It is 11:37 a.m. in the Hooters parking lot, and the festivities
have already begun. Beneath a be-Hootered banner, two men play
“Crocodile Rock” on dueling pianos. The pianos, however, are not
pianos. Instead, two electric keyboards have been implanted in black
piano-shaped boxes. If dueling pianos can be said to become “more
depressing,” this has occurred. To the right of the dueling electric
piano-shaped boxes is a rectangular fenced-in pen, in which 50 or so
Hooters girls are milling about in their traditional orange baby-shorts
and white Skechers and diarrhea-
colored panty hose. Close
quarters. It is hot outside. The air smells of manure.
This is no ordinary Hooters franchise—it is a Hooters
casino, one of only three in the known world1 (if a Hooters
restaurant can be said to become “more depressing,” this has
occurred).2 Prior to its Hooterizing, the space already housed a
casino. That casino was called Rascals. Rascals is dead now. Hooters
lives. We have come to the grand opening of the Hooters of South
Park—a semi-industrial, working-class neighborhood south of
Seattle, most recently famous for a horrific murder—to witness a
fat man cut a symbolic ribbon with a pair of oversize novelty scissors.
Also, we will eat wings.
Also, die a little inside.
I know Hooters is nothing new. I’m sure feminists have been pitching
fits about it since the first one opened in Buttfuck, Florida, in 1983.
But Hooters is new to me. I managed to avoid Hooters for the
first 27 years of my life—much as I avoided strip clubs and other
social transactions geared toward the male boner—and I was not, I
discovered, quite ready for Hooters.
After a few minutes, a handler lets some of the Hooters girls out of
their pen, and they receive Hula-
hoops. We (journalists, family
members, Rascals regulars in mourning) sit in folding chairs and watch
as the girls gyrate to “Don’t Stop Believin'” while the dueling
pianists offer commentary on their bodies and gyrations. “Not only do
they do that,” one of the pianists leers, “later, they will
serve you all food.” He transitions seamlessly into “Summer of ’69.”
The girls wiggle and bounce in the manure-scented parking lot. “Those
were the best days of my life…” The aforementioned fat man comes out
and makes a speech about how working at Hooters is “empowering.”3 I
sigh forever.
We enter the restaurant,4 seat ourselves in a booth, and meet our
waitress, a truly sweet young lady who, in the spirit of Hooters Family
Restaurants, I’m going to go ahead and call Professor Boobies. She is
nervous. Clearly, she has been
instructed to flirt with us. “So
have you all eaten at Hooters restaurants before?” Professor Boobies
asks, looking around the table expectantly. “Yes.”5 “Yes.” “Yes.” “No.”
I have not. I am the only one. “Oooooooo!” she peeps. “Hooters
viiiiiiirgin!” I prepare to lose my Hooters virginity. I hope Hooters
will use a condom. “It’s nice outside, huh?” Professor Boobies asks.
“Yeah, it’s sunny!” we reply. “And in
September!” “It’s
almost October,” I remind her. “HALLOWEEEEEN!” she cries, clapping her
hands.
On the table are several copies of the September/October issue of
Hooters: The Magazine, Special 2009 Swimsuit Spectacular Issue.
The Hooters magazine breaks down as follows: 60 percent titties
(faux), 20 percent sports, 14 percent idiotic bullshit, 1 percent Ted
Nugent, and 5 percent extra titties (because, titties!). The back page
is an editorial called “A Separate Set of Rules!” by one I. J.
Rosenberg, who owns a “sports marketing company” in Atlanta. I. J.
Rosenberg believes that celebrities, or “‘special’ people,” get special
treatment, that they live by “a separate set of rules,” and that this
double standard has led our country into a “financial and moral
crisis.” I. J. Rosenberg cites many damning instances of celebrities
who “never really paid the price,” including Bill Clinton (“Clinton
lied to me, to you, and to the rest of the American people”), Ted
Kennedy (“Is he still a senator? He’s the epitome of ‘never goes
away'”—oops!), and O. J. Simpson (“For 12 years after being
acquitted for the murder of his ex-wife, The Juice walked the
streets”). I. J. Rosenberg demands justice. Exclamation point!
