Suicide Girls
In the Flesh
2008-01-23
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“Nobody claims their identity from the sub-genre of music that they listen to anymore,” informs Missy Suicide, matron and curator of the Suicide Girls Web site and online community. “Suicide Girls seemed like a good way to combine all of the sub-genres; just girls who live their lives outside of society’s rules, who kind of committed social suicide on their own terms: they pierce, tattoo, they start their own companies, they’re artists, they’re activists, they’re whatever they want to be.” As it turns out, women’s lib did not die with the sports bra. In early 2004, Suicide Girls, which takes its provocative name from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Survivor, made the leap from the digital world and into flesh and blood, piling into a van and crossing the country with a live burlesque tour. Recently released on DVD, Suicidegirls: The First Tour illustrates the day to day existence of 10 women on the road, in control of their own destiny and bodies, living life by the rules that they, and only they, decide. Missy Suicide took a break from behind her camera lens to field Synthesis’ questions about their explosive live show, and the difference between art and pornography.
I was looking at your blog on the Suicide Girls site and read about your car accident you were in yesterday. Geez, how are you feeling?
I’m a little banged up and a little pained, and a little bit on vicodin…that’s why if I seem a little slower or out of breath or make pained noises, you’ll get it.
For your critics and for people who don’t know what it is, can you explain Suicide Girls?
It’s a punk rock pinup community. It’s a site that celebrates the unique individuality of each of the women featured on the site, who express themselves not only through their photos, but through their own words and their journals. It’s a community for the people who appreciate that sort of aesthetic and the sort of independent message that we’re trying to spread. The pictures have the same sort of aesthetic as classic pinup [models], but they’re modern girls with tattoos and piercings, just being themselves and expressing how they feel sexy about themselves.
The DVD felt like pretty much any other band tour documentary that I’ve seen. In what way did touring make you feel like rock stars?
There’s the one scene where you see all the people lined up around the Trocadero in Philly, and it was insane to have that many people lined up to see the girls, to see them perform and to see them cheering. These were girls who were working in their local coffee shop before going out on tour and now there’s all these people across the country waiting in line for their autograph and cheering them on and just coming out to see them. It was pretty intense. It was kind of a shock to see all the people. Online you see all the people posting stuff, but you don’t see the multitude of eyes and hands and faces and smiles like you do in a live show.
What made you decide to take the Suicide Girls on the road in the first place?
A lot of the girls were dancers and wanted to take the same feeling they got from doing the photos shoots—the empowerment, sort of the updated version of pinup with an empowered self-expression—and they wanted to take it to their chosen medium. They wanted to do an updated punk rock-y version of burlesque that really said something about who they were as people and how they wanted to express themselves.
How do you feel when people consider Suicide Girls pornographic?
I think it’s a total misnomer. There’s nudity on Suicide Girls. The difference between the images that you would see in a pictorial in Vogue and in Suicide Girls is a nipple, you know? The female form has been celebrated as art for centuries, and Suicide Girls is true expression of a woman feeling confident and comfortable in her body and herself, and I don’t think that there’s anything degrading or nasty about it. They feel beautiful about themselves and there’s something that comes across in there. You can see in their eyes; it’s art, there’s nothing degrading about it.
What’s your opinion on the thought that pornography objectifies women, which in turn leads to misogyny and in turn, violence against women?
The true confidence comes from inside you. If all women felt beautiful about themselves and if all women felt empowered in their own bodies, then images depicting otherwise wouldn’t be so prevalent, because there’s nothing as beautiful as a woman’s confidence.
Well said.
Thank you. All that on vicodin.
I was looking at your blog on the Suicide Girls site and read about your car accident you were in yesterday. Geez, how are you feeling?
I’m a little banged up and a little pained, and a little bit on vicodin…that’s why if I seem a little slower or out of breath or make pained noises, you’ll get it.
For your critics and for people who don’t know what it is, can you explain Suicide Girls?
It’s a punk rock pinup community. It’s a site that celebrates the unique individuality of each of the women featured on the site, who express themselves not only through their photos, but through their own words and their journals. It’s a community for the people who appreciate that sort of aesthetic and the sort of independent message that we’re trying to spread. The pictures have the same sort of aesthetic as classic pinup [models], but they’re modern girls with tattoos and piercings, just being themselves and expressing how they feel sexy about themselves.
The DVD felt like pretty much any other band tour documentary that I’ve seen. In what way did touring make you feel like rock stars?
There’s the one scene where you see all the people lined up around the Trocadero in Philly, and it was insane to have that many people lined up to see the girls, to see them perform and to see them cheering. These were girls who were working in their local coffee shop before going out on tour and now there’s all these people across the country waiting in line for their autograph and cheering them on and just coming out to see them. It was pretty intense. It was kind of a shock to see all the people. Online you see all the people posting stuff, but you don’t see the multitude of eyes and hands and faces and smiles like you do in a live show.
What made you decide to take the Suicide Girls on the road in the first place?
A lot of the girls were dancers and wanted to take the same feeling they got from doing the photos shoots—the empowerment, sort of the updated version of pinup with an empowered self-expression—and they wanted to take it to their chosen medium. They wanted to do an updated punk rock-y version of burlesque that really said something about who they were as people and how they wanted to express themselves.
How do you feel when people consider Suicide Girls pornographic?
I think it’s a total misnomer. There’s nudity on Suicide Girls. The difference between the images that you would see in a pictorial in Vogue and in Suicide Girls is a nipple, you know? The female form has been celebrated as art for centuries, and Suicide Girls is true expression of a woman feeling confident and comfortable in her body and herself, and I don’t think that there’s anything degrading or nasty about it. They feel beautiful about themselves and there’s something that comes across in there. You can see in their eyes; it’s art, there’s nothing degrading about it.
What’s your opinion on the thought that pornography objectifies women, which in turn leads to misogyny and in turn, violence against women?
The true confidence comes from inside you. If all women felt beautiful about themselves and if all women felt empowered in their own bodies, then images depicting otherwise wouldn’t be so prevalent, because there’s nothing as beautiful as a woman’s confidence.
Well said.
Thank you. All that on vicodin.
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