Beautiful Women Eat for Free at Fast Food Restaurant

[The Straight Story]

They say there's no such thing as a free meal but, if you're beautiful, you can eat for free at this Brazilian chain of fast food restaurants.

It may sound like an offensive concept at first, but it's actually quite the opposite. The restaurant Spoleto told every female customer she didn't have to pay for her meal as long as she could affirmatively answer the question, "Are you beautiful?"

The customers were handed mirrors by cashiers who hoped every woman would admit to her beauty — serving as a self-esteem booster for the day. The gimmick was the restaurant's way of celebrating International Women's Day on March 8, but the ad that accompanied it was only recently posted to YouTube.

The restaurant's experiment is part of a recent trend of businesses engaging with female empowerment as a form of advertising. In April, Dove released a "Real Beauty" campaign that asked women to describe themselves to a forensic artist who sketched them. The women then compared the sketches with those inspired by other people's descriptions of them. The inspiring ad blew up on the Internet, becoming the most watched ad ever.

http://mashable.com/2013/05/31/fast-food-restaurant-beautiful-women/

[zappaman]

1. Seems a bit sexist and exclusionary.

Nothing for men?

[tinrobot]

17. Perhaps on International Men's Day...

...if there is one.

[BainsBane]

2. Brazilians appreciate women

The idea that every woman is beautiful fits with my own experience in Brazil. They really seem to like women. They don't hold them to idealized media expectations of beauty. You rarely hear Brazilian men refer to media figures when talking about attractive women. They like the women they see around them. As a result, women feel much more positive about themselves then they do here.

[woolldog]

4. Sure about that?

I'd wager that there are few, if any, women of color who are prominent in Brazilian television or fashion magazines.

[BainsBane]

5. I'm not commenting on media images

I'm talking about how Brazilian men relate to women.

Yes, women in the media, particularly the novelas, are lighter skinned. While it's not accurate that there at not what we in the US would call women of color, dark skinned Afro-Brazilians are rarer, and are more likely to appear as maids. However, there have been some novelas about slavery.

[HiPointDem]

6. hmm. i read somewhere that brazilian women do plastic surgery at a higher rate than americans.

boob jobs, nose jobs, etc. also all that brazilian waxing. it doesn't seem like they're satisfied with their original bodies if that's the case.

[BainsBane]

7. I should clarify I lived in Bahia

In the Northeast, which is poorer and more African in composition.

[JI7]

8. and they look far better before the plastic surgery

the waxing has more to do with the bathing suits they wear.

[Tace]

3. Good Incremental Step, Wonderful Concept

Since I believe that food should be free to all, providing free food to females solves half the issue.

All women are beautiful.

--Tace

[alphafemale]

9. That would solve urban sprawl.

No one would bother to open any restaurants or grocery stores.

No one would bother to farm for anyone outside of their family either.

[alphafemale]

10. My thought on reading the headline? "That place is going to be burned to the ground."

But, the article explains that it was a thoughtful thing they were doing.

[Sherman A1]

11. Interesting

Thanks for posting.

[SoCalDem]

12. How humiliating for the women who think they qualify, and

don't

[BainsBane]

13. You missed the point

Any woman could qualify. The idea was to encourage them to think of themselves as beautiful. That is obviously an alien concept in a culture like ours that devalues women.

[SoCalDem]

19. I guessed that

after nearly 100K posts & 12 years here, I did not need the icon..

mea culpa

[Texasgal]

14. How stupid.

As if women in general somehow need esteem boosters by announcing they are "beautiful" Wonder why the restaurant didn't ask if they were smart?

Gah.

[Honeycombe8]

16. Ha! I just posted the same thing, and didn't see yours until afterwards. Great minds & all that.nt

[Texasgal]

18. Great minds!

High Five!

[Honeycombe8]

15. Maybe the intention is good, but it's still objectifying women based on appearance.

I wonder why they didn't give the woman free food if she could answer the question, "Are you smart?" and bypass the mirror altogether.

Then give the mirror to men to look at themselves and ask them, "Are you handsome?" and if they answer yes, THEY get free food, too!