TATTOOS AND POPULAR
CULTURE
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TATTOOS AND POPULAR
CULTURE
Cultural Representations
in Ink
BY
LEE BARRON
Northumbria University, UK
United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India
Malaysia – China
Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK
First edition 2020
Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited
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Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of
the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the
quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no
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suitability and application and disclaims any warranties,
express or implied, to their use.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-83909-218-3 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-83909-215-2 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-83909-217-6 (Epub)
CONTENTS
Introduction
1
1. Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
9
2. Tattoos in Film
39
3. Tattooing and Reality TV
69
4. Social Media and Digital Tattoo Communities
101
5. Tattoos and Popular Personalities: Inked Celebrities
131
Conclusion
159
Bibliography
163
vii
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INTRODUCTION
As the 21st century progresses, the practice of tattooing, the
bodily process that ‘creates a large dermal wound embedded
with particles of pigment and liquid ink’ (Farley, Van Hoover,
& Rademeyer, 2019, p. 160), is arguably at its most culturally
visible. Yet, the history of tattooing is one of the change and
changing perceptions, not only in terms of the technology of
bodily inscription (the evolution from hand-poked techniques
to the use of the tattoo machine) but also in terms of why people
acquired tattoos and who traditionally wore them. While tattooing is an ancient art, in recent history, they were almost
exclusively associated with working class culture and signs of
rebellion, subcultural groups and even deviance, from the 1960s
(in the Western world, at least), attitudes began to progressively
change. From this period, in terms of the nature of tattooing, the
quality and artistic scope of designs and who began to acquire
tattoos, the practice has changed, and perhaps radically, to the
extent that tattoos are now arguably more culturally visible than
they have ever been. In consequence, it is argued that tattoos are
now a firm part of the mainstream social and cultural world,
although perceptions of them still vary. As E. M. Dadlez states,
some ‘tattoos are intended to shock or dismay – to reinforce
one’s outlier or signal a failure of respectability’ (2015, p. 741,
while, in Maurice Patterson’s view, tattoo ‘styles have increasingly become a matter of individual choice and custom design’
1
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
(Patterson, 2018, p. 585). This latter view captures the essence
and modern inheritance of what has been dubbed the ‘Tattoo
Renaissance’, a process by which the class and gender boundaries of tattooing increasingly blurred, and tattooing became
not simply body decoration, but a means by which to communicate an aspect of self and personal identity. As Alice Snape
argues in Tattoo Street Style, in contemporary culture, it ‘is easy
to be lured in by the mystery and the beauty of tattoo art, and
almost impossible to escape it in this day and age’ (2018, p. 6).
At one level, this perception can apply to the increased number
of people evident in everyday life who wear tattoos. However,
another way in which tattoos can be deemed to be ‘impossible to
escape’ is the degree to which they are visible in popular cultural
forms. For instance, tattoos have become an increasingly regular
aspect of consumer culture with regard to advertising and fashion
imagery and marketing (Møller, Kjeldgaard, & Bengtsson,
2013), but also within an array of popular cultural representations and forms. To again quote Alice Snape on the contemporary status and cultural presence of tattoos:
Tattooing is now more popular than ever before. I still
find it fascinating that a once-ancient tradition and rite
of passage now branches out into almost every area of
the mainstream. Tattoo art has made its way into high
fashion magazines, the cosmetic field, magazines and
newspapers. A–Z list celebrities are rocking tattoos
like never before, and tattoos are everywhere on
reality TV…Now with online apps such as Pinterest,
Instagram and Tattoodo, members of the public have
easy access to almost every artist’s updated portfolio.
(2018, pp. 7–8)
Tattoos and Popular Culture examines these popular cultural
and media representations of tattooing and will not only explore
Introduction
3
the ways in which they reflect but also contribute to the visibility
of tattooing within contemporary culture. Accordingly, superhero films feature tattooed characters, such as Aquaman and
Harley Quinn; television genres such as reality TV now show
numerous tattoo-themed show; social media platforms enable
people to view the work of artists across the world and upload
images of their own designs and tattoos now routinely appear in
advertising and brand promotion imagery, while celebrities
wearing tattoos are now commonplace. With reference to
contemporary celebrity culture, media figures like Post Malone
are literally changing the face of tattooing. In this fashion, Tattoos and Popular Culture looks at representations and the
communication of tattoos and tattoo cultures in relation to film,
television, social media and celebrity culture and how they reflect,
inform and influence contemporary tattoo culture and practices.
While the history of tattooing stresses the development from the
subcultural to the mainstream, the differing examples of media
forms discussed will stress that there is an overlap between these
differing stages. In this regard, the theme of subcultures constitutes a persistent thread throughout the book, as does the idea of
tattoos constituting an alternative communal grouping. Hence,
while tattooing has manifestly expanded beyond niche subcultures, the theme of tattoos representing otherness, rebellion
and dissimilarity persists, especially within popular culture.
Chapter 1 provides a foundational overview of the key elements within the history of tattooing, from its roots in ancient
communicative and therapeutic practices to the tattoo as a
cultural sign of status and as a rite of passage. A key issue
covered in this chapter is the communicative nature of early
tattooing practices, extending into the religious use of tattoos.
Focussing on significant moments in tattooing history, the
chapter examines the depiction of tattoos as signs of rebelliousness and otherness and as part of subcultural bodily styles.
As such, the classic concept of subculture is an important part of
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
the chapter, which is then compared with the later development
of tattooing in terms of tattoos acting as modes of selfexpression and semiotic markers of identity. However, the
chapter critically considers the ways in which the increased
adoption of tattooing from the 1970s has produced a ‘tattoo
community’, due to the commitment made by the tattooed to be
marked for life. Finally, the chapter considers the dynamics of
the generations driving the mainstreaming of tattooing, Millennials and Generation Z, which are not only at the forefront of
using tattoos as biographical symbols but also which often look
to popular culture for tattoo inspirations.
Chapter 2 explores representations of tattoos in film and
looks at the ways in which films present diverse approaches to
tattooing that draw from differing aspects of tattoo culture and
history. The chapter therefore discusses films that associate
tattoos with otherness, rebellion, deviance and subcultural
expressions. In this regard, tattoos form key visual aspects of
characters in crime and action films, denoting alternative
lifestyles and bodily aesthetics, and also stress distinctive subcultural identifies, from the tattooed Goth-styling of Lisbeth
Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to the central
role that tattoos play in Romper Stomper, American History X
and Skin. However, the chapter examines the ways in which
tattoos communicate self and represent semiotic codes, themes
central to Memento and Eastern Promises, and, with reference
to the horror films Tattoo, The Tattooist, and Perfect Skin,
explore the status of tattoos as an art form. Finally, the chapter
looks at the ways in which tattoos are present within mainstream film, from Disney’s Moana to Marvel and DC superhero films such as Guardians of the Galaxy, Venom, Black
Panther, Aquaman, Suicide Squad and Harley Quinn: Birds of
Prey, films whose characters also inspire numerous fan tattoos.
Chapter 3 focuses on the relationship between tattoos and
television, but with the primary focus on reality TV. The chapter
Introduction
5
discusses the development and key properties of the multifaceted genre and examines how the first major tattoo-themed
reality TV shows, Miami Ink, not only documented the professional and personal lives of a number of tattoo artists but also
played a role in enhancing the normalization of both tattooing
and tattooists, meaning that perceptions of it as a ‘deviant’
practice were transformed, or at least mitigated, and revealing
the nature of the ‘tattooing subculture’ to wider audiences.
Furthermore, this form of reality TV enhancing the perception
of tattoos serving as symbols of self-expression and personal
history was significant as a substantial aspect of the narrative is
devoted to client ‘tattoo stories’. The chapter examines the
growth of tattoo-themed reality TV shows (LA Ink, London
Ink, NY Ink, and Black Ink Crew), and also how as the genre of
reality TV has progressively evolved into differing generic
forms, so too have tattoo-themed shows. Here, the chapter
examines more populist reality TV expressions that differ
markedly from the ‘storytelling’ early variants. For example,
competition-style reality TV formats have found tattoo-themed
variants in the form of Ink Master, a series that pits a number of
professional artists living together in a studio against each other
to survive a series of challenges to produce an ultimate winner.
Alternatively, there are a range of shows that depict tattooing as
a source of entertainment and comedy, such as Tattoo Fixers,
which deliberately showcase poor-quality tattoos, and often
obscene or offensive designs, and which also provide comically
exaggerated recreations of the original tattooing experience and
peer reactions to the various examples of ‘nightmare ink’, in
which tattoos serve as a form of media spectacle and as a form of
entertainment. This idea is developed with regard to MTV’s Just
Tattoo of Us, in which participants are given a tattoo that has
been designed by friends, partners or family members, and
which they do not see until the final reveal – with comedic and
emotional reactions as the designs are invariably in poor taste.
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
However, the chapter concludes with discussions of documentary styles of reality TV, such as Needles and Pins, which takes a
global perspective to tattoo culture, with the onus of examining
the more subcultural expressions of the practice.
Chapter 4 explores tattoos in the context of social media
platforms and centrally returns to the theme of a tattoo community discussed in Chapter 1 and considers Manuel Castells’
argument that the early 21st century of the Internet established
‘virtual communities’ that constituted new digital forms of
sociability. Since Castells’ early commentary on this technological social behaviour, this debate has extended to the impact
of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The chapter therefore examines the impact of social media
on tattoo culture and how it has developed from the traditional
tattoo convention and print magazines to how tattoo magazines
such as Inked magazine have successfully remediatized with the
interactive inkedmag.com site. The chapter also considers the
ways in which, via the app-based platform Instagram, artists’
portfolios are digitally visible and client relations no longer
geographically fixed. Furthermore, Instagram has had demonstrable influence on contemporary social actors’ attitudes
towards tattooing and the environment of professional tattoo
spaces, rendering them as more accessible for those who may
have previously found them intimidating. More substantively,
the chapter discusses social media–based tattoo spaces in which
tattoo aficionados ‘digitally congregate’ to post images of their
tattoos, react to the professional work of artists or comment on
tattooing trends. These sites are interactive and enable users to
post and comment, but they also constitute tattoo-themed ‘art
worlds’ and digital tattoo heritage spaces. The chapter stresses
the various ways in which social media is a key media expression
for contemporary tattoo culture, which brings together the
professional industry, commentary, visual user-created content
Introduction
7
and digital virtual dialogue forums with which to engage with
celebrity tattoo artists, such as Kat Von D.
Chapter 5 is concerned with the visibility, influence and
status of celebrities with tattoos. In the context of the ways in
which celebrities are perceived as inspirational figures in terms
of bodily styles and fashion trends, such perceptions extend to
tattooing. While notable celebrities have sported tattoos in the
past, such as Janis Joplin, the chapter looks at the ways in which
the number of celebrities adorned with tattoos has markedly
become more visible in 21st century popular culture. While
subcultural expressions of tattooing have been, and continue to
be, present with musical personalities from genres such as heavy
metal and hip hop, tattooed celebrities from mainstream popular culture are now commonplace. Hence, from David Beckham, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie and Tom Hardy to Adam
Levine, Cardi B and Ruby Rose, images of tattooed celebrities
are now commonplace in film, TV, music videos and promotional imagery, fashion advertising. The chapter stresses that
Millennial and Gen Z performers have added tattoos to their
fashion repertoire, with pop performers such as Rihanna, Justin
Bieber, Ed Sheeran, Halsey, Rita Ora, Drake, Dua Lipa, the KPop artists Jay Park, Ariana Grande, Halsey and Post Malone
not simply having tattoos, but in many instances being heavily
tattooed. While celebrities stress the symbolic and identityaffirming meanings of their tattoos within media discourses,
in subcultural terms, mainstream pop performers now reflect
the heavily tattooed bodily aesthetic associated with musical
genres and cultures such as punk, heavy metal or hip hop.
