesting, and we talked about women in corporate America, and the essence of their power and strength and how those combine with sexuality. As we began the shoot, our shots tended more toward the sexy and less toward the businesswoman. But as both Jen and I relaxed with the concept and got to know each other, we were able to combine the two concepts.

Ultimately, for the purposes of this project, I chose the shot above. In it, Jen is engaged in a conversation. The partner in this scene, the camera, is saying something very interesting, perhaps enlightening, and it is inspiring some new thoughts for Jen. This activity is exactly what turns a good headshot into a great marketing image. And it's this activity that actually helps put Jen in the sexy businesswoman category.