Of particular note in Hooters: The Magazine is the “JOKES”
page, which offers a quip about the terror of rectal thermometers
(that’s like gay buttsex, you know!); the story of “Joan, the rather
well-proportioned secretary” who didn’t realize she was lying naked on
a skylight; a handful of old-timey blond jokes; and a humorous exchange
between two hunters: “Hey, you almost hit my wife.” “Terribly sorry.
Have a shot at mine, over there.”
Periodically, waitresses come by and ask if we want them to sign our
magazines. “Yes?” we reply. “I’ll sign on the page number of how old I
am,” says Professor Boobies, “and don’t say 16!” Um, I wasn’t going to?
The owner of the franchise, a remarkably uncharismatic man in an orange
tie, comes by to say hello. I shake his hand much harder than is
necessary. “Our motto is: Every day we throw a party and you’re
invited,” he tells us, distracted (by boobies?). “We’re committed to
the growth of entertainment and excitement in the Seattle area.” Eye
contact is minimal.6
Finally, wings arrive. “Let me guess: Are you guys a spicy table or
a not-spicy table?” Professor Boobies asks. We wait for her to guess.
She doesn’t. “Spicy?” we say. “I knew it!” (Then why didn’t you guess?)
The wings are deep-fried, which I did not expect. Grease runs down my
chin. Professor Boobies’ acrylic nails make it difficult for her to
open the small, prepackaged tub of ranch dressing. One nail
accidentally pierces the foil, and she has to go in the back for help.
I dip the wing in the ranch. I feel fat and condescending.
In modern times, because of “society” and “women’s rights,” it’s not
acceptable to be (publicly) a person who likes their women dumb,
subservient, seminude, and kept in a pen. A lady isn’t just boobs with
legs, an animated sexy mannequin that brings you food, and you cannot
shoot a lady in the face just because she nags or won’t give you a
mouth-hug on your johnson (see: “JOKES” section, above). Anymore. We
did that already (see: caveman times through 1975). Except at
Hooooooters! Hooters is like a misogyny theme park, where intellectual
curiosity is kept to a minimum (see: I. J. Rosenberg), all the women
are girls, all the girls who weren’t born “empowered” have cut open
their chests and stuck plastic bags of goo in there and sewn ’em up
again in the name of making money and making men happy, and no one’s
shaming you into treating them like humans with brain-parts. You’re
paying for the privilege, after all. They have the right to vote, after
all (going on 100 years now! Girl power!). Jesus Christ. I’m raising my
daughters to be ugly.
It’s like—a friend pointed out later—if someone opened a
restaurant called Niggers, and the all-black waitstaff dressed like
slaves and step ‘n’ fetched you platters of watermelon, and when it was
your birthday they were all,
“Jump-down-turn-around-pick-a-bale-of-cotton!” and brought you a cake
in the shape of a bale of cotton. And racists could go! And indulge
their desire to be publicly racist under the guise of a fun-loving
theme restaurant! Niggers! It’s all in fun. It really is like
that.7
Eventually, when we can eat no more curly fries, the Hooters girls,
under the watchful eye of orange-tie-man, clap their hands and sing a
loud song. It is last call. Lunch is over. Some of the Hooters girls
seem happy; some don’t. It’s a job. They get to make some money. They
are pretty. Some of them have fake hair. Maybe they want more than
Hooters; maybe they don’t. Maybe it’s just a restaurant. We step
outside into the bright parking lot, hot in September. I’m glad I’m not
wearing panty hose. It smells like manure. 
*Footnotes
by Paul Constant
1. The others are in Las Vegas and Spokane. This month, Renton will
boast the world’s first Hooters restaurant and bowling alley.
2. Let’s visit with the devil’s advocate for a minute. Every job
waiting tables sucks. How is a job waiting tables at, say, the
Cheesecake Factory any better? You have to wear a silly, impractical
outfit (white jeans? In a kitchen?). You may not be objectified as
openly, but you still flirt for tips. And how about the poor, wretched
human beings at Cold Stone Creamery or Johnny Rockets, forced to sing
for their tips while wearing silly outfits? Is that somehow okay
because it’s not sexual? And Hooters waitresses probably make better
tips. One could argue that Hooters doesn’t create a problem, it just
capitalizes on it. We are America. We have capitalized on our problems
from the very beginning. At least some women are making more money off
of it now, right? Right?
