Dear Jenny Feniak

From The Edmonton Sun - Sunday, October 1st, 2006
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The Suicide Girls are a collection of young women who love to show off their tattooed and pierced bodies.

Formed several years back as an Internet site, the concept of alternative pornography took off and the Suicide Girls decided to hit the road as a "burlesque" troupe that came through the Starlite Room last Monday.

Their show is far from theatrical burlesque, lacking creativity and infused by terrible canned mainstream music.

But nobody in the jam-packed club seemed to mind the glorified strip show featuring women with taped nipples skipping rope and hoola-hooping.

A highlight was three girls dressed as pop tarts Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton who proceeded to throw around fake babies and little dogs before taking their clothes off.

But it was nice to see a healthy balance of men and women in the crowd to witness this latest bout of sexploitation and, in some cases, simply release their inner animals with drool and howls.
- Jenny Feniak

Dear Ms. Feniak.

How delighted I was when I saw a picture of myself and my dear friends in your newspaper, under this endearing article! To tell the truth, when I looked at the picture by your little byline, I could barely remember if that was you or not, not because of the drool obscuring my eyes when you were there... You ducked in, took a few photos, ducked out, repeat. One actually wonders if your journalistic skills carry beyond your candid point and shoot shots, or if you actually spoke with any of the drooling howling crowd that you so cheerfully photographed.

First, to your obviously stunted knowledge of both burlesque, and sexploitation. Perhaps, and I will give you the benefit of the doubt here, you haven't frequented some of the delightful strip clubs here in Edmonton. Now, I believe that if you had, you would seriously recant your claims of a lack of theatrics at the Suicide show. Because compared with the standard tanned blonds at Diamonds or various others - well, I have yet to see them with hoola hoops.

Perhaps if you had done your research on burlesque before writing such an article, you'd know that the vaudvillian, poor cohesion, ridiculous music and electrical taped nipples were actually quite on par - Burlesque actually translates to "imitation", and was initially used to mock the upper classes with standard show tunes and gag acts. Perhaps they succeeded far more than they realise, when the Sun sends an uneducated writer who only exemplifies the echelons that they sought to mock.

As for the sexploitation aspect - Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. Again - your history, and your research skills - fail you. Burlesque is the kissing cousin of strippers yes, but more often than not it's an art where more time and money are put in than are given back. And if perhaps you had stayed and watched the show for a little bit, you would have noticed the big smiles from the dancers, the enjoyment they displayed after at having such an engaging crowd, and the genuine interest in what they did.

But heck, better an uneducated snob than a drooling howling pervert, right?