Hooters, Boobs, and Bimbos

The Soup did a spoof on this recruitment advertisement this past weekend, and when I told my husband about it, he assumed it was a joke. “Everyone knows what Hooters is all about, Marina,” he said to me. But this is not a joke. This is an actual advertisement, and the three girls in this commercial are not real lawyers, teachers, and businesswomen, as they claim in their professional suits – they are Hooters’ chosen girls for all their commercials. And they’re not the chosen ones because of their acting abilities, but because they fit the Hooters‘ criteria for employment:pretty, young, bubbly, and in possession of great, big breasts.

What is really disturbing to me about this commercial — more so than the young girls wasting their brains and potential by serving the owl-like, hooter-like men whose eyes devour not just wings, but their young, pert, and mostly silicone-implanted breasts –is the part of the commercial that has the two pre-pubescent girls waving to the camera in delight, for they are in the presence of real life role models. Role models, really? This is what we have to offer the new generation of young girls as to the models of female empowerment that they should look up to and emulate? See these girls, with their pretty hair, charming smiles, big boobs, slim waists, tight t-shirts and short shorts? Be just like them. They work here, serving wings and beer to men from the ages of 17 – 70, bending over them in hopes that a glimpse of their robust cleavage will reward them with a nice, big, tip. See how happy they are – nothing but brilliant, bubbly smiles, as the tight muscles of their buttocks are being surveyed, ogled, and devoured by the lustful glances of strange men. This could be you one day, the embodiment of sexuality, a free-for-all, getting paid to serve in more ways than one. You will not only be able to serve yourself, earning enough money to pay your way through law school or an MBA, but you will also be serving man-kind, for your breasts, your ass, your sultry, welcoming smile will also earn you, not just one, but many erections. And when these men go home, know that they are jerking off to the memory of your face, your body, having memorized the sinewy moves of your curves, the beads of sweat shimmering on your skin, the smell of your fragrance when you leaned towards them to collect your tip. You supplied them with pleasure, and you must be proud of it. It will be your greatest achievement in life – more so than your law degree or your PhD in Literature.

Yes, this is what I want my girl to learn about womanhood, girlhood, and her body — that it is for sale. It can be sold, purchased, traded, and compromised. If she uses it as the means to an end, she can get A’s in school, promotions at work, and an increase in her salary. She doesn’t need brains and hard work – her sex is her commodity. It will earn her respect, great professional achievements, and personal satisfaction. This is Orange Pride, and girls should not be ashamed to embrace their sexiness, let alone their blossoming sexuality, for working at Hooters will afford them equality in life and educational opportunities they could not gain by working at McDonald’s, Macy’s, or Barnes and Nobles. The patrons of these establishments don’t tip based on the breast sizes of their servers, or the measurable masculine pleasure that is derived from the sex appeal of said server.

In 2005, the 68-year-old Chairman of Hooters, Inc., Robert H. Brooks, boasted that Hooters earned $834 million, with over 50 million customers (Dean Foust, BusinessWeek), including the minister from his Episcopal church, to whom he donates money. Brooks is a church man, and he has no problems with heading a business that exploits young girls, most of whom are in their early to mid twenties. But then again, neither does his minister or his church. It must be because Hooters is a family restaurant. After all, as the commercial implies, mothers take their daughters there, and fathers take their sons there. It is a family establishment that serves beer, spicy wings, burgers, and delightful girls to gaze upon. Let’s look past the ‘required’ uniform of tight orange shorts that hardly conceal the curvature of youthful buttocks, or the tight, low cut t-shirts that reveal “hooter” cleavage and hardened nipples, along with flat and bare midriffs. Let’s look past the fact that the servers are only females under the age of thirty. And let’s look at what it really is: just another bimbo-bunny land. A brothel that sells sex, young and sweet, under the guise of burgers and wings. These girls don’t have sex with their customers, but they sure reek of it.

Robert H. Brooks, who bragged that he wanted to establish a new generation of Playboy Bunnies with the Hooters girls, and present day CEO Coby Brooks, who created Orange Pride as a result of his appearance in the show ‘Undercover Boss’, want us to believe that “Hooters does not exploit women…but rather offers an employment opportunity with numerous benefits.” Really, Brooks? And did you ever wear tight shorts and a low cut shirt to work? Did you have to dress provocatively to earn your college degrees or to even pay for your education? You’re a man; you didn’t have to. But you sure do know all about nepotism and sexism.

Maybe the girls that work for him are stupid, young vamps that allow these men, their employers and their clients, to devalue them, but I’m not that stupid. Brooks is just another pimp, except he wears a suit and hides behind titles, money, and power…not to mention a chain restaurant. But we all know what he really is: a low-life thug that makes millions of dollars from the oldest trick of the world, the exploitation of young, vapid, model-aspiring girls and the raw stench of their sex. I don’t care how many of them earned college degrees — the fact that they earned them by selling themselves diminishes their power, their value. And they are no more role models to our daughters than the Brooks men are role models for our sons.

When I was in College, I worked two jobs to support my education. One of them was in a jean store inside the Queens Center Mall in New York. One night, I had a date with a Greek boy, so I dressed up for work because I was going dancing with him afterward. I wore a black miniskirt, a red frilly shirt, and high heels – and everyone who knows me knows I don’t dress like this anymore. That night was my last. My supervisor placed me in front of the store, to watch out for sneaky thieves, he told me. I was eighteen, and it didn’t take me long enough to figure out that I wasn’t placed there to ward off degenerates, (I was 5’1 and weighed less than 105 pounds), but to bring in “clients” – I was the bait. And after receiving a few intense sexual remarks made to me by young male customers that kept gazing at my butt with blatant appreciation, I never felt dirtier. I had other jobs thereafter in which I was sexually harassed, propositioned, and devalued by my bosses. These men are all over the place, usually with wives and kids at home. But I didn’t stay, and I most certainly didn’t take pride in their offensive behavior. I did not rely on feminine wiles or flirtations to get ahead or to get a raise. I had common sense and self-respect. And I had a mother that taught me the value and personal power of academic achievement and hard work. Where are the parents of these girls? Where is the common sense, the self-respect?

Young girls need to empower themselves, because the men that control the companies that provide such great ‘employment opportunities’ will stop at nothing to exploit them. Girls need to start using their brains, their God-given potential as intelligent beings, because they are not mere sex toys, or poster girls for masculine gratification. Foreign male gazes that reek with lust should not empower them, and jobs that offer quick cash and greater tips based on how sexually appealing these girls are and how many men they bring in to the establishment should not satisfy them, should not determine their worth. These jobs should repel them; they should repel all of us; they should piss us off enough to incite rebellious acts of boycotting and picketing.

I have boycotted, and I have picketed. The greatest feeling I had in my youth was to watch men sink into their seats on a bus full of peeping toms and horny devils about to enter booby joints that I picketed for fun, for a statement, for my small effort in changing the way women are supplied to men as if they are objects, non-entities. And as these men scurried back into hiding, they did so with shame. They should be ashamed – women gave birth to them – they owe the privilege of living to them.

Women provide life – we should be honored, not degraded and exploited.

Copyright© 2010 by Marina DelVecchio. All Rights Reserved.

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