3. The fat man also makes a speech about how he will protect the
Hooters brand. It’s unclear exactly what he’s going to protect Hooters
from—socialism?—but he made that vow, in front of
journalists and family members and the all-encompassing odor of shit.
So if something awful happens to the Hooters brand because of the
Hooters casino in South Park, we all will know who has failed in his
sacred calling.
4. To get into the restaurant, we have to walk through a gauntlet of
cheering Hooters girls. A reporter for some local publication or other,
a large, slovenly, doofy guy with a goatee, holds up his hands and
throws his chin in the air pridefully, accepting the applause like some
loose-fit-khaki-wearing potentate returning home from JCPenney with a
great bounty.
5. My previous trip to Hooters: On a business trip to Washington,
D.C., three middle-aged ladies thought it would be hee-larious to drag
their bookish young employee to a Hooters for a business lunch. I ate a
pale, gamy chicken sandwich, watched a Hooters waitress try to teach an
awestruck 3-year-old boy how to Hula-hoop (she was probably more
successful at creating a future panty-hose fetishist), and puked my
lunch back out on the side of NPR’s headquarters during the walk
back.
6. If you are embarrassed to be in a Hooters and you are a straight
man, eye contact is incredibly problematic. You don’t want to just
stare the waitress in the eye, because that seems to somehow proclaim
“I’m not staring at your tits” in a very blatant way. So you just have
to look at the tabletop, or some neon orange thing or another, or your
glistening food.
7. Okay, it’s not quite like that. But here’s the most
problematic thing about the Hooters brand: its positioning as a family
restaurant, built on family values. They encourage people to bring
their kids. They sell child-size Hooters T-shirts (one kid’s T-shirt
has handprints all over it, and it reads “Hooters Girls Can’t Keep
Their Hands Off Me”) and even Hooters bibs and onesies for infants. In
this way, it is more dishonest than, say, strip clubs or porn, which
are clearly for adults. Hooters avoids that kind of stigma in part
thanks to regular and publicized charitable donations—today’s
restaurant opening trumpeted a gift to a local cystic fibrosis
foundation and featured a heartfelt, and incredibly awkward, speech
about the horrible disease by the relative of a CF sufferer.
I once saw a guy bring his prom date to a Hooters. I’m all for teenage boys getting some titties in their face, but bringing your date there is beyond wrong. If some boy picked up my daughter for her prom and mentioned that their dinner would be Hooter wings, he’d be going alone.
“…if someone opened a restaurant called Niggers…”
Sad to say there used to be a chain of restaurants called “Sambo’s” that exploited the racist book “L’il Black Sambo.” They cleaned up their image in later years. I don’t know if they still exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo%27s_R…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC7Cc66DN…
Oh, and Kelly O, thanks for dehumanizing the waitress in your photo by cropping her face from your picture. Way to go! Did you bother to engage her in any sort of real conversation and possible learn something about her as a human being? Are you any better than the drooling troglodytes who see her only as a pair of tits with acyrlic nails?
Oops, my bad: I meant to address my second and third questions in post #5 to Lindy West.
I love you, Lindy West. This is a great article. Your point about opening a restaurant called “Niggers” and seeing how people respond is right on.
I hate this willful cluelessness that people have when discussing what constitutes misogyny. I also can’t stand the attitude that feminism is all about giving women choices, and therefore to question the choices or the larger issues surrounding the choices that they make is in itself sexist because their choices don’t affect us.
Like Paul said, Hooters didn’t create the issues, it’s just capitalizing on them, and women are making money, so what’s the problem? If you can’t figure it out, then you just aren’t trying. Substitute “Niggers” for “Hooters” and it’ll make more sense.
#5, the article is about how dehumanized the women who work at Hooters are paid to be, so the picture makes sense.
