Sheila A-Stray's Redheaded Ramblings

After the sordidness of the whole JonBenet thing, it is impossible to comprehend how any corporate entity think it would be a good idea to host such an event. Even if nobody in attendance is an actual, literal child molester, those "pageants" are still thoroughly creepy.

There was an HBO documentary, following one of those little pageant girls around and it was one of THE. MOST. HEARTBREAKING. things I have EVER seen.

Looking at the signature at Michele's place, I was thinking, how cool would it be to have a job title like "Marketing Director for Hooters of America Inc."?

Imagine the business cards.

Hooters should have simply given up and shut down when political correctness became the law in this country. All they are now are targets for the legions of professional victims. It was a great place when there were two of them - Clearwater and Mandarin. Once they expanded beyond that, the quality went way downhill, and now to be seen even driving by one is to invite the wrath of the political correctness police.

I really wish I lived in a different universe.

CW .. I don't give a hoot about Hooters. I have had girlfriends who worked there. I don't think this is about that, though.

I'm wondering if you read the original post, below. This isn't some "Hooters is evil" issue - this is an issue of holding a "Little Miss Hooters" contest, for girls 5 and under and advertising it.

Here's what started it all.
http://www.sekimori.org/archives/003166.php

So this isn't an issue of the PC police over-reacting, or humorless feminists getting up in arms about the waitress outfits.

Or am I misreading your point?

I don't know that I understand what the issue is either. The complaint is against having a "beauty pageant", or whatever it is, at Hooters? And because Hooters is an evil exploiter of women, any contest for children at Hooters is automatically sexual exploitation of children? Is that correct? As opposed to other children's beauty pageants, where very small children of are made up to look like sexed-up adults, which has always seemed to me to be more than a little pornographic and disgusting?

If Hooters is guilty of sexual "objectification" of children, then every children's beauty pageant in the universe is at least equally - probably much more - guilty. Where is the outrage at them?

My point is that Hooters should have closed up shop and moved to Thailand or something, rather than continue to exist as a target for Americans who are looking for a way to get pissed off about anything which does not adequately conform to politically correct agenda.

My attitude is why give the political correctness police a target when you know anything and everything you do is going to be be viewed in the worst possible way?

In comparison to most of what I see, on TV, in the movies, in the news media, or anywhere else for that matter, Hooters is pretty mild and innocent. But that doesn't matter - because they are considered "politically incorrect", the standards that apply to them are different.

I think you are missing my point, CW. I have made it clear, perfectly, that I do not think Hooters is an "evil exploiter" of women. People flew off the handle over at Michele's too, but I don't think they even read Sekimori's original post - and assumed that ... it was some criticism of Hooters, because Hooters is HOOTERS, and therefore evil. That is not the point.

And yes, I think the JonBenet-esque beauty pageants are horrific (did you read my other comment about the HBO documentary?) So ... what ... that means we just shouldn't be shocked and outraged - because it's happening all over?

I didn't post this to get into some battle about political correctness. Hooters can do whatever it wants with its waitresses, and the waitresses who work there are happy to work there. That's not the issue.

Putting little girls into the Hooters costume, and then advertising it on their billboard, is just wrong.

Have to agree with CW on this one, sounds more like a crusade than a valid concern about child exploitation.

Okay, someone organized a contest with kids dressing up in Hooters costumes. This is different than organizing something similar with, say, bathing suits... how exactly? I don't see people up in arms when that happens, yet because it's Hooters, it's automagically sexual rather than cute?

Yeah, sure. The smug overtones of we-are-blog-hear-us-roar after the thing was cancelled only reaffirms my belief that this had little to do with protecting kids.

I don't suppose anyone actually asked the kids or their parents if they thought anything inappropriate was going on? No? I thought not.