Iocaste, guest-blogging over at Lawyers, Guns and Money while Scott swans around Paris, has a terrific post up about a recent 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming a lower-court opinion declining to extend trade-dress protection to the Hooters Girls because they’re functional, not symbolic.
What that means, essentially, is that they’re the product. Hooters is selling sexual titillation, not crummy food.
Read the whole thing.
Similar Posts:
- Guns, Race and Abortion by Jill March 8, 2010
- Gun Proponents Take Aim at Domestic Violence Survivors by Jill June 30, 2010
- “This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women’s place… under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited.” by Jill August 7, 2007
- I Finally Met Jill! by zuzu May 21, 2006
This came up back when whichever group it was sued to let men be Hooter’s waitors. Hooter’s came back with our marketing theme is female sexulaity, so we are not practicing sex discrimination.
Fine. Let their marketing theme be female sexuality and let the waitress be the product. Now zone them out of the malls and over next to the other fine purveyors of female sexuality, aka titty bars. The difference is one of degree, not of nature.
Yep. And that’s exactly what came back to bite them when they tried to claim that the waitresses’ appearance was just symbolic.
The things that really weirds me out about Hooter’s is that they hire minors (female of course). I know a couple neighbor girls here in Virginia that are 15 and work there. One started when she was 14. Which I suppose met child labor law requirements here. Granted, the youngun’s aren’t utilized as waitresses, they are relegated to hostess duty (with slightly less skimpy outfits–short sleeves vs. tank tops). Still, as the front line employees they tell me they get a lot of gawking from customers coming in to partake of the “theme”. Just doesn’t seem right to me. So I guess I’ll pass on the substandard wings, but I’m sure I’m hardly their target market anyhow.
What weirds me out, in addition to that, is the way Hooters tries to market itself as a “family” place.
I thought everyone justs goes there for the wings!
:::eye roll:::
I just read Hooters for the articles.