The Hooters “Breastaurant” chain continues burgeoning globally, getting bigger and bigger and bigger, refusing to rest until the entire world is culturally Floridian. It recently opened its first UK branch in Nottingham, and has plans to implant 36 more locations in the UK by 2012, according to this human interest article in the Guardian.
The emergence of Hooters on their jolly old island has outraged feminists, family advocates, and cultural snobs alike, all who seek to stop the development of Hooters. One crusader asks “Without the sexualised waiters and the soft porn and sport on display, what would men go for?” Another says “The very fact that they are called Hooters speaks for itself.” The company plans to use those denouncements to pad out its UK advertising campaign.
Other detractors point to the sexual harassment that Hooters girls face in the workplace, although a waitress in the article seems more offended by her customers’ triteness: “Most men comment on the ‘lovely jugs’ when I carry pitchers to their tables. I just wish they would come up with something original.” Exactly what stellar wit can a Hooters girl hope to hear? “Mmmm, buds and suds!” Or “Do you have milk shakes?” Or “Wow, thingamajigs.”
The anti-Hooters campaigners are extremely vocal and active about their concerns that the waitresses in low-cut shirts will promote “loutish, sexist and threatening behaviour” in society at large. A predictable and fair argument, but ineffective. To turn men off to Hooters, they should rally against the decline of British pub culture, and take a chance that pride in cultural preservation can trump man’s natural love for boobies.
