“Girls Gone Wild” with Tattoos
by Eve Wartenberg Condon
So I trucked on over to the Middle East in Cambridge to see the Suicide Girls on Wednesday night. I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that pierced, tattooed girls with electrical tape over their nipples would be involved. But it was right down the street from my class, I had fifteen bucks, and my choreographer referred to it as “homework” for our own ass-shaking endeavors, so off to Mass Avenue I went.
The club was packed. PACKED. If I hadn’t bought my ticket before my evening class, I wouldn’t have made it in. The doors opened at eight-thirty and the place was sold out by nine-thirty for the downstairs, which is a decent-sized room. Burlesque fucking sells, even if the audience isn’t quite sure what they’re going to see.
Luckily, we didn’t have to wait too long to find out. Promptly at ten-thirty, a bass-heavy remix of the strip club anthem “Boom! I Got Your Pussy” began blasting through the wall of speakers directly to my left and the girls slinked onstage in various states of undress, all with the Suicide Girls logo prominently displayed on their skimpy cotton panties and hastily doffed t-shirts. Striptease? No tease to speak of. Choreography? Not really. I mentally deducted a point.
When the first act concluded, all of the girls trooped off the stage, leaving a petite blonde with a brontosaurus tattooed across her back acting as emcee. Clearly shitfaced, she weaved back and forth, her balance wobbling from one spindly leg to the other as she screamed into the microphone, “WHO WANTS TO SEE MY FUCKING TITS!?!”
At this point, my choreographer and I exchanged a dismayed glance as we mentally debated whether or not we should leave. Evidently, we had paid fifteen dollars for a tattooed and pierced rendition of “Girls Gone Wild.” But as we had paid fifteen dollars, we shrugged and stuck around to see what else these girls had to offer.
Luckily, the show had some definite high points. One of the girls was packing serious heat in the third act of the night as she did a striptease to Prince's “Darling Niki” and then again towards the end of the night with a disturbing rendition of the already disturbing Dresden Dolls tune “Miss Me.” There was an act involving five girls moving up and down a pair of sawhorses that was visually engaging. The hula hoop girl had solid skills and presence.
Several of the acts involved humor, which initially confused the crowd but eventually won them over as the beer-soaked college boys began to realize that it was okay and fun to respond to something besides boobies. One act with five girls as naughty stewardesses playing with oxygen masks and phallic landing signal lights was especially entertaining. The shitfaced emcee did a cute take-off on the dance routine in “Napoleon Dynamite,” complete with a slutted-up “Vote for Pedro” shirt. A reenactment of the famous ear-cutting scene in “Reservoir Dogs” made me laugh but offended my choreographer for its obvious use of a gun as a phallic signifier — duly noted, but I can’t help but tap my toes any time I hear “Stuck in the Middle with You.”
However, all in all, the show fell short in some vital ways. In almost every act the girls had their tops off within the first minute of the song, which is boring and repetitive. A noteworthy exception was one goth chick’s striptease in which she made use of a collapsible Chinese fan to draw out the finale. Other than that, though, the girls shucked it off like they were at the doctor’s office.
Another problem was the costuming. Except for one goth chick who shared my affinity for waist cinchers, the costumes weren’t too imaginative or varied. The uniformity of the electrical tape annoyed me after about two acts. The aforementioned brunette powerhouse who performed to Prince was able to twirl her boobs quite well, but because she wasn't able to use real pasties with tassels the visual effect wasn’t nearly what it could have been. Also, another girl came out for the opening act with a garter belt that was completely unattached to her thigh-high stockings, which looked fucking ridiculous. Madonna can pull that off, maybe, but us mere mortals should either employ the garter belt properly or leave it at home.
Then there was the physicality of the girls themselves. In yet another similarity to “Girls Gone Wild,” every single chick up there was white, thin, and appeared to be no older than twenty-three. A couple of them looked like they were sporting fake racks, and one girl was so emaciated that I could clearly see her ribs from my shitty vantage point halfway across the room. I understand the need to have girls with attractive physiques up on stage, but artificial tits and skeletal torsos don't rev the engines of most people I know — especially most burlesque enthusiasts who are looking for something the mainstream smut industry doesn't offer.
Therein lies my biggest problem with the show. As other pro-sex feminists have pointed out, the Suicide Girls’ claim that they broaden the definition of what makes women attractive is belied by the vast majority of post-adolescent, skinny Caucasian women who make up their ranks. At the burlesque show even the girls’ body types looked similar, never mind their costumes and personal style. There was hardly any cleverness or foreplay to the stripping, and the show’s rushed pace and lack of framing (no kind of narrative, no further appearance by the emcee after the beginning of the show) gave the whole thing the feel of a seedy, mindless grindhouse.
All in all, with some noteworthy exceptions, I didn’t get anything out of the Suicide Girls burlesque show that I couldn’t have found at my local stripclub. While the audience was sometimes played with and challenged, it was mostly just plain catered to. I’m glad I went to check it out and I saw some interesting shit, but I definitely will not see them again.
Now, who wants to see my tits?
