Category: culture wars

Zohran Mamdani and the case for government-run brothels in New York

A wise man once said, “Try everything once, except for Russian roulette, incest, and residing in New York City.”

I live just outside Cincinnati, Ohio, about 640 miles from the Big Rotten Apple, and I don’t intend to go one mile closer.

(Note: I did live in Chicago, another chaotic big city, in the early 1990s. I lasted three months before I pulled the plug. So big-city living is definitely not for me.)

Therefore, the question of who is going to be the next Mayor of New York City falls under the category of “problems that don’t directly concern me”.

But I’m having fun watching the misguided enthusiasm and general alarm surrounding Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, who has become a parasitic presence in the Democratic Party.

(Ever notice that Democratic Socialists of America candidates never want to run as Democratic Socialists of America candidates? That’s because they know, full well, that a candidate bearing the DSA label wouldn’t be elected dog catcher.)

Fox News, et al are having a field day calling Zohran Mamdani a “Muslim socialist”. But hey, the guy is a Muslim, and he is a socialist. When someone refers to me as a 56-year-old bald man, I don’t necessarily like that, but I can’t accuse them of lying, either.

Among Mamdani’s brilliant ideas is the establishment of government-run grocery stores. That particular brain fart is literally plagiarized from the Soviet Union.

(Why not reduce taxes and crime instead, so that private-sector grocery chains will have more of an incentive to locate stores in New York City?

Why? Because that would involve common sense, a commodity in which Zohran Mamdani is sorely lacking.)

Mamdani has also gone on record supporting the legalization of prostitution. While I’m not here to cheerlead for the World’s Oldest Profession, I’ve never understood the logic of telling a woman that she is free to sleep with anyone she wants, except for the odd man who happens to hand her a wad of cash. A blanket ban on sex work defies both logic and personal autonomy.

That said, one imagines that in Zohran Mamdani’s New York, not even the most in-demand call girls would be able to save much money, once they’ve paid all their taxes.

I would also have to ask: will the legal sex workers be restricted to government-run brothels? That would make just as much sense as Mamdani’s government-run grocery idea.

-ET

Angel: scandalous action films of the 1980s

The 1980s have acquired a reputation for being hopelessly conservative, fuddy-duddy times. On the contrary, many of the movies, songs, and jokes that were commonplace back then wouldn’t pass muster in today’s environment.

Consider Exhibit A: the Angel series of thriller films. The tagline of the initial 1984 movie was:

“High school honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night.”

The movie starred Donna Wilkes (then in her twenties) as the 15-year-old Molly Stewart, a prep school honor student who, for whatever reason, moonlights as a sex worker each night. And of course, she solves a crime or two along the way, as well!

Now, I’m not saying this is a laudable film concept. But people barely batted an eye at it in the 1980s. If such a film were released today, social conservatives on the right would go ballistic. (Jesse Watters and the rest of the Fox News crew would have a field day.) On the dour, humorous left, meanwhile, there would be wailing and shrieking about “exploitation”.

To be sure, there was an element of exploitation in the movie. (This is why a twenty-something actress was cast in the lead role.) But in the 1980s, most folks seemed capable of realizing that a movie was just a movie.

I was fifteen when Angel came out. I never saw the movie, but it was heavily advertised. Many people did see the film, apparently. There were two sequels: Avenging Angel (1985) and Angel III: the Final Chapter (1988).

-ET

Get Angel (1984) on Amazon

A family-friendly version of Hooters?

The post-COVID era has been tough for all restaurant chains, but for some more than others. In February we learned that Hooter’s was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. To avoid that, the company’s corporate owners are attempting to refurbish the brand with a more-family friendly image. They are calling this, whimsically, the “re-Hooterization”.

Hooters was founded in April 1983. The business model was simple: somewhat overpriced, okay food, served by winsome young ladies in short-shorts and form-fitting tops.

The clientele in 1983 would have been mostly Boomer men, who were then entering early middle age. The early 1980s was an era of socially conservative backlash. The Moral Majority was campaigning to ban girly magazines from convenience stores—often with success. There was no internet. In that environment, the bar for titillation was set decidedly low.

I was a freshman in high school in April 1983. As a 14-year-old boy, I would have been all over the idea of going to Hooters; but there was even less titillation in my part of the world, the conservative suburbs of Cincinnati.

About 20 years later, circa 2003, I did have lunch at a Hooters with a group of [male] work colleagues. I recall the waitress doing her best to get with the program: she made a point of sitting down beside each of us as we selected an item from the limited and overpriced menu. I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich. It came out dry and rubbery, as if it had been microwaved. That was my first and last experience with Hooters as an adult.

Regular readers of this blog will know that political correctness for the sake of political correctness is not my thing. Nevertheless, even I can recognize that a business model based on young women in skimpy attire has its limits. I like attractive women as much as the next guy, but when it comes to lunch, I’m much more easily sold on the quality of the steak, and the size and savoriness of the baked potatoes.

But what about this plan to rebrand Hooters as “family friendly”? I’ve heard reports (no doubt fed to the media by the company’s corporate owners) about an increase in Hooters diners with children. Coloring books available for the kids! (Yes, really.) Is Hooters now trying to compete with Chuck E. Cheese?

Here’s the question: once you take away the mildly prurient appeal of Hooters, what does the chain really have going for it? A family-friendly version of Hooters strikes me as an oxymoron, the equivalent of a vegetarian steakhouse, or a fast food restaurant with the motto, “We take our time while preparing your meal!”

We could have a spirited debate about whether or not Hooters was ever such a great idea to begin with, or whether such a concept has a place in the twenty-first century, which is simultaneously uptight about everything, and saturated with porn.

But who is the target market of a “family-friendly” version of Hooters? And why should anyone not take their family to Texas Roadhouse or Applebees instead?

-ET