Flirting with Capital at Hooters

 

Hooters is the most common and well-known chain of “breastaurants:” restaurants that sexualize their servers to the point of entertainment. Although the rise of the MeToo movement has somewhat decreased the popularity of these restaurants, they still exist as popular locations today. In the image above, it is clear that the uniforms servers must wear in these restaurants are tight-fitting and revealing. Only women are hired and seen as servers, making it clear that it is female objectification that these restaurants are selling. 

Like the prostitutes studied in Huang’s “Flirting with Capital,” the servers at restaurants like Hooters must sell themselves as subservient and feminine to properly do their jobs. Straight men are the target audience for restaurants like these and thus must be catered to. In the above image, all four women are holding food to serve, but they are, perhaps unnaturally, holding it below their breasts. Additionally, the camera is positioned so that the women’s breasts are in the middle of the advertisement, not the food that is actually being served. In this advertisement, the food they are selling is not the focus; it is the women's bodies serving it. With the outfits that women in the restaurant are made to wear, they have no choice but to highlight their femininity as they work. It is known anecdotally that women in these restaurants are not hired unless their body is deemed good enough to fit the image of the chain, this call often being made by male superiors. Additionally, the bluntness of the chain’s sexual image often leads to customers believing they can harass servers with sexual jokes or comments. Like in Flirting with Capital, servers at Hooters must play into the stereotypes that have been attached to them in order to sell more and make better tips. 

Hoang, Kimberly Kay. “Flirting with Capital.” Social Problems, vol. 61, no. 4, 2014, pp. 507–529., https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2014.12303. 

The Week Staff. “The 'breastaurant' boom: Why Hooters knockoffs are thriving.” The Week, 2015, https://theweek.com/articles/474341/breastaurant-boom-why-hooters-knockoffs-are-thriving.