Hooters isn’t the issue at hand For...

Hooters isn’t the issue at hand

For this filmmaker, I must confess that I love Burbank. It’s

classy, organic, and it has impossibly kept a conservative- down-home

feeling to it unlike any neighboring city, even Glendale. So,

although I don’t live in Burbank, I’m working, shooting, and most

importantly eating here every week. I’ve been following the Hooters

thread in the Mailbag for some weeks now, and I thought I’d give an

“outsider’s” perspective. Have I been to Hooters? Of course. Do I

have a problem with it? No. As far as my view of their food, while

their wings are OK, they’re not worth all the printed civil unrest

that has been going on ... unless it reveals a more insidious

problem. I believe it has.

I agree with Elizabeth Warner Frank that it is terribly

provocative that Hooters will be placed in an out-of-the-way location

in Burbank. I also think that Cherrie Sprosty expounded well the

issue of the venue being placed next to our impressionable and

already oversexed youth. But the issue here is not one of whether

Hooters is the problem. Throughout this nation, no one disagrees that

Hooters stands for what is racy, male demographic, and exploitative.

Anyone that thinks differently need only take a cursory glance at

their logo. Hooters is about [breasts]. Do I have a problem with

that? No. If you do, please recall the text of the 1st Amendment.

No, the problem I have is not whether Hooters is in itself good or

bad. Rather, I take issue with how a good percentage of locals in a

well-respected conservative city can morally justify with absolute

brazenness a large eyesore in their city’s branding. They speak of

how Hooters will fiscally benefit the city, how Hooters can bring

restaurant-goers from other cities back to Burbank, how Hooters will

have no adverse effect on the moral fabric of the city. It almost

would seem like Hooters is to become the Medina by which the social

structure of this town can be redeemed ... perhaps the liberal social

structure.

In my hometown of Fullerton behind the “Orange Curtain,” we had a

Texas Loosey’s. The town was in an uproar over it. Talk about

conservative! The city, however, was undaunted by its opening. Only

the patrons from the nearby commuter university frequented it. Soon,

the establishment closed. The city’s “feel,” however, never changed.

What I have been reading for the past few weeks frightens me. Ed

Nuhfer’s inflammatory comment, “I’ll be there on opening day with my

family” is an anathema describing a family proudly supporting an

institution that stands for anti-family. In fact, this sort of

illogic reveals that perhaps those so adamant about having a Hooters

in Burbank have some other agenda ... an agenda perhaps of a freer

morality, increased tolerance and more liberal views of censorship

and sexuality. Whether right or wrong, it is this naive pride that

unravels the very fabric of down-home cities’ appeal ... the very

bedrock of what many consider Burbank to be built upon.

You see, it’s the people that make a city, not its establishments,

and this thread has shown me a frightening trend in the views of the

educated and vocal of Burbank. If Hooters must open in Burbank, let

it. Please don’t let the good nature of Burbank open to Hooters.

Wings aren’t worth it.

Mark Edward Lewis

Montebello