Why would Lindy try to engage a waitress in a “real conversation” when the woman’s trying to work? When you review a restaurant, you write about the waitstaff based on how they present themselves to you while waiting on you. Readers don’t need to know about anything other than how they’ll be treated when they go to the place, and she covered that.
Her last paragraph acknowledges that she has no idea what these women are really like or what they really want to do with their lives. She’s writing about what they are paid to act like. I think she made that obvious.
We get it. You don’t like Hooters. You are more intelligent, thoughtful, enlightened, then anyone who has ever worked, eaten or drank at Hooters. Congratulations. Guess what, you never have to go back nor do you have to give a second thought about anyone who CHOOSES to work or eat there. Some people like Hooters. Some women like having big fake tits and blonde hair and enjoy using them to make tips. Isn’t feminism about the choice to be able to do that? Get over yourself Lindy West, you are no more a feminist then a woman who highlights her hair and enlarges her breast then makes money serving mediocre wings.
Wow, great anticipation of the precise wording in @9, @7. And great article, Ms. West.
Lindy West, you should not be eating
Anti-intellectualism, institutional conformity, and over-cooking can kill even awesome things like Sex and Wings. News at 11.
But let’s make this positive:
Please recommend your favorite restaurants with smart, sexy staff and killer food!
Check page 72 of this week’s issue…oh wait, no wings.
This article makes me sad. Hooters makes me sad — sadder than a strip club, honestly. It’s not even the boobies; it’s the forced bonhomie.
It’s okay for Kelly O. to use a half naked dude, some cleavage, and a little pussy cat for last week’s issue? But boobs for wings is a sin!
HOOTERS is rotten, no doubt. But who cares? The Lust Lab is rotten, but who cares? Which has more potential to hurt the user of the service? Indigestion beats a nasty discharge anyday of the week!
Snobs. Fuckin’ snobs.
There is a reason we don’t see any of their faces.
Last year’s Stranger article about Hooters, which was written by a regular-type male who sincerely likes chicken wings and boobies:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/nothi…
Hey, I tried Hooters, and I’ve got something to say:
The wings are nasty. They’re overgreased and underflavored. They substitute ‘hot’ for ‘tasty’. Anything you have to dip into ranch dressing to make palatable is not good food.
The biggest travesty of Hooters is their food tastes gross and their drinks are overpriced. Yeah, newsflash, the uniforms and vibe of the place exploits women. It’s a gimmick and they are pretty up front about it, there has to be more important things in this world to be morally outraged about.
Yeah, men are pigs, deal with it ladies.
People are racist, oh well, who the fuck cares? Don’t be so uptight.
Everyone likes to make fun of faggy gays. Get over it.
Why expect anyone to change their views about anything ever?
This is a really poorly written and poorly edited article.
I can understand the dislike for Hooters, but this isn’t an intelligent discussion about it. It’s condescending and disrespectful towards the waitresses, and doesn’t accomplish anything other than showing how pretentious the author is.
Women who work at Hooters work at Hooters either because they enjoy it (all the more power to them), or because they need the job. Period.
If you want to write about the food, then write about the food. Write about the service, but calling your waitress “Professor Boobies” is just as misogynistic as anything else the author is griping about in this article.
It’s a fucking job. It pays the bills. And who the fuck are you to judge someone who wants to use their tits and ass to make some extra bread? You really have a problem with women playing into these outdated gender roles?
Let me get this straight…the Stranger is pro sex worker but anti-hooter girl? Fuck you.
All you have shown me Lindy, is that you are a smug self righteous hyporcrite.
Worst stranger article ever.
I consider your comment about black people in your section as racist and insensative.I will report you to whomever I will report you to to correct the situation.That was terriable and not true on the example you used about African Americans who are amazing by the way.
agreed 22.
this article makes no fuckin sense.
what its doing in the stranger or any other periodical for that matter, is…well…strange.
i also love titties.
God I am so sick of girls who think everything has to be about THEM. Hooters isn’t for women – especially they type that feels they are dying inside just because they see men in a titty restaurant enjoying themselves. Why does every single business on the face of the earth have to cater to women? Why can’t there just be a place where guys can go and not worry what the little missus is going to think? Get over yourself, Lindy. Hooters was never meant to be a place for you.
