What: The SuicideGirls: Blackheart Burlesque
When: Monday, 8 p.m. (doors)
Where: Distrikt nightclub (919 Douglas St.)
Tickets: $29.50 at the Strathcona Hotel, Lyle’s Place, ticketfly.com, and unionevents.com
As of today, the SuicideGirls website has been active for 13 years, seven months and four days.
Not that Selena Mooney is counting. Mooney, who co-founded the alternative pinup website with Sean Suhl, does not measure the success of her enterprise by how long it has been around or how much money it makes.
Her definition of success hinges upon the more than 2,600 women who shed their clothes for the website, which receives between four and five million unique visitors each month — half of whom are women. To some, the social networking site (which requires a paid membership to view most content) is primarily a place to see alternative models in the nude.
That is not exclusively the case, however. Many in the SuicideGirls community, from the models to the subscribers, tell Mooney how their lives have been altered for the better through the experience.
“Our success is measured by the couples who have been married and babies who have been born, because they met on SuicideGirls, and by how many people talk to me about how their lives have been changed,” Mooney said from the operation’s head office in Los Angeles.
Mooney, known publicly as Missy Suicide, was doing interviews to promote The SuicideGirls: Blackheart Burlesque, a tour that brings several Suicide Girls to Victoria on Monday.
The tour is one of the many avenues in which SuicideGirls is advertised. Movies, music, books and television — the brand’s reach is immense (for example, the burlesque tour will head to Singapore later this month, the first time a burlesque tour has gone to the Southeast Asian country). Blackheart Burlesque is simply the latest in a long line of promotional tools, none of which resort to featuring x-rated pornography.
“I feel we have always stayed true to our original philosophy, which is confidence is the sexiest attribute a person can have, and that all women are beautiful. That has helped us remain strong and relevant for 14 years now. Holding true to that simple ideal and philosophy has always provided a touchpoint we come back to, a clear-cut direction.”
The tour is meant to be fun, first and foremost, Mooney said. With a current soundtrack set to routines that cover topics ranging from Star Wars to Donnie Darko, the tour — like the website — will push the limits of the mainstream without crossing the line entirely. Since it has been an extension of the SuicideGirls brand for more than a decade, the tour changes often, both in terms of the participants and the nature of its themes and imagery.
The current edition of Blackheart Burlesque will feature tributes to Fifty Shades of Grey and Game of Thrones, among others. The dancers are all well-trained, which adds to the air of professionalism. But they are not chosen simply for their looks.
Much like the SuicideGirls website, to which models of all shapes, colours and sizes can apply, there is plenty of room for those who fall outside of what mainstream society has deemed beautiful, Mooney said.
In short, they cross the spectrum of sensuality. That’s not a surprise, given that the term “suicide girl” (which is taken from a line in Chuck Palahniuk’s 1999 novel, Survivor) describes someone who commits social suicide by daring to be different, or at least true to self.
“[Blackheart Burlesque] is about showcasing your personality, and contributing to the conversation. Beauty comes in all sorts of different packages.”