Furthermore, the popularization of hand, neck and facial tattoos, previously considered a taboo and stigmatizing bodily
placement, is being driven by pop performers such as Post
Malone, thus contributing to the normalizing, through extensive media representations, of traditionally socially censured
bodily placements.
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1
VISIBLE INK: FROM SUBCULTURE
TO MAINSTREAM CULTURE
TATTOO BEGINNINGS
In her global survey of tattooing (encompassing) Asia, Africa,
the Middle East, Australia, the Oceanic Islands, the United
States, Canada, Latin America and Europe, Anna Felicity
Friedman establishes the global embeddedness of tattooing as
both a historical and modern bodily practice. As she states of
contemporary tattooing, ‘it exists in nearly every country on the
skins of a phenomenal array of people. Perhaps at no other
time in history has this art form been so prevalent, both in
terms of its geographical reach and the sheer number of people
who wear tattoos’ (2015, p. 9). Moreover, humans have been
wearing tattoos for a long time as the practice is ‘a primal art
form’ (Wroblewski, 1981, p. 9). In terms of social and cultural
history, as Jane Caplan (2000) states, in addition to scarification and branding, tattooing is one of the oldest and globally
diffused irreversible body modification practices. This was
confirmed by the discovery of an extensively tattooed mummified body, (dating back to 3250 BCE) ‘Ötzi’, the iceman, found
9
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
beneath a glacier on the Austrian–Italian border, whose body
sported 61 tattoo designs. The discovery of Ötzi was significant
because it established not only that the practice of tattooing is
an ancient art but also that tattoos, from their very beginning,
have contained designs, communicative functions and values
(Deter-Wolf, Robitaille, Krutak, & Galliot, 2015). As such,
archaeological discoveries have stressed that tattoos were never
merely ornamental, but were often inscribed for symbolic reasons and distinctively practical purposes, such as medicinal
outcomes and curative practices in the form of therapeutic tattooing (Krutak, 2019).
With regard to ancient Egypt, Robert S. Bianchi explains
that, while there were no explicit mentions of the practice of
tattooing in their preserved histories, the ancient Egyptians
practiced tattooing in the Middle Kingdom period, as revealed
by excavated mummies. For example, the mummy of a woman
named Amunet, who acted as a priestess for the goddess
Hathor, displayed numerous tattoo designs consisting of
abstract patterns of dots and dashes across her lower abdomen,
thighs and arms. Furthermore, the practice in Egypt was itself an
expression of cultural transmission and influence, as evidence
stressed that the ‘Egyptian tattoo was imported from Nubia and
developed during the course of the Middle Kingdom’ (1988, p.
24). In a more compelling set of discoveries, Renée Friedman
et al. discuss the discoveries on two naturally mummified
bodies, a male and female, held in the British Museum dating
from Egypt’s Predynastic Period, the era predating Egypt’s
unification by its first pharaoh in the period of 3100 BCE. The
male mummy displayed the tattooed images of two horned
animals, while the female mummy revealed two S-shaped motifs
likely to represent a sistrum (a ritual rattle), indicating that her
tattoo designs were linked to ceremonial or ritual actions and
‘may have denoted status through magical empowerment or
cult knowledge’ (2018, p. 121). The key significances of
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
11
Friedman et al.’s research are that they confirm that tattooing is
an ancient human cultural practice, but more significantly that
humans consciously communicated via their body art and so
utilized tattoos as a prehistoric form of visual language.
In his classic study of later global tattoo cultures, W.D.
Hambly stressed that many indigenous cultures employed tattoos as distinctive signs of status, social/tribal identity, magical
powers and personal therapeutic functions. For instance, in
Hindu traditions, tattoos were worn in order to be recognized
in the afterlife, whereas in the Antarctic, tattoos communicated
signs of goodness following death. In terms of social position,
Hambly stressed that the moko designs of the Maori warriors’
tattoo markings signified ‘a sign of prowess in battle and
advanced social status’ (1925, p. 32). In this sense, given the
geometrical ornateness of the work, and the intricacy of the
tattooing procedure (all done by hand), Hambly considered
moko as the apex of excellence in the ‘evolution of the fine art of
body marking’ (1925, p. 262). While the Western subjective
quality of Hambly’s work has been questioned, in that his
interpretations of the motivations underlying tribal tattoo
practices was based upon his status as ‘an outsider looking in
and providing for ritual actions that he cannot fully understand’
(Hardin, 1999, p. 86), the symbolic nature of such practices has
been further recognized.
From a sociological perspective, Bryan S. Turner (1991)
examined the ‘premodern’ body as a site for the bodily display
of a number of primary social factors and biographical
moments in which social status was marked into the body via
acts of scarification and tattooing. In this context, tattoos have
been obtained due to the belief that they possess powerful
healing powers (Connor, 2004); tattoos have acted as distinctive
cultural markers, from serving as religious signifiers to confirm
pilgrimages or be imposed as publicly visible and permanent
signs of punishment for criminals (Huang, 2016). With regard
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
to social ‘functions’, tattoos have been used by tribal groups to
mark individuals ‘as members of a greater community’
(Hemingson, 2009, p. 9) and have acted as marks to indicate
acts of bravery (Bitarello & Queiroz, 2014) and permanent
symbolic markers in rites of passage (Benson, 2000). However,
as Peter Gathercole argues, the wearing of elaborate facial tattoos within Maori culture did tend to be located within the highborn members of groups and so indicative of social status.
However, the issue of personal choice was also a factor
regarding the wearing of moko in that while some designs may
have reflected distinctive tribal relationships, ‘it was certainly
the case that individuals regarded their own moko as particular
to themselves’ (1988, p. 172).
TATTOO INFLUENCES AND CULTURAL MARKERS
This dynamic between tattoos representing viable bodily signs
of group membership and individual bodily choices and
self-representation is a factor that has become central to
exploring the development and cultural proliferation of
tattooing. Moreover, both of these factors exhibiting what
Steven Connor argues are key elements of the practice of
tattooing, within both an historical and contemporary sense,
that the tattoo ‘turns the vulnerability of the body, its exposure to penetration, into a flaunted surface’ (2004, p. 63).
With regard to the proliferation of tattooing within the
Western world, the ‘standard’ historical account centred on the
influence of the ‘flaunted surfaces’ of the tattooed bodies of
the sailors on the voyages of Captain Cook to Tahiti between
in the late-1760s and the early to mid-1770s. As Cook reflected
within his journal in July 1769 of the people of Tahiti, ‘Both
sexes paint their bodies, Tattow as it is called in their language,
this is done by inlaying the colour of black under their skins in
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
13
such a manner as to be indelible’ (in Thévoz, 1984, pp. 39–40).
A number of Cook’s sailors and officers obtained similar tattoos to commemorate their experiences, displaying them on
their return, and the effect was intensified by the bringing to
England of the heavily tattooed Tahitian, Omai, whose
‘appearance sparked a tattooing vogue among the English
aristocracy’ (Fleming, 2000, p. 67). In this way, tattooing became
a more visible bodily practice within British, and subsequently
wider European culture. However, while certainly an element of
the development of tattooing in the West, art historians such as
Matt Lodder (2015) have stressed that the idea that tattoos
were ‘rediscovered’ via the voyages of Captain Cook is an
overstatement. Indeed, the idea that sailors needed to be
introduced to the practice of tattooing overlooks the extensive
tattooing cultures that eighteenth century seafarers already
possessed, a practice that did not rely on copying Tahitian
designs and bringing them back to Western ports.
Similarly, as Juliet Fleming states in her study of Renaissance
tattoo culture, prior to the Tahitian-derived term, there were
numerous alternative English words for the practice preceding
the mid-eighteenth century, such as ‘listing’, ‘rasing’, ‘pricking’
and ‘pouncing’. A key element in the early history of tattooing
was the issue of religious condemnation of the practice of tattooing. As Fleming argues, the source of this religious prohibition was classically related to the line in Leviticus (19: 28),
which commands ‘You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh
for the dead, nor print any marks upon you’. Yet, in the New
Testament, and Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, the wearing of
tattoos, if dedicated to Jesus, was an acceptable Christian
practice. In this context, the wearing of religious tattoos did
become a key aspect of expressing commitment to the Christian
faith within the Medieval period, and pilgrims to Jerusalem
would return with evidence that they had made the journey to
the Holy Land. For example, as Hambly (1925) notes,
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
Armenian Christians making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem would
tattoo themselves with the date of their journey, in addition to
their name or initials, and the Copts wore tattoos consisting of
three lines or dots to represent the Holy Trinity (Tassie, 2003).
As such, argues Fleming, throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth and
17th centuries, pilgrims wore tattoos that consisted of names
such as Jesus, Mary, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem and symbols
such as the Jerusalem Cross. Likewise, even though the Reformation ostensibly represented the end of the practice of pilgrimage,
many worshippers from Protestant countries continued to make
such journeys, and the majority received commemorative tattoos,
‘either at the site of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, or in
Bethlehem, which seems to have been something of a tattoo
centre’ (2000, p. 79). Therefore, the practice of tattooing was
not exclusively related to the experience, body designs and
modifications of Captain Cook’s sailors.
TATTOO EVOLUTIONS: SPECTACLE,
REBELLION, SUBCULTURE
In Tattooed: The Sociogenesis of a Body Art, Michael Atkinson
presents a distinctive categorization of the differing periods of
Western tattoo history. The first significant period in this history was that late eighteenth-to-mid-nineteenth century period
in which sailors exposed to indigenous tattooing practices (and
navy-based tattoo cultures), returned home ‘with cultural
artefacts inscribed upon their bodies, [and so] tattoos began
sneaking into mainstream European, and eventually North
American figurations’ (2003, p. 33). However, following this
period, tattooing became aligned with social spectacle, or what
Atkinson refers to as the Carnival Era (1880s–1920s), as many
heavily tattooed sailors found work with carnivals and circuses.
This development additionally drove the increased demand for
professional tattooists, such as Milton Hildebrandt, Tom Riley,
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
15
Bert Grimm and Charlie Wagner, a development intensified by
the invention of the electric tattoo machine by Samuel O’Reilly
in 1891. Additionally, this display of tattooed bodies effectively
represented tattoos, as Stephan Oettermann argues, as forms of
public entertainment and spectacle. Indeed, one such performer,
Anelta Nerona, combined key elements of tattooed spectacle
with entertainment in that she was ‘tattooed with celebrities
such as Goethe, Schiller, Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm II and
Richard Wagner’ (2000, p. 207). Therefore, the links between
tattooing and forms of media-style distraction have an extensive
history. However, as the Carnival Era waned the interrelated
subsequent periods in tattooing history, the Working-class Era
(1920s–1950s) and the Rebel Era (1950–1970) gave tattooing a
distinctive class and cultural set of perspectives.
In a British context, in his classic study of nineteenth-century
working-class labour patterns and the lives of the poor in
London, Henry Mayhew identified tattooing as a distinctive
working-class activity. As he noted in this regard, young men
took ‘delight in tattooing their chests and arms with anchors
and figures of different kinds’ (2006, p. 20), in addition to
bearing the pain without flinching to impress peers. Aside from
a brief aristocratic ‘craze’ for tattooing at the end of the nineteenth century (Bradley, 2000), as Atkinson argues, tattoos in
North American cities (and in other part of the world) became
increasingly associated with working-class life and culture. A
primary reason for this was because tattoo parlours were predominantly located in ‘districts of the city characterized by
poverty and crime’ (2003, p. 36). In this period, the aesthetics of
the tattoo shop as a space adorned with walls of predesigned
flash art was established, and, within an American context at
least, the tattooing style known as ‘Traditional’ was established,
comprising of cartoon characters, pinups, skulls, daggers,
eagles, snakes, tigers and flags. Hence, the Working-class Era
was significant in terms of the proliferation of tattooing, but at
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
its heart was an intrinsic quality of ‘disrepute’, the practice of
‘tattoo fans’ that Albert Parry, in Tattoo: Secrets of a Strange
Art (published in 1933), described as the ‘slum-dwellers,
toughs, sailors, and other plebs’ (2006, p. 92). Such associations of tattoos with disreputability would see the Workingclass Era segue into the Rebel Era (1950––1970) in which tattoos took on symbolic values as signs of group membership, but,
more importantly, permanent markers of dissatisfaction with,
and frequently rejection of, wider social and cultural ‘respectable’ norms and values. As such, tattoos were considered by
sections of society to represent distinctively threatening values.
As Atkinson explains, following the Second World War,
tattooing took on a pronounced aura of disreputability due to
their association with specific nonconformist enclaves. Hence,
As social groups brandished tattoos to advertise their
collective discontent with society, the practice
became popular among members of the social
underbelly. Firmly entrenching cultural associations
between tattoos and the fringe element in society, a
full spectrum of social deviants adopted tattooing as
a method of permanently expressing a politically
charged disaffection with their cultural surroundings.
(2003, p. 38)
In this sense, tattoos became signs of street and motorcycle
gang affiliations, whose visible tattoos marked them off from
wider society and consciously signified rebellion against the
established order. Moreover, media representations of such
groups reinforced and culturally disseminated this perception,
to inculcate within social actors the view that the wearing of
tattoos automatically signified a criminal disposition on the part
of the wearer. The result was, argues Atkinson, that in ‘the
public eye, tattoos were (once again) the uncontested marker of
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
17
the criminal, the outsider, the social miscreant’ (2003, p. 41).
This idea of tattoos having an intrinsic connection with marginal, deviant or criminal groups was the central theme of the
tattooist/academic Samuel Steward, whose classic book, Bad
Boys and Tough Tattoos: A Social History of the Tattoo with
Gangs, Sailors, and Street-Corner Punks, 1950–1965, centrally
covered the key span of the Rebel Era.
For Steward, reflecting from his dealings with tattoo clients,
he proffered a range of motivations for people to be tattooed.
These reasons ranged from the desire merely for bodily decoration, a body-focused narcissism (driven by the belief, often
regretted, that tattoos would enhance physical beauty), the
longing for exhibitionism, sadomasochism, the imitation of
other tattooed social actors and addictive compulsion, where
one tattoo leads to the persistent desire for more. In other
instances, tattoos were sought to communicate sentimental
messages (the names of mothers), Christian religious affiliations
(tattoos of Christ on the cross, crowns of thorns or bleeding
hearts) and expressions of patriotism or ethnic identities.
Unsurprisingly, some clients undertook the process of tattooing
in order to wear and display visible bodily signs of nonconformity and rebellion, tattoos that, in Steward’s view, represented signs of antisocial ‘rebels without a cause’ or ‘inarticulate
revolt’ (1990, p. 65). In this context, tattoos were significant
markers of gang affiliation, serving to communicate a sense of
toughness in enduring the tattooing process as well as signifying
their membership of a particular gang by permitting ‘their
insignia to be engraved in their skin’ (Schiffmacher, 2005,
p. 11). However, a further element within the apparent Rebel
Era was that tattoos became distinctive in that the use of tattoos
as markers of rebellion, or at least as visible bodily signs of the
desire to separate from wider culture, notably occurred. As
Atkinson argues, in addition to tattoos being worn as part of a
separation from ‘respectable society’, this practice also became
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
increasingly prevalent from the 1950s onwards in a number of
youth subcultures, such as the Rockers, the Modernists (Mods),
the Greasers and the Rockabilly movement. In Atkinson’s view,
these youth groups added tattoos to their repertories of cultural
artifacts (distinctive styles of dress and music) to engage in a
countercultural rebellion against dominant social values, and
middle-class bodily expectations and physical representations.
In this context, therefore, the subcultural act of tattooing
directly (and permanently) served to disrupt or outrage dominant middle-class ‘cultural understandings of corporeality’
(2003, p. 41) and bodily representation. The link between
subcultures and tattooing is a significant one, in that other
subcultures such as the Teddy Boys, Hippies and Punks also
actively popularized tattooing as an increasing social practice
throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, in tandem with
employing tattoos ‘as a language of defiance against prevalent
social norms’ (Camphausen, 1997, p. 11).
For Ken Gelder, youth subcultures have habitually been read
as ‘nonconformist and non-normative: different, dissenting, or
(to use a term sometimes applied to subcultures by others)
“deviant”’ (2007, p. 3)’. In terms of the classic articulations of
subcultures, the interrelationship of a distinctive class attitude
and the adoption of particular styles of dress and bodily
comportment traditionally lies at the heart of subcultural
studies. This was so because, as John Clarke, Stuart Hall, Tony
Jefferson and Brian Roberts, the key members of the foundational Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), argue
within Resistance Through Rituals (originally published in
1976), subcultures ‘must exhibit a distinctive enough shape and
structure to make them identifiably different from their “parent”
culture’ (2006, p. 7). While the CCCS approach consisted of
numerous academics and conceptual approaches, it broadly
coalesced around issues of class, as informed by the neo-Marxist
perspectives of Louis Althusser and Antonio Gramsci. A key
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
19
example of this approach was Phil Cohen’s analysis of the ways
in which working-class groups responded to postwar British
class transformations, the erosion of skilled labour into routine
work, unemployment and spatial dislocations caused by the
redevelopment of traditional working-class housing areas. In
this context, the actions of distinctive youth groups served to
counter these social incursions and erosion of life chances and
opportunities. In this sense, subcultures, drawing upon distinctive aspects of culture, most notably fashion and popular music,
were formed as a means of establishing some form of selfdirected control in the face of these seemingly all-pervasive
social forces. An important issue within these practices is that
they operated only in a microsocial context and that they served
as ‘imaginary’ solutions to problems that were ultimately
beyond their control and so engaged in acts of ‘self-liberation’:
Thus the ‘Teddy Boy’ expropriation of an upper class
style of dress ‘covers’ the gap between largely
manual, unskilled, near-lumpen real careers and life
chances, and the ‘all-dressed-up-and-nowhere-to-go’
experience of Saturday evening. Thus, in the
expropriation and fetishisation of consumption and
style itself, the ‘Mods’ cover for the gap between the
never-ending-weekend and Monday’s resumption of
boring, dead-end work’.
(Clarke, Hall, Jefferson, & Roberts, 2006, p. 37)
As Bill Osgerby argues, in addition to the class conflict and
‘resistance’ nature of classic subcultures such as the Teddy
Boys, Mods, Skinheads and Punks, an element within their
practices was the use of fashion, which became loaded with
symbolic values. In this context, the items drawn from fashion
and popular culture by various subcultural groupings transformed subcultural styles in ‘texts’ imbued with semiotically
20
Tattoos and Popular Culture
based ‘subversive meaning’ (Osgerby, 2014, p. 11). A classic
academic example of this approach was Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style, originally published in 1979
and consisting of an extensive case study of the Punk subculture. While underpinned by a neo-Marxist/critical theoretical
foundation affiliated with the CCCS, Hebdige focused extensively on the objects used by subcultures that form the outward
basis of their oppositional stances. As such, the cultural items
embraced by subcultures ‘became signs of forbidden identity,
sources of value’ (1998, p. 3). For Hebdige, style lies at the
centre of subcultural configurations and acts as the primary
way in which they commit a ‘crime against the natural order’
through subverting cultural objects (which can ostensibly be
innocuous) and using them as statements of deviance against
the norms and social expectations of the parent culture.
Therefore, the ‘quiff’ hairstyle of the Teddy Boys, the Mod’s
acquisition of the scooter and Italian styles of suits or the
Punk’s use of safety pins signal a conscious refusal to adhere to
mainstream cultural expectations. In this regard,
[S]pectacular subcultures express forbidden contents
(consciousness of class, consciousness of difference)
in forbidden forms (transgressions of sartorial and
behavioural codes, law breaking, etc.). They are
profane articulations, and they are often and
significantly defined as ‘unnatural’.
(1998, pp. 91–92)
From Hebdige’s perspective, subcultures are predicated upon
acts of conspicuous consumption, and it is the distinctive and (as
with the case of Punk) sometimes outrageous ways that fashion
and products are used that demarcates the subculture from
wider cultural formations. The key issue is that the styles of
subcultures are utilized as signifying practices that contain
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
21
meanings, to the extent that subcultures ‘are therefore expressive forms’ (1998, p. 132). With regard to Punk, in addition to
the brightly coloured Mohawk hairstyles, leather and plastic
jackets and trousers, torn T-shirts and Vivienne Westwood–
inspired bondage apparel, body art, often of socially confrontational designs, such as ‘the display of swastika tattoos in
highly visible places’ (Muggleton, 2004, p. 100) was a factor
within the subcultural style repertoire. While the classic
approaches to subcultures have been criticized on the grounds of
uncritically imposing Marxist meanings and semiotic functions
onto youth groups, which minimized considerations of gender
and sexuality (Osgerby, 2014), Hebdige’s account of the ultimate cultural trajectory of many subcultures, given their primacy on distinctive styles, does intersect with how tattooing
would arguably develop from the 1970s. Moreover, as Daniel
Rosenblatt argues, Punk was an important part of the Tattoo
Renaissance because it ‘drew different kinds of people to tattoos
and influenced the designs that were prevalent’ (1997, p. 301).
A salient aspect of Hebdige’s analysis is that, even though
initially threatening to the social order, the fate of many subcultures is incorporation into mainstream culture. As such, items
of fashion which may have been produced by subcultural groups
through acts of bricolage (the bringing together of disparate
cultural artifacts to create new styles) can become part of mass
commodification, mainstream fashion and even couture. For
example, Punk clothing and accessories were available for mailorder purchase by the summer of 1977, and in September 1977,
Cosmopolitan reviewed Zandra Rhodes’ Punk-influenced
fashion show, reporting that the models ‘smouldered beneath
mountains of safety pins and plastic...and the accompanying
article ended with an aphorism “To shock is chic” – which presaged the subculture’s imminent demise’ (1998, p. 96). In this
context, as Hebdige states, youth ‘cultural styles may begin by
issuing symbolic challenge, but they must inevitably end by
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
establishing new sets of conventions’ (1998, p. 96). Arguably, the
same process was also evident within tattooing culture from the
1970s as the Rebel Era evolved into the ‘Tattoo Renaissance’, a
process by which tattooing increasingly became more difficult to
be read as a subcultural practice.
THE ROAD TO RESPECTABILITY AND THE
‘TATTOO COMMUNITY’
With reference to the Working-class Era, Turner states that
tattooing ‘was often part of an oppositional culture in which
working-class males expressed their class solidarity or occupational solidarity through body marks’ (1999, p. 45). Nonetheless, this perception, and function of tattooing, would change
because from the 1970s, tattooing itself changed, not only with
regard to both tattoo artists and the tattooing industry, but also
with regard to the demographic transformations in terms of
those who elected to become tattooed. As Arnold Rubin argues,
changes within tattooing practices in the 1960s (initially in the
United States, but then more internationally) set in train a
sweeping change within ‘tattoo culture’ that merited the term
‘Renaissance’ given the scope of the changes. In tune with the
nature of the Working-class and Rebel Eras, Rubin states that
tattooing (although not exclusively) was predominantly a process engaged in by young, male blue-collar social actors, as were
the majority of tattoo artists. However, driven by the emergence
of new (and ultimately iconic) artists such as Cliff Raven and Ed
Hardy (who employed highly artistic approaches, such Japanese
styles), tattooing practice increasingly moved away from the
reliance on flash art, and tattooing conditions, such as increased
levels of sanitation and the sterilization of tattooing instruments, began to improve. However, a key aspect of this was the
major demographic shifts that characterized the Renaissance
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
23
period, changes that ‘brought in a greater number of females
and generally older, better educated, more affluent, and more
artistically sophisticated clients’ (1988, p. 235).
This development marked tattooing as a body art practice
increasing used as a form of self-expression and self-concept,
with a progressive onus on negotiating custom tattoo work
rather than wearing predesigned flash that would adorn the
bodies of many other tattooed people (Hewitt, 1997). On one
level, the Tattoo Renaissance developed due to the technological
and artistic developments that occurred within the industry
(improvements in tattoo machinery, an increased number of ink
pigments and more artists entering into the tattoo industry from
art school backgrounds and so possessing more versatile skill
sets). In the wake of such developments, as Benson argues, the
motivation for many people to be tattooed was individually
motivated, that the decision to receive a tattoo became one based
upon reflection and planning in terms of what the tattoo design
would be (which could be negotiated with creative artists). This
was so because, rather than the result of a whim or peer pressure,
the motivation to be tattooed represented a declaration of ‘meness’ (2000, p. 245). Tattooing, therefore, became a more
personalized practice as designs were not merely decorations, but
symbols of self-expression, reflecting, as Sanders (1988) defines
it, as tattoo’s journey from deviance to art. Moreover, tattooing
increasingly cut across class and gender lines as more woman and
members of the middle classes embraced tattooing. Therefore, as
Margo DeMello argues, within this period, tattooing ‘began, for
the first time, to be connected with emerging issues like selfactualization, social and personal transformation’ (2000,
p. 143) in addition to spiritual and personal growth and the
tattoo as a modern expression of the rite of passage. Such perceptions of tattooing as middle-class statements of identity
played a decisive part in ‘making tattoos increasingly safe’
(DeMello, 1995, p. 47). While stressing the ways in which tattoos
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
decisively move away from any exclusive working-class/
underground context, DeMello, within her book, Bodies of
Inscription, does argue that a distinctive tattoo community can,
and has, been constituted, thus echoing the onus of subcultures as
community-building behaviours (Clarke, 2006). Importantly,
the establishment of a tattoo subculture is not based upon simply
having tattoos but is far active than this. As DeMello states:
It is said that tattooing involves a commitment as the
mark made is for life. This is true. But to be a member of
the tattoo community requires more than just getting a
tattoo – it involves a commitment to learning about
tattoos, to meeting other people with tattoos, and to
living a lifestyle in which tattoos play an important role.
(20–21)
How tattooed social actors engage in this active creation of a
lifestyle is via the consumption of tattoo media, primarily
specialist tattoo magazines, but more proactively through
participation at tattoo conventions, which are spaces in which
those with the common interest in tattooing meet for a given
time. Developing the importance of the tattoo convention as a
site for community expression, Mindy Fenske describes conventions (which are internationally significant aspects of the
tattoo industry) as ‘safe havens’ in which both tattoo artists from
a number of countries and tattoo collectors ‘gather together to
compare tattooing techniques and to show off their tattoos’
(2007, p. 46). Furthermore, because the tattoo convention is a
site for the tattooing of social actors within the numerous pop-up
studios fill convention venues, the internal space of the tattoo
studio transformed into a shared public spectacle and the artistic
techniques of live tattooing are appreciated and celebrated
(Barron, 2017). As such, the convention provides tattooed social
actors with the ‘opportunity to display their work, enlarge their
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
25
collections, and associate with other tattoo enthusiasts in situations in which they are normal’ (Sanders & Vail, 2008, p. 60).
For DeMello, the positive aspects of such participation derives
from the ways in which tattooed people can experience a unique
sense of ‘shared specialness’ as a result of this community-based
engagement. This approach serves to give tattoo community
building a distinctive subcultural quality because in engaging in
these practices and immersing themselves deeper into tattooing
culture, it enables them to ‘define themselves vis-à-vis nontattooed people and the dominant society in general’ (2000,
p. 21). Therefore, through the consumption of tattoo media and
tattoo-based social events, tattooed social actors discover others
who are like them and who, in being tattooed and through
exploring the ‘tattoo world’, are not like ‘everyone else’. Media
texts, therefore, are central within this subcultural configuration
as they enable readers to experience a tattoo-inspired feeling of
community. Therefore, of the importance of these mediums,
DeMello argues that
The tattoo magazine, like the tattoo convention, caters
to the tattooed people and creates for its readers a
sense of communitas through its ability to make
tattooed readers feel that they are both different from
the mainstream society and part of something larger
than themselves. Particularly in the magazines’
editorials and in their letters-to-the-editor sections,
this feeling that tattooed people form a community of
marginalized brothers/sisters is evident.
(2000, p. 33)
Certainly, tattoo magazines remain a significant part of tattoo
media, as illustrated by prominent periodicals such as Inked
magazine, Total Tattoo, Rebel Ink, Skin Deep, Tattoo Life, Urban
Ink, Tattoo Society and Things and Ink. Moreover, DeMello flags
26
Tattoos and Popular Culture
the then-developing opportunities offered via the Internet for tattooed people to create communal spaces (an aspect of tattoorelated media returned to in Chapter 4). In Atkinson’s (2003)
view, DeMello’s approach to the tattooed as a conspicuous subculture or defined community is not an accurate one within the
21st century. Alternatively, ‘tattoo enthusiasts’ do not constitute
collective culture, but rather (drawing upon the sociological work
of Norbert Elias) a figuration, a ‘structure of mutually oriented and
dependent people’ linked together ‘through education, socialization, and socially generated reciprocal needs’ (2000, p. 481). In
the wake of the Tattoo Renaissance, Atkinson argues that it is
difficult to read tattoos as subcultural expressions of status frustration or as representing modes of symbolic resistance or acting as
signs of antagonism to a dominant culture. Indeed, if the subcultural foundation of tattooing within the Rebel Era was that it
constituted a bodily challenge against middle-class ‘corporeality’,
then the proliferation of tattooing within the ‘parent culture’
inevitably erodes this function. As such, the application of subcultural meanings to tattooing is misleading as the motivations to
be tattooed, and the meanings attributed to the act and the designs
worn are diverse. Hence, tattoo ‘enthusiasts do share common
understandings of tattoos, but not to the extent that one could
decipher a specific subcultural perspective about the practice’
(2003, p. 96). Additionally, tattooing lacks the class basis that
underpinned classic approaches to subcultural configurations, the
basis of the CCCS approach. As such, unless focussing upon a
specific group that does consciously employ tattooing, it becomes
difficult to discern within the wider social and cultural context of
tattooing as the practice lacks a cohesive sense of a collective and
meaningful resistance to any perceived parent culture. Alternatively, the tattoo figuration takes the form of relationship chains
that act to bring together individuals who have tattoos. These
chains can range from the fundamental association between the
tattoo artist and the client – the basis of becoming tattooed,
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
27
spending time in tattoo studios, via influential peers who
communicate a protattoo ethos, sitting with friends while they are
tattooed and then becoming tattooed in turn or exposure to tattoothemed media (Atkinson, 2005). In this sense, contemporary tattoos do not constitute subcultures, as traditionally considered, but
are the tattoo figuration: ‘interpersonal ties that bind seemingly
isolated individuals together in social interchange’ (2003, p. 125).
In subcultural terms, the ‘Tattoo Renaissance’ ensured that
tattooing became progressively culturally visible. Indeed, the
revitalization of tattooing has become an ongoing process. As
Atkinson (2004) notes, the beginning of the 21st century arguably saw the initiation of the second tattoo Renaissance, in
which the increasing cultural transmission and embrace of tattooing intensified. A prime agent within this process has been the
increasing presence of tattooing within media representations,
such as newspapers, magazines, television and advertising,
which only served to disassociate tattooing from any core subcultural identity and attitude further. Hence, as one of Atkinson’s respondents within his ethnographic interviews ruefully
reflected, ‘I see tattoos everywhere. You can’t turn on a TV
without seeing someone who is tattooed. I know that not
everyone is doing it, but I can’t help feeling more like everyone
else now when I see everyone who has a tattoo’ (2003, p. 103). In
this sense, the initial ‘Renaissance’ development sparked in the
1970s arguably has proven to be a succession of cultural waves
with regard to the contemporary status of tattooing. In this
sense, these movements have served to push tattooing further
away from its historic equation with social marginality and
collective, and distinct, subcultural identities and more towards
a conception of tattoos that ‘are more often reflective of personal
narrative and self-expression’ (Farley, Van Hoover, & Rademeyer, 2019). On the one hand, therefore, studies of contemporary tattooing (in the Western world, at least) confirm that it
has ostensibly become a mainstream practice (Sagoe, Pallesen,
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
& Andreassen, 2017), but on the other hand, continuities with
key aspects from the history of tattooing arguably remain.
Consequently, even though diverse social groups have elected to
wear tattoos in recent years, empirical studies indicate that
visible tattoos can still elicit forms of social stigma. These perceptions range from persistent associations of tattooing with
deviant behaviour and attitudes to the view that tattoos signify
signs of poor decision-making skills on the part individuals who
elect to be tattooed (Dickson, Dukes, Smith, & Strapko, 2014;
Zestcott, Tompkins, Kozak Williams, Livesay, & Chan, 2018).
Additional studies also point to residual perceptions that tattooing can still have adverse repercussions in terms of employability, earnings capacity and career success. As such, some
researchers suggest that in these contexts, the normative status of
tattooing can be overestimated and that visible tattoos can result
in employer discrimination (Ruffle & Wilson, 2019). There are
also ongoing concerns with the health risks associated with
tattooing in terms of microbiological contaminations, hazardous chemicals in ink pigments and infections during the healing
process as tattooing has been defined as ‘a form of minor surgery
performed without anesthesia’ (Renzoni et al., 2018, p. 127).
TATTOO SUBCULTURES AND THE SEMIOTIC SELF
While invaluable in terms of understanding, an inevitable issue
that arises when categorizing a social phenomenon like tattooing into discrete ‘eras’ is that the perception of monolithic
periods can distract from overlaps in terms of tattoo culture
overlaps. Atkinson (2003) certainly acknowledges the persistence of subcultural groups employing tattoos throughout the
various stages of the tattoo Renaissance and the process of
tattoo mainstreaming (such as Goths, Ravers and Riot grrrls).
However, the link between subcultural expressions and tattoos
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
29
has proven to be persistent, albeit in a differing from the
political/style configurations of classic subcultural approaches.
In this sense, later subcultural commentators (encompassing the
‘postsubculture’ approach) downplayed the importance of
politics to instead foreground the centrality of consumption,
lifestyle, leisure and fashion, in groupings marked by more fluid,
limited membership (Haenfler, 2013). With regard to tattooing,
the grouping dubbed the ‘Modern Primitives’, a ‘movement’
identified in the 1970s in American, and captured by Vivian
Vale and Andrea Juno in Modern Primitives: An Investigation
of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual, originally published
in 1989. Due to their revival of traditional body modifications
such as multiple piercing, scarification and tattooing, Vale and
Juno argue that, in the face of a world in which most individuals
are powerless to influence, some social actors have remedied this
state through enacting radical changes over the site that they can
control: their own bodies. Thus, in a world in which even art has
been commodified, ‘the last artistic territory resisting cooptation and commodification by Museum and Gallery
remains the Human Body’ (2010, p. 5). For Atkinson, these
‘Neo Primitives’ can be seen to have used body modification to
signal a protest against a culture increasingly defined by change
and mutability. As Theresa M. Winge argues, Modern Primitives did not seek to authentically revive traditional tribal
practices and combine ancient and modern technologies in their
ritual approaches. In this sense, subcultural members ‘personalize the ritual to reflect their individual beliefs and can do so
through the choice of body modification’ (2003, p. 127). In this
sense, then, the specific approaches to body modifications
engaged in by the Modern Primitives stands as a countercultural
riposte to a culture dominated by mass production (Gelder,
2007). However, Lodder argues that the idea of a connected
community of individuals engaging in such ‘primitive’ bodily
practices, constituting a distinctive subculture, is erroneous.
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
Referring to Vale and Juno’s book, Lodder stresses that the
foundations for the subcultural aspects of this approach derives
from the sections based upon the writings of Fakir Musafar, but
no social or cultural grouping called the Modern Primitives
clearly existed prior to the publication of the book. In this
context, Lodder argues that there ‘never has been a “movement” of Modern Primitives, driven by explicitly and avowedly
“primitive” desires to seek a higher state of consciousness
[through] direct manipulation of their own flesh’ (2011, p. 109).
Yet, alternative subcultures do demonstrably employ tattoos
as part of their symbolic tools, and there are clear continuities
with the subcultural norms of the past. This is evident within
Ross Haenfler’s study of the hardcore Punk movement known
as the Straight Edge (sXe) movement, an enduring musical
genre, developing on the East Coast of America in the early
1980s, based upon the repudiation of drugs, alcohol and
tobacco and an advocacy for vegetarianism, veganism and
animal rights. For Haenfler, a key element of the sXe movement is the fusion of music (linked to bands such as Minor
Threat, AFI, 7 Seconds, Vegan Reich and Wake of Humanity)
with the primacy of tattooing. In this context, tattoos represent
visible and embodied signs of subcultural commitment, as one
sXe interviewee stated: ‘Once you put the X on your hand, it’s
not like a wedding ring. You can always take a wedding ring
off, but you can’t wash the ink from your hands’ (2011, p. 42).
As such, tattoos represent a permanent sign of commitment to
the culture and both represent and communicate ‘a lasting
bond to the community’ (2011, p. 42). The importance (and
prevalence) of the tattoo mark to signify affiliation with the sXe
movement also raises a further continuity with the classic
approaches to subcultures and the arguments that are associated with the use of tattoos as ‘control’ mechanisms in the wake
of societal and cultural flux: the primacy of semiotic functions
and meanings.
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
31
A key element of Hebdige’s analysis of the Punk subculture
was the ways in which their adaptation reconstructed as
personalized symbolic ‘shocking’ objects. As such, in addition to
the often directly offensive (T-shirts covered in swear words and
swastikas), the Punk style was principally through the violence
of its ‘cut-up’ approach and transformation of everyday objects
as a safety pin, a plastic clothes peg, a television component,
lavatory chains or plastic bin liners to symbolically communicate the confrontational Punk ethos. As Hebdige acknowledges,
it was doubtful whether many members of the subculture were
ever aware that they were consciously engaged in semiotic
practices, but this issue has become significant within the
contemporary culture of tattooing. Hence, echoing the ‘me-ness’
motivation that has arguably characterized tattooing culture (or
sections of it, at least) since the 1970s, Kyle Fruh and Emily
Thomas argue that tattoos can, and are, utilized by social actors
as a means by which to externalize aspects of their inner selves. In
this sense, the voluntary altering of the body makes a tattoo a
part of the body and so marks key aspects of biography and self
into the body. Consequently, tattoos can make a decisive
contribution to identity building and personal narratives, in that
they offer a ‘chance to ink in some feature of your identity, fixing
a point through past, present, and future’ (2012, p. 91). As such,
while the Modern Primitive movement may never have really
existed as a defined subculture, the motivation to engage in such
body modification that Vale and Juno argue is an attempt to
wrest some control over the body is a feature within readings of
contemporary tattoo practices. For Fruh and Thomas, tattoos
can serve to give an individual a definitive ‘anchoring’ effect and
enable a social actor to preserve, or memorialize, significant life
events or signs of identity. As they state,
As years and miles add up, it becomes easy to feel adrift
in your own life. A couple of anchors can keep you in
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
touch with where you have been, commit you to being
somewhere you want to be, and provide fixed points by
reference to which to chart new voyages. This is the
chief contribution tattoos can make to narrative
personal identity, and one way of explaining how
inking it can make you feel at home in your own skin.
(2012, p. 91)
Through ethnographic interviews with a number of tattooed
individuals, Chris William Martin also approaches tattooing as
a practice that creates narratives that can link skin and self. From
his ethnographic research, respondents related their tattoo
designs to issues such as gender, beauty, femininity, home and
family, childhood memories, social acceptance and emotional
memories, but also often striving to differentiate their bodies
from prevailing social norms and expectations through body art.
As such, Martin argues that tattoos are ‘never about only one
form of expression or social connection, but in fact are deeply
human forms of social expression which have changed, and
continue to record lives in multiple and complex ways’ (2013,
p. 14). For this reason, Martin argues that tattoos can be complex symbols of both self and social identities and can act as
semiotic representations of both the individual and the culture
that surrounds and influences the individual. Furthermore,
Martin also reminds us that tattoos, although more mainstream
than ever before, are not universal, because
Not everyone can get tattooed. It is costly. It is painful.
It is increasingly regulated by age and by shop practice.
And it is also a permanent corporeal commitment
which can impact the life not only of tattooees but also
the people they will interact with in the future.
(2013, p. 32)
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
33
However, for those who do elect to be tattooed, Martin
contends that tattooing is intrinsically about self and social
expression. In this sense, tattoos can simultaneously reflect social
influences (getting tattoos because it is a fashionable trend and
omnipresent within popular culture) and as a designed mark of
individual difference and uniqueness. Moreover, tattooing
swims against the tide of our times. Martin explores this in his
book, The Social Semiotics of Tattoos, which is influenced by
the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity,
a social order based upon rapid change, unpredictability, cultural fluidity, volatility, constant uncertainty and flexibility and
the loss of communal ties (Bauman, 2000, 2005, 2007). Against
such unstable and unpredictable social forces, tattoos can serve
as an anchor of stability. Moreover, this behaviour and attitude
contains a trace of the subcultural stance against a wider,
oppressive, social force, as Martin observes:
Some enthusiasts take refuge in using their body to
represent self-identity, cultural change and gendered
resistance, artistic and emotional signifiers, and a trove
of other meanings through their engagement in body
art practices. Moreover, and perhaps more strikingly, I
suggest this anchoring of self in tattoos is an act of
rebellion against the superficiality of contemporary life
and its ephemeral qualities.
(2018, p. 2)
With regard to examinations of the nature of 21st century
youth cultures, Vitor Sérgio Ferreira defines them as microcultures, groupings that do not establish a collective sense of
identity in the same way that traditional subcultural theorist
argued that they did. With regard to the status and use of
tattooing in microcultures, characterized by their fluid and
unceremonious nature, Ferreira argues that
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
[The] young people who practice body marking no
longer use it to show stable and long-lasting
commitment to collective identities. They do not see
themselves as representing any group and do not
consider themselves represented by their marked
peers. Body marking no longer functions as a
dramatic means of accessing certain subcultures, nor
as a sign of fusionist identification with specific
groups. Instead, marking the body with tattoos…is
particularly valued as a privileged strategy of
demonstrating individuality and uniqueness through
the body, within various sociations, which the young
people are part of.
(2009, p. 291)
In this sense, tattoos do not act as a subcultural ‘uniform’;
instead, they become employed as what Ferreira calls an
autobiographical sign, a tattooed statement of self. Therefore,
tattoos serve to celebrate emotional and biographically key
moments in an individual’s life. As such, and echoing Martin’s
semiotic approach to tattooing, Ferreira states:
In a highly fragmented and multi-faceted social
context, extensive marking on a body acquires, for
those who bear it, a value which is more personal
than gregarious…The social knots tied in this type of
body project have taken forms which no longer refer
to exclusive social affiliations, but rather celebrations
of personal difference, assumed and tacitly
acknowledged among peers. These peers prefer the
same social geography of imagery.
(2009, p. 299)
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
35
COMPETING CULTURES: TATTOOS AND THE
MILLENNIAL/GEN Z BODY
The issue of a widespread connection and desire for a tattooed
‘social geography of imagery’ is one that has resulted in the
perception that tattooing is now a mainstream practice. This is
an observation underscored by the data that stresses that
Millennials (individuals born between 1981 and 1996) are the
most tattooed generation (Mull, 2019) and this drive is set to
ensure that the industry (in America, at least) will grow at an
annualized rate of 7.7% throughout the 2020s (Craven
McGinty, 2018). In assessing the popularity of tattooing in
this generation, the issue of using tattoos as bodily expressions
of identity and as anchors in a fast-moving world is paramount. In this sense, Millennials have embraced tattoos
because they are constants, images that are impervious to both
social and bodily change, especially for a generation immersed
in rapidly transforming digital technologies (Anon, 2017).
However, the centralities of digital technologies have yielded
interesting implications for the nature of contemporary tattoo
cultures and subcultural/microcultural configurations. In his
assessment of the ‘death’ of subculture, James Gill (2017a)
points to the ways in which music and image (a key aspect of
classic subcultures) have diminished in the 21st century, a factor
underscored by the onus of digital downloading and consumption of music over the traditional album purchase. In this
regard, many listeners skip through musical genres rather than
forming connections with any one favoured form. Yet, a key
source of social commitment does exist, in the form of various
fandoms, which do illicit communal connections (via digital
technologies and platforms), and, as Gregg L. Witt and Derek E.
Baird argue, young people engaging with such fandoms ‘get to
collaborate with others while working to shape their own
identities’ (2018, p. 31). Hence, it is no surprise fandoms serve
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
as the inspiration for many tattoo designs, whereby cultural
and media texts act as the inspirations for ‘autobiographical’
signs. Moreover, there are distinctive differences between
Millennials and their younger counterparts, Generation Z
(individuals born after 1997). For Witt and Baird, members of
Generation Z are perceived to be more politically engaged than
Millennials (especially with regard to environmental issues),
connected to a myriad of online ‘communities’ and more
financially conservative. Furthermore, there are differences
regarding how the generational groups approach tattooing.
Although presented in broad strokes, an Inked magazine
feature entitled ‘Millennials Vs Generation Z’ (Witt & Baird,
2018, Anon, 2018a) stressed that Millennials opt for popular
music nostalgia tattoos (dating from the early 2000s), such as
My Chemical Romance, Blink 182 and Green Day logos,
reinforced with wider images drawn from popular cultural
nostalgia (Pokémon, for example). Alternatively, then identityinforming tattoos obtained by Generation Z favour current
images drawn from popular culture that are the sources of
fervent fandom, in the form of animated series such as
Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Teen Titans and Rick and
Morty (which will of course become the nostalgia tattoos of
tomorrow). Yet, what is a theme here is the primacy of media
culture and tattooing, and in addition to the myriad of tattooing genres, the centrality of media-based tattoos and the
fandom that inspires them, is a key aspect of modern tattooing.
As such, the Marvel Universe and DC comic book and cinematic franchises have inspired numerous Iron Man, Wolverine,
Deadpool, Spiderman, Groot, Superman, Batman or Thanos
tattoos. Furthermore, the Joker, Harley Quinn, Black Widow,
Aquaman, Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel characters
inspire both comic book representations and photo realistic
tattoos of Heath Ledger, Joaquin Phoenix, Margot Robbie,
Scarlett Johansson, Jason Momoa, Gal Gadot and Brie Larson
Visible Ink: From Subculture to Mainstream Culture
37
as the respective characters, in addition to various Star Wars–
based, Harry Potter or Pennywise designs. Popular television
similarly inspires numerous tattoo designs, from Friends,
Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, and Game of Thrones to
Stranger Things, Peaky Blinders and Baby Yoda from The
Mandalorian. Popular music also motivates tattooees, from
band logos to portraits of the likes of Post Malone, Taylor
Swift, Cardi B and Kanye West. In this sense, tattoos arguably
operate as barometers of popular culture, charting the mainstream and cult status of media texts.
However, an interesting difference between Millennials and
Generation Z is the view that there are some attitudinal differences towards the practice of tattooing. For example, a
Thinkhouse piece entitled Youth and Tattoos reports that
almost 40% of Millenials have a tattoo, while half have more
than one tattoo, and 18% have more than six. Of this
demographic, only 2% reported that they were opposed to
tattoos. Alternatively, negative attitudes to tattooing among
Generation Z cohorts were 10%, implying a more cautious or
suspicious standpoint on obtaining tattoos. As one 22-yearold respondent stated:
Part of being young is doing somethings your folks
wouldn’t do. Rebelling, I guess. My da has a big
tribal tattoo on his shoulder. He’s also an
accountant. As a result, for me, tattoos just make me
think of my da. I love him, but he’s not someone I’d
go to for style tips, you know?
(Anon, 2018b, Inkedmag.com).
In this context, for some members of Generation Z, their
source of cultural rebellion may well lie in not becoming tattooed, as it is the ‘parent culture’ that is the most extensively
‘inked’. As such, the issues of rebellion, the Tattoo Renaissance,
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
with its semiotically inspired marks of identity, and the tension
between tattooing enthusiasts being seen as a subcultural
community or loosely linked and individualized figuration is an
ongoing dynamic. Yet, the theme throughout this chapter is one
of tattoos representing a mode of communication (from ancient
marks of status, deviance and rebellion to ‘me-ness’ and pop
cultural fandom) and many of the key aspects of tattoo history
and conceptual approaches to tattoo culture can be found to be
articulated in differing ways within media forms and texts.
Indeed, within film, television, social media and digital spaces
and celebrity culture, tattoos weave in and out of residual
perceptions of deviance, normalization, fashion, community
(and the active search for subcultural expressions within a
mainstreamed tattoo world) and entertainment. Above all,
popular culture has (in differing ways) extensively visualized
tattooing practices and tattooed bodies (opening up the inner
sanctum of the tattoo studio to reality TV scrutiny, for
example) to an unprecedented degree. These representations
range from tattoos as sublime identity-articulating art and
celebrity-based fashion statements to regret-filled folly. Consequently, the latest 21st century wave of the process, dubbed the
‘Tattoo Renaissance’ that began in the late 1960s, is a fundamentally mediatized phenomenon.
2
TATTOOS IN FILM
The previous chapter examined key phases of the historic
development of tattooing, with a demarcation between
perceptions of tattooing as a rebellious, subcultural or even
deviant practice and tattooing as a self-expressive or semiotic
approach broadly being evident. In popular culture, film has
proven to be a potent medium with regard to the visualization
of tattooing, and the presentation of differing attitudes to, and
representations of, tattoos. As such, in film, tattoos stand as
objects of fear and threat, group and gang solidarity, selfexpression and cultural identity, anchors to a mode of being
and expression or as symbols of entrapment, or bodily
reminders of a lifestyle an individual seeks to escape.
Furthermore, cinematic tattoos represent signs of empowerment, power and vengeance, and in some cases, symbols of
horror. In this regard, tattoos are evident in a myriad of filmic
genres, from crime, thrillers and drama, to horror, a Disney
feature and superhero adventures.
As discussed in Chapter 1, while many histories of tattoos
present discrete periods of tattooing, with the onus on the
progressive development from deviance to the mainstream,
39
40
Tattoos and Popular Culture
there are overlaps. Hence, looking at the popular cultural
medium of film, this chapter will identify a number of films in
which tattoos feature as key aspects of the narrative, character
motivation and visual aesthetic. Accordingly, the chapter will
illustrate how film represents a rich and varied source of
popular cultural articulation of tattoo cultures.
TATTOOS AS SUBCULTURAL EXPRESSIONS
With regard to the association of tattoos with perceptions of
deviance, transgression and rebelliousness, crime dramas and
thrillers have frequently employed tattoos as visual cues of
otherness, if not threat. A classic example of this ethos is
evident in The Night of the Hunter (1955), in which the
villainous ‘preacher’, Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum),
articulates his key Biblical story via his tattooed knuckles. In a
plot that involves the ruthless Powell’s pursuit of two children
who know the location of $10,000 stolen by their father, a
key motif is the way in which he uses the words ‘Love’ and
‘Hate’ written on his knuckles to retell the story of Cain and
Abel. Hence, in ‘The Little Story of Right Hand, Left Hand’,
Powell tells the tale of how, with the left hand, Cain struck the
blow that laid Abel low, but, in making his hands wrestle, the
right hand marked with Love triumphs. The association of
tattoos and criminality is explicitly featured in Richard
Brooks’ In Cold Blood (1967), an adaptation of Truman
Capote’s non-fiction classic, based upon the murderers, Perry
Smith and Dick Hickock, who were both prominently tattooed. The significance of tattoos is foregrounded in the scene
in which Hickock (Scott Wilson) is goaded by Roy Church
(John Gallaudet), a Kansas Bureau of Investigation Agent.
Church questions the extent that his tiger head tattoo on his
arm makes him feel ‘tough’, but also dismisses tattoos as the
Tattoos in Film
41
mark of the convict, to which Hickock retorts that everyone is
tattooed because everyone belongs to some form of ‘club’ and
draws status from such membership. The wearing of tattoos is
also of significance in the classic prison drama, Papillon
(1973). Telling the story of Henri Charrière (Steve McQueen),
a safecracker unjustly given a life sentence, which is life
imprisonment in the penal system in French Guiana, he is
given the nickname of ‘Papillon’ because of the butterfly
tattoo he has on his chest. A key scene in the film focuses upon
Papillon tattooing a copy of the butterfly onto the body of a
tribal elder who gives him sanctuary following his escape.
Interestingly, the 2017 version sees Charlie Hunnam’s take on
the character bearing numerous tattoos surrounding the iconic
butterfly design.
The issue of tattoos worn by prisoners is also central in
Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of the 1962 film, Cape Fear,
although with a far more sinister function. The narrative
concerns Max Cady (Robert De Niro), a convicted rapist sent
to prison for 14 years, who stalks his defending lawyer and
his family to exact retribution. Prior to his release, Cady is
strip searched, revealing a multitude of tattoos across his body
that include a huge crucifix that forms the Scales of Justice and
the Biblical quotes ‘Vengeance is mine’, ‘My time is at hand’,
‘THE LORD IS THE AVENGER’ and ‘My time is not yet full
come’. The extent of Cady’s tattooing prompts the character
Lieutenant Elgort (Robert Mitchum) to state, ‘I don’t know
whether to look at him or read him’. However, Cady’s tattoos
act as communicative messages underscoring his obsessive and
relentless drive for revenge upon his lawyer, Sam Bowden
(Nick Nolte), an action that forms the basis of the narrative as
Cady engages in a campaign of terror and violence.
Unsurprisingly, tattoos representing ‘outsiders’ is a potent
visual cue that acts to set apart characters from mainstream
society, serving to flag key aspects of Atkinson’s (2003) Rebel
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
Era of tattooing. Such representations include cult classics, such
as Modesty Blaise’s (Monica Vitti) scorpion tattoo leg design
(denoting her Scorpio star sign) in the spy spoof Modesty Blaise
(1966); Snake Plissken’s (Kurt Russell) iconic cobra tattoo on
his abdomen in Escape From New York (1981); and the bareknuckle boxer Mickey O’Neil (Brad Pitt) in Snatch (2000).
Further examples include bank robber Seth Gecko’s (George
Clooney) distinctive full arm and neck tribal tattoo design in the
crime/horror film From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and superassassin John Wick’s religiously themed tattoos in the John
Wick film series (2014–2019). Indeed, tattoos feature extensively in the John Wick films, especially in John Wick Chapter 3:
Parabellum (2019), in which the underworld nature of the
assassins is visually conveyed with numerous characters wearing an array of neck, hand and facial tattoos. Additionally, the
films xXx (2002) and xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017) mix
action with tattoos. Based on the adventures of the extensively
tattooed extreme sports athlete, Xander Cage (Vin Diesel),
recruited by the US government to carry out special missions
vital to American security, Cage is famous for his daring feats of
extreme sport skill, and his signature triple xXx tattoo, located
on the back of his neck. Furthermore, in Fast and Furious 5–8
(2011–2017) and Fast and Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (2019),
Dwayne Johnson’s tattoos convey a strong visual element in the
character of Shaw’s action persona and image. Yet, with reference to more meditative crime dramas, such as The Place
Beyond The Pines (2012), in which motor cycle stunt rider
turned bank robber, Luke’s (Ryan Gosling) expansively tattooed body (consisting of numerous small tattoos on his arms
and neck, a large traditional American eagle on his chest and a
galleon on his back, a Bible on one hand and, most strikingly, a
dagger dripping blood on the side of his face) mark him as an
‘outsider’ to the life of his mother and child.
Tattoos in Film
43
With regard to tattoos and outsiders, Stieg Larsson’s
superlative computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, dubbed by
Margot Mifflin as ‘the first famously inked literary heroine’
(Mifflin, 2013, p. 101) and by Kirsten Møllegaard as ‘the
ominously tattooed mystery woman’ (2016, p. 347), very
rapidly transferred this status into film. Originally appearing
in his Millennium trilogy of novels (2005–2007), and
subsequently extended in David Lagercrantz’s The Girl in the
Spider’s Web (2015), The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye
(2017) and The Girl Who Lived Twice (2019), Salander has
also developed into a major cinematic icon, with an equally
iconic tattoo. Salander has appeared in five films, and been
portrayed by three different actors: Noomi Rapace in The Girl
with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), The Girl Who Played with
Fire (2009) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest
(2009); Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
(2011); and Claire Foy in The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018).
In terms of comportment, Robert Young and Lynne
McDonald-Smith (2011) argue that Salander communicates a
distinctive subcultural style that combines aspects of rock,
punk, industrial and goth related to her wearing of black
clothing, biker boots and dyed black hair. However, it is her
nine tattoos and her six body piercings that comprise the key
elements of her visual manner, and her identity, which are
‘deliberately designed to alienate and maintain distance’
(Peacock, 2013, p. 23). Her largest motif is the black dragon
on her back (a stark design that runs down one side of her
body in Mara and Foy’s iteration of the character, but which
forms a full back piece in Rapace’s portrayal of Salander), but
other designs have an important identity-communicating significance. As Rachel Rodgers and Eric Bui state, Salander’s
tattoos are central to her story, and represent her sense of
individual identity as well as group membership:
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
For instance, Salander has a small wasp tattoo on her
neck that symbolizes her pseudonym as a hacker. She
is known as ‘wasp’ among the hacker community,
within which she is respected as one of the best
hackers in the world. This high status within the
hacker community is in sharp contrast with her realworld social identity: a single woman who has no
contact with her remaining immediate family
member, is reputed to have a psychiatric disturbance,
and is under legal guardianship. Salander’s wasp
tattoo serves as a coded message of her other identity.
(2011, pp. 32–33)
Tattoos, therefore, represent a key aspect of her identity,
image and mode of expression for Salander. For example, in
Fincher’s version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,
following her rape by her state-appointed guardian, Bjurman
(Yorick van Wageningen), Salander gets an ankle tattoo, the
pain of which signifies her survival, and plan for revenge. The
key significance of tattooing in The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo is that tattoos form such a powerful aspect of
Salander’s sense of self and image, but the tattoo machine also
acts as her weapon or of vengeance against Bjurman. Having
incapacitated him and shown him the video footage of her
rape, she tattoos the words ‘I Am A Rapist Pig’ across his
abdomen and chest, and she warns that if he does not meet her
demands for financial freedom, and if he has further contact
with women, she will release the footage to the authorities.
Furthermore, she later reveals that, thanks to her hacking
prowess, she is monitoring his online searches for tattoo
removal studios, and commands him to cease and wear the
tattoo. Significantly, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, which takes
place some three years following The Girl Who Kicked the
Tattoos in Film
45
Hornets’ Nest, reveals that Salander has added to her tattoo
collection with a more extensive neck design and a tattoo on
her collarbone (and she encounters a murderous organization
known as The Spiders, whose fidelity is marked with a tattooed spider tattoo).
In looking at alternative styles of films that combine action
and crime, such as Machete (2010) and Machete Kills (2013),
which features Danny Trejo as the eponymous and violent
hero, whose body art consists of Trejo’s own tattoos. Also,
Sylvester Stallone’s bodily muscular aesthetic has included
tattooed characters in crime/action films such as Get Carter
(2000), The Expendables series (2010–2014) and Bullet to the
Head (2012). Of these films, Bullet to the Head is of particular
interest as the theme of tattooing is a consistent component of
the plot. For example, Stallone’s character, the tattooed hitman, James Bonomo, sports Stallone’s own real-life upper
body tattoos (in playing the villain, Keegan, Jason Momoa’s
half sleeve tribal band tattoo is also visible as part of the
character). Furthermore, tattoos are a component of the film’s
narrative, such as the female witness that Bonomo allows to
escape as she wears a cat tattoo, a motif sported by his
daughter, Lisa (Sarah Shahi), who is a tattoo artist. What is
interesting with regard to the extensively tattooed Lisa character is that her tattoo studio also serves as a medical facility
for her father’s injured criminal acquaintances (due to her
completing a year at medical school). In terms of setting,
Lisa’s studio evokes the classic tattoo environment, with
‘numerous sheets of “flash” covering the available wall space’
(Sanders, 1988, p. 222). This depiction of the studio is also
evident in the tattoo studio owned by Tool (Mickey Rourke)
in The Expendables, with the addition of numerous motorcycles, one of which forms the tattoo bench, on which Stallone’s character of Barney Ross has his skull and crow back
piece design completed before heading into the team’s next
46
Tattoos and Popular Culture
adventure. Therefore, while modern tattoo studios are typically described as clinical and professional spaces (Modesti,
2008), the parlour retains its hidden qualities within such
representations, especially when related to rebellious or
criminal cultures, a motif also central to the film Blood Father
(2016).
The narrative of Blood Father concerns the newly paroled
John Link (Mel Gibson) working as a tattoo artist from his
trailer. In addition to the film showing Link working on clients
and practicing sketches for forthcoming designs, he is proven
to possess an intimate knowledge of differing tattoo styles
and, most importantly, what they signify. The plot concerns
Link’s daughter, Lydia (Erin Moriarty), escaping from the
gang of her boyfriend, Jonah (Diego Luna), following her
accidental shooting of him during a raid on a ‘stash house’ in
which he has placed an abundance of crime-related money.
Seeking out her father, who wears numerous tattoos,
including a childhood portrait of Lydia on his forearm, the
two go on the run to escape reprisals. Throughout the film, it
becomes evident that Link lives within a world surrounded by
tattoos, his practice as an artist, his own tattoos and those of
the prison community that he reaches out to for help and
information. Furthermore, when encountering the gang
members who attempt to return Lydia to Jonah, Link ‘reads’
their tattoos, identifying precisely which affiliation they
belong to, a factor especially evident with regard to the fearsome ‘Cleaner’ (Raoul Max Trujillo), whose distinctive forehead, eye, face and neck tattoos identify him a Sicario, a hired
killer for a Mexican drug cartel. However, a key element in
the film is the inference that the lifestyle that Link represents
has been appropriated by mainstream popular culture. This
sentiment is evident within the scenes in which Link and Lydia
seek refuge with Link’s friend, Tom ‘Preacher’ Harris
(Michael Parks), and articulated when a number of bikers join
Tattoos in Film
47
a celebration. Speaking with Lydia, Preacher argues that her
father and the bikers are the ‘last of the survivors’ within a
culture that simply buys up the subversives, and ‘turns the
rebels into fashion trends’. In this sense, the tattooed bodies of
the characters in Blood Father arguably represent the residual
traces of a subcultural rebel era that is giving way to the
mainstream. Significantly, as Link dies following a shoot-out
with the Cleaner, the camera lingers on his upper arm tattoo
that reads ‘Lost Soul’, a statement of self that has been
transformed through his redemption in saving Lydia.
In such films, tattoos act as expressions of self and otherness,
but often also as powerful symbols of group identity. Hence,
they represent powerful symbols of belonging and group solidarity, and serve as what Hebdige calls symbolic challenges to
mainstream society. A powerful example of these representational strategies is evident in the New Zealand film, Once Were
Warriors (1994). While films such as The Seekers (1954) and
The Piano (1993) deal (albeit with differing levels of historical
accuracy) with representations of moko from the nineteenthcentury colonialist experience, Once Were Warriors charts the
lives of indigenous New Zealanders against a backdrop of
urban deprivation, domestic and sexual abuse, and gang
violence. With regard to tattoos, the film evokes the tradition of
moko as a means of cultural reclamation, a practice suppressed
in 1907 by European colonists, and as a practice adopted within
New Zealand gang culture (Shelton, 2020). Seeking acceptance
with the Brothers, Nig (Julian Arahanga) first undergoes a
violent initiation rite whereby various members of the gang beat
him, but having proven himself, Nig undergoes traditional
moko tattooing on one side of his face, symbolizing both
traditional Maori culture, and the tattoos worn by every
member of the gang. Alternatively, the Australian drama
Romper Stomper (1992) centres upon the activities of a gang of
skinheads, led by Hando (Russell Crowe). Within this film, the
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
classic attempt by subcultures such as the British skinheads to
collectivize as a means of reclaiming, albeit ‘magically’, some
sense of lost community is realized in the gang’s battles in
Melbourne with youths from the Vietnamese community to
reclaim their ‘lost territory’.
In terms of style, the skinhead gang utilize Nazi regalia in
their apparel, but tattoos are a central aspect of their aesthetic, a
factor that is visually represented through Hando’s striking
black skeletal arm and hand sleeve, and the large British/English
flag and crucifix design he wears on his chest. The use of tattoos
as signs of threat and subversion are also central to Tim Roth’s
violent skinhead character, Trevor, in Made in Britain (1982),
whose tattoos represent his defiant and unrepentant antiauthority stance (including his own name, done in ‘scratcher’
style across the back of his head). However, the symbolic nature
and power of tattoos within a skinhead subcultural context is
central in American History X (1998).
American History X tells the story of brothers Derek
Vinyard (Edward Norton) and Danny Vinyard (Edward
Furlong), who are recruited into a neo-Nazi skinhead gang,
the D.O.C. (the Disciples of Christ), by Cameron Alexander
(Stacy Keach), a white supremacist, following the murder of
their father. Based in Venice Beach, California, the D.O.C.’s
aesthetic is Nazi-dominated, ranging from Danny’s bedroom,
emblazoned with Nazi flags, emblems and portraits of Adolph
Hitler, to the D.O.C. cross tattoo that each member has
(including SS facial tattoos). With reference to neo-Nazi biker
gangs, Ennio E. Piano argues that the member of such an
organization must:
[Embrace] a lifestyle that separates him from – and
stigmatizes him in the face of – society. He must
dress, talk, act like an outlaw: wear easily identifiable
clothes with the insignia of the club, cover his body
Tattoos in Film
49
with tattoos representing Nazi and Whitesupremacist symbolism, and behave outrageously,
violently, and unpredictably in the presence of
members of mainstream society.
(2018, p. 371)
Derek perfectly reflects this ethos, with his tattoos consisting
of a large black swastika tattoo he wears on his chest, in
addition to an Iron Cross, a German Army Eagle motif, barbed
wire and the words ‘White Power’. The film moves between the
past and the present, detailing Derek’s rallying of the D.O.C.
gang, an attack on a Korean convenience store and his killing
of two African-Americans in the process of stealing his car, for
which he is sentenced to three years in prison for manslaughter.
As Mary Kosut argues, human bodies carry signage as characteristics such as ethnicity or gender and act as what Erving
Goffman terms ‘sign vehicles’. In addition to birth-given sign
vehicles, individuals add to them with signs conferred from
wider culture, which include temporary signs such as cosmetics
or clothing, or permanent sign vehicles created through tattooing. As Kosut states:
An important characteristic of the tattoo as a form of
communication is that it largely ‘speaks’ through
non-verbal transmission. It is seen (or read) by
oneself and if placed in a visible location, it may also
be read by others.
(2000, p. 80)
On arriving in prison, Derek consciously uses his tattooed
body to act as a ‘flag’, a sign vehicle that serves to visually
communicate his ideological affiliation and so connect with
neo-Nazi inmates, who all bear similar tattoo designs, and so
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
secure protection against African-American and Hispanic
prison groups. Significantly, during a flashback scene within
the family home, Derek uses his swastika tattoo as a
threatening symbol towards Murray (Elliott Gould), a Jewish
teacher who is dating his mother. The crux of the film’s story
is Derek’s redemption and ultimate rejection of the skinhead
gang and its neo-Nazi ideology, primarily based upon his
friendship with Lamont (Guy Torry), an African-American
who ultimately protects Derek from rival gangs. On his
release, having grown out his hair as the first step towards
rejecting and abandoning the D.O.C. movement, Derek
attempts to divert Danny away from their influence, ideas and
violent racist actions. However, there is a crucial scene in
which, following a shower, Derek gazes at the swastika tattoo
on his chest in the mirror, recognizing that the sign vehicle of
his now-rejected extremist ideology is inscribed into his skin.
As Fruh and Thomas state, a key motivation for people to be
tattooed is frequently the desire to ‘externalize some aspect of
their inner lives, or as a way of marking or remembering
significant events in their histories’ (2012, p. 83). However,
Derek’s tattoos, given their extremist political nature, will
only serve as symbols of continual stigmatization, which,
related to its Greek roots, historically represented ‘a mark of
infamy’ or a ‘physical mark denoting shame or disgrace’
(Larsen, Patterson, & Markham 2014, p. 672). Hence, for
Derek, his Nazi and white supremacist tattoos serve as a
constant bodily reminder of a history associated with violence,
hate and, in Danny’s case, ultimate tragedy. Still, the externalization of extremist subcultural identity and stigmatizing
tattoos is not necessarily a permanent bodily state or status, a
factor central to the film, Skin (2018).
Based on true events, Skin is concerned with the life of Bryon
‘Babs’ Widner (Jamie Bell), a formerly homeless teen taken in by
Fred ‘Hammer’ Krager (Bill Camp) and Shareen (Vera
Tattoos in Film
51
Farmiga), who head the Vinlanders Social Club, a violent neoNazi/White Supremacist group. Akin to American History X’s
D.O.C., the Vinlanders Social Club engage in attacks (including
murder) on non-white ethnic groups in the attempt to ‘re-create
through the “mob’’’ (Clarke, Hall, Jefferson, & Roberts, 2006,
p. 80) an apparent declining culture. Tattoos are integral to the
group, with numerous Nazi/German military symbols in addition to Nordic images, with many members sporting extensive
facial tattooing, and most prominently, Bryon (who is a tattoo
artist). For Kosut, tattoos represent ‘visual phenomena that
often evoke powerful responses – ranging from curiosity and
admiration to disgust and fear’ (2000, p. 82). Bryon’s tattoos
evoke all of these responses, from Iggy (Colbi Gannett), the
young daughter of Julie (Danielle Macdonald), whom Bryon
forms a relationship with, and ultimately marries, who has no
fear, to the admiration of his fellow Vinlanders. Moreover,
Bryon’s facial tattoos, which include a straight razor, the name
of the gang, tribal-style designs and a large black arrow that
covers one eye and much of his forehead, brings him to the
attention of Mike Colter (Daryle Jenkins), of the Southern
Poverty Law Center. Colter specializes in rehabilitating neoNazis, and getting them to work with the FBI to arrest their
movements for racially motivated acts of violence. In this way,
like American History X, Skin is a story of redemption and the
rejection of racism and aggression. However, a key difference
lies in the way in which Bryon breaks with his past. As part of his
deal with the FBI for testifying against the Vinlanders Social
Club, Bryon undergoes extensive laser removal treatment for his
facial and hand tattoos, on the grounds that they will make him
visible for reprisals by the movement. In this sense, the film deals
with tattoo stigma in a number of ways. With reference to the
social psychology of Goffman, Zestcott et al. stress that stigma
is a characteristic that ‘devalues an individual, reducing them
“from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one”’
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(2018, p. 8). The perception of tattoos acting as symbols of
stigmatizing devaluation is progressively recognized by Bryon
as his relationships with Julie and Mike grows, to the extent that
at one point Bryon attempts to chemically burn off his facial
tattoos, a self-administered procedure that is unsuccessful.
Subsequently, the film shows a number of scenes that depict the
laser removal process, and graphically evoke the excruciating
pain that Bryon feels as the tattoos are treated, and ultimately
removed.
The film depicts how Bryon undergoes 612 days of treatment to be able to remove the signs of his gang life and reject
the white supremacist ideology. However, a key aspect of the
tattoos is the revelation that they each symbolize acts of
violence committed by the gang – that they are inscribed
Vinlanders Social Club ‘trophies’. This aspect is a key element
in his negotiations with the FBI, who require Bryon to
‘decode’ his tattoos in order to prosecute the Vinlanders,
revealing that the tattoos are not simply images, but a secret
visual language of the subcultural group.
TATTOOS AS THE SEMIOTIC COMMUNICATION
OF SELF
The theme of tattoos acting as symbolic images that disclose
‘me-ness’ and act to disclose a sense of self-narrative are
strikingly presented in Memento (2000). While ostensibly a
crime thriller, Memento consists of an elliptical narrative
structure (with two storylines moving in chronological and
reverse order) that explores the issue of memory, certainty and
personal narrative. Centred on the character Leonard Shelby
(Guy Pearce), an insurance investigator, who, as the result of
receiving a head injury during a home invasion, cannot form
new memories and so he can only experience short-term
Tattoos in Film
53
memory awareness. The attackers raped and murdered Leonard’s
wife, and so he seeks revenge on the key assailant, a man he
believes to be ‘John G’. Given that Leonard’s memory
continually wipes clean, he navigates through the world using
a series of Polaroid photographs on which he writes notes that
identify people, places and possessions. Yet, the key way in
which Leonard retains knowledge of his investigation and
clues is through his practice of tattooing what he feels to be
vital information and directives onto his body. This becomes
his memory system, as he explains: ‘If you have a piece of
information which is vital, write it on your body instead of a
piece of paper. It can be the answer. It’s just a permanent way
of keeping a note’. Leonard’s tattooing practices consist of
self-inscriptions, using a needle taped to a bio pen, and utilizing
the pen ink, and clue lists tattooed by professional artists.
Through this method, Leonard’s body contains numerous words,
numbers and ‘facts’. However, as his partner, ex-policeman John
‘Teddy’ Gemmell (Joe Pantoliano), reveals, Leonard’s tattoo
codes are a self-narrative that drive an unsolvable puzzle; they
located his wife’s rapist who he had killed months before (an
event Leonard has forgotten). In essence, Leonard has constructed a series of loops in which he continually seeks out and
identifies new ‘John Gs’, murders them in an act of ‘vengeance’, and then forgets. From this point, Leonard (with
Teddy’s help, as he was the investigating officer following the
attack) instantly restarts his investigation, all the while adding
to his body of tattooed clues, ‘facts’ and directives that map
out his (constructed) personal history and motivational drive.
As Kosut argues, as ‘historical reference points or aidesmemoire, tattoos permanently illustrate biographical stories’
(2000, p. 96), even if, as with Leonard, they act as phantasmagorical sign vehicles of identity.
The subject of tattoos acting as ‘scars that speak’ (Benson,
2000, p. 252) is central to Eastern Promises (2007), which deals
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with the centrality of tattoos to the Vory v Zakone, the Russian
mafia, and the Russian prison tattoo tradition. In terms of plot,
Eastern Promises is a London-based crime drama that concerns
the activities of Russian crime boss Semyon (Armin
Mueller-Stahl), his son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), and their driver,
Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen). A British-Russian midwife,
Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), encounters the gang, particularly Nikolai, through delivering the baby of the teenage Tatiana, who dies in childbirth, and Anna seeks a family contact for
the child as a card for Semyon’s Trans-Siberian Restaurant is
found in her effects. This sets off a train of events that leads to
Semyon’s arrest as the rapist of Tatiana, forced into prostitution
within one of his brothels, but as the nature of the criminals
becomes revealed, so too does the centrality of tattoos within
their culture. This aspect of the film is established early in the
narrative, following the brutal murder of one of the gang, Soyka
(Aleksander Mikic). When his body is discovered on the banks
of the Thames, his prison tattoos are ‘read’ by the police officer,
Yuri (Donald Sumpter), who identifies him as a Captain from
his insignia designs and states, ‘In Russian prisons, your life
story is written on your body in tattoos. You don’t have tattoos,
you don’t exist’. In this regard, Eastern Promises clearly evokes
the nature of Russian prison tattooing, and its associations with
the Vory v Zakone. As Kristina Sundberg and Ulrika Kjellman
argue, in this culture the tattoo acts as a ‘document’ of an
individual’s identity, their experiences, status and criminal
actions. As they state:
Among Russian/Soviet prisoners, tattoos have long
played a significant role as evidence of the
individual’s criminal orientation and personal
characteristics. For example, a tattoo of a spider web
with a spider walking up or down indicates the
prisoner’s desire to leave or not to leave criminal life
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55
behind; a tattoo of a knife ‘through the neck’
indicates that the prisoner committed murder in
prison, while little bells around the ankles mean he
has served his sentence in full.
(2018, p. 18)
In their extensive studies of Russian prison tattoos, Danzig
Baldaev, Alexei Plutser-Sarno and Sergei Vasiliev stress that
such tattooed bodies represent linguistic objects, with the key
to successfully ‘reading’ them passed on through oral tradition
and culture. This is so because tattoo designs consist of
encoded information that is obscure for the uninitiated, and so
conveys secret symbolic communications through allegorical
images. Hence,
This is a language that is both highly socialised and
politicised. A thief’s tattooed body is like a ‘depiction’
of a full-dress uniform, covered with regalia,
decorations and badges of rank and distinction…In
effect, these tattoos embody a thief’s complete ‘service
record’, his entire biography.
(2009, p. 27)
Nikolai’s tattoos form the main canvas of attention in this
regard in Eastern Promises, which for the most part are represented by the designs on his hands and fingers. Nevertheless,
the perception of such tattooing as representing the ‘tattooed
body as an archive’ (Sundberg & Kjellman, 2018, p. 20) is
captured in the scene in which Nikolai is presented to various
high-ranking members of the Vory v Zakone for promotion to
the rank of Captain, which consists of the tattooing of two
stars on either side of his upper chest. In this scene, Nikolai
presents his near-naked body to the group, who clearly read his
distinctive crime biography through his tattoo designs covering
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his arms, legs, chest, back and feet, which communicate that he
is a convicted thief, whose criminal career began at the age of
15. However, the semiotic nature of Nikolai’s tattoos raise
further