TV satire maiden America

To the untrained eye, the Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant is an American ladies' beauty competition that has something to do with ladies' bosoms.

A lot to do with ladies' bosoms, actually.

I watched it for some time, and saw many of them in a variety of settings.

But it takes an artist and art connoisseur - and I won't slip into some sort of false modesty here and pretend I am otherwise - to see it for what it really is.

The connoisseur is not distracted by the 100 ladies and their 200 individual ladies' breasts; instead he sees the biting satire on the American way implicit in this stunning example of performance art.

The artists behind this clever ruse give clues to their intention.

In a fit of irony, they chose Dan Cortese, whom you will not remember from bit parts in Melrose Place, or his work in Burger King's "Your Way, Right Away" advertising campaign, as emcee.

The judges have obviously made-up names like Leeann Tweeden, and Bonnie-Jill Laflin.

But there is a moment 20 minutes into the show - or perhaps 85 bosoms into the show - that gives the game away.

American politician Julia Hurley, a Republican in the Tennessee House of Representatives, strides on to the stage.

Hurley is a former Hooters girl, who before entering politics, worked for the restaurant chain that uses a slang term for breasts for its name, and employs young females of a certain shape, dressed in revealing outfits, to attract custom.

As a huge US flag flutters in slow motion behind her, Cortese asks what advice she would give the girls waiting to go on stage.

She replies: "Keep your faith in God, stay positive at all times, and if a door closes in your face, make sure you see that open window, and jump through it for your best opportunity.

"And always, stay Hooterrific!"

God, Government, the power of positive thinking, and the use of ladies' bosoms to sell food: those are the issues this performance art piece deconstructs.

So; here is an art review for the show.

The Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant has this voluble cineaste at his most voluble, as he broadcasts news of televisual performance art that never slides into synopsis, but through masterful narrative detail provides the most expert, but tacit analysis.

Historically, performance art is resistant to dramaturgical readings, and Hooters resists the appeal of theatrical tropes to deliver the audience a cutting ridicule of American society by illuminating its reliance on the voluptuosity of youthful splendour to sell an obese country more of what it doesn't need.

Oh, the irony.

Thank you.

 

• The art piece screens on the Box channel, this Friday at 7.30pm.

 

 

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