I think lindy needs a pint of hagen daas to make her feel better about herself.
Seriously, if hooters is that upsetting, watch where you get your coffee in the morning. Some places have girls in BIKINIS.
#1, Wing Dome is a great place for wings if you’re looking for a sit-down place, for delivery Wing Zone owns, much better quality than Hooters and no breading to soak up grease.
Also looks like Lindy wants to take over the resident Stranger intolerable shrill feminist role abdicated by Erica Barnett
Lindy, I am glad that you are outspoken about the unbearable smugness and sexism of Hooters, and I am totally with you on the analogy it bears to racism. What is even more infuriating is that calling the franchise (and its patrons) out on this is considered being “shrill” or “uptight” by the readers. Why can’t women just “relax”? Why can’t those black people just “relax”? Any sort of semi-intelligent, articulate and (though this might be the Achilles’ heel I am still glad of it) emotionally forthright pronunciation against such blatant exploitation is dismissed by the masses (that’s US, people) as snobbish or elitist. Where are we going? There is a reason to take this shit seriously. I recently taught college freshmen (at an Ivy League School, no less) and was astonished to see the amount of internalized sexism they exhibited. There has been a serious regression in the struggle for women’s equality, coupled with a cultural retardation of which Hooters is not a reason but an example– one that makes a nice profit for its perpetrators. It truly makes me wait in dreaded anticipation for a future like the one depicted in Idiocracy.
@29: You get the mushroom (or whatever the SLOG award is for best comment). Lindy: good story!
The extremity of some of the comments proves Lindy’s point further. People get overly defensive when someone calls out what is obvious and blatant sexism. It’s the feminist as the “f-word”. It’s not hip to be a feminist, we all know that, but why do you think that is? Shrill? C’mon. She makes a valid point in a thoughtful way, so she’s shrill and uptight and needs to just get over it? Because that’s how women have come as far as they have, by shutting up and “relaxing”. I understand disagreeing, but people do so with such vehemence and at times cruelty that it’s pretty obvious where it’s coming from. And we all know it’s not just about sex or what’s sexy. Blonde jokes, killing your nagging wife jokes, etc – that’s not about sex.
That article made me sad to be a Progressive, because I’m sure that the author considers herself to be one as well. Holy cow. I think every single sentence had some pretentiousness built in to it. Get the fuck over yourself.
@33 I would love to hear someone from the Stranger explain why everyone else in the flesh trade gets a free pass, but somehow the hooters girls are deemed to be unacceptable stereotypes.
How is this different? Is it the blond hair and fake fingernails? Or due you take issue because the hooter girls are selling a brand of sex that is geared towards vanilla white males from the suburbs?
This is a response to footnote #7: Hooters is not a “family restaurant” because it serves beer. The term “family restaurant” was invented by places like Country Kitchen to differentiate themselves from bars that served similar food, and to attract christian patrons. Hooters may try to lighten its strp-club image by giving to charity, but it cannot claim to be a “family restaurant.”
Um, also: bla bla fucking bla.
Whatever, who cares about Hooters? The article was entertaining, and the read was like a Kurt Vonnegut excerpt.
And furthermnore: I suspect that if there were a bar/restaurant called Cucumbers that had beefcakey, scantily-clad waiters who flirted with all the chicks and gay dudes, the Stranger would probably give it an award for being the awesomest place on Earth. Rightfully so, maybe. Just sayin.
Why is the choice that some women are making to work at Hooters not really their choice? There are other places where good looking women can get jobs as wait staff. Tips at Hooters tend to be higher because men often think with their crotches.
We could just as accurately frame this as a bunch of women exploiting easily led men by separating the men from their ability to think rationally-since we all know that if you shove some tits in a guys face he become incapable of thought.
Ms. West has failed to show how this chain of restaurants damages society or its employees. And the analogy of “niggers” is a strawman. If a bunch of black folks opened a restaurant with that name it would be hailed as taboo breaking boldness. Especially if the staff was white folks in blackface.
And what about the possibility of lesbian customers at Hooters?
It’s just a shitty restaurant chain. Their food is terrible, boobs or not.
Fuckin relax, people.
“And what about the possibility of lesbian customers at Hooters? “
Speaking only for myself, not my scene. BTDT since I was told the wings were so good. (They’re not very good. The beer was fine but you have to work to mess up beer.) Hooters waitresses don’t seem to spend their flirty tactics on women. (At a guess, female customers make them a bit weirded out, just as male customers would be out of place at a strip club with male dancers catering to the straight female crowd.)
I found that chatting up the waitress is a bit like talking to a peppy, pretty kindergarten teacher in orange shorts.
please do not compare this to kurt vonnegut. please.
@ 4:
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/links/chic…
wing dome has the best wings, for anybody who needs somewhere else to get some wings.
Jesus F-N Christ! meow! it’s a restaurant ,who cares how they serve their food, it makes money, people go there, and your a PUSSY who just doesn’t like it, so what! get over it!
Hooters is for sure crass, no argument there but I’m surprised no one here is calling bullshit on the rather over-the-top racism analogy in this article. So here it is – bullshit! Roughly the equivalent of shrieking Hitler! at every vaguely authoritarian (or black socialist) politician one has an issue with.
Lindy West once again proves that she is the worst writer in the Stranger’s satchel, another article that does nothing, goes nowhere, and only proves that the writer exaggerates more than a 12 year old girl writing in her diary about the boy that looked her way in science class, lame.
Wing Dome my ass.
Cook your own damn wings. It’s so easy you can even do it while blind drunk. Use habaneros in the sauce and you’ll be shittin fire for a week.
As Martha says, “It’s a good thing.”
Ick! You just put words to my whole disgust with that chain. TYVM…and visit my blog–great sample of an empowered female psyche.
Again, I can’t thank you too much for putting words to my disgust.
I LIKE the wings at Hooters (I also like the fried shrimp). It’s greasy and deep fried, but that’s the way I like it. I find the cheery sing-song atmosphere no more or less annoying than that at a TGIFridays or similar chain restaurant (which is to say, “pretty fucking annoying”) but I likewise know what I’m getting into when I walk through the door.
I’m also a chick who used to host radio events at Hooters in the Midwest once a week. And every Wednesday after our “10 cent wing, 5 dollar pitcher” nights, my co-workers and I would hit one of the local strip clubs.
I never thought I was better than the women serving me wings or lap dances simply because I had more clothes on than they did. Nor did I pity them, because that would have been equally insulting and condescending. I enjoyed the work they did, and tipped accordingly.
I usually like Lindy’s writing, but I think a situation like this (or the strip club buffet article) where she’s going in with a lot of preconceived notions is kind of a dead end. She knows she’s not going to enjoy herself “because women are being exploited” and she proves herself right every time.
It’s like going to the Playboy mansion and being upset that some women really like being naked in public. Some enjoy it, some might only do it because there’s a market for it, but that’s still their choice. Just because it feeds a market you’re uncomfortable with doesn’t make it wrong or “lesser” than any other job options.
The best part of this whole thing is the Hump 5 ad next to the article.
Oh the irony!
People are funny.
The best part of this whole thing is the Hump 5 display ad next to the article.
Oh, the irony!
People are funny.
@38, God Am I waiting for this…This town needs it!!
This article is quite excellent. It reminds me of a somewhat less erudite and somewhat more foul-mouthed version of DFW’s “Consider the Lobster.”
@46, you can certainly argue the extent of the validity of the analogy, but it’s hardly screaming Hitler. Women have been (and still are) murdered and raped and excluded from the political system because they are female.
The comments about how this article is inconsistent with the Stranger’s enthusiasm for sexwork raise an interesting point. Maybe the reason why Hooters seems pernicious is because its employees aren’t its entrepreneurs (hence don’t have as much agency over their profession), which seems to be the flavor of sex-work most feminists support (if they support any). Or maybe it is because a $300/hour dominatrix is white collar work, while a $10/hour hooters waitress is blue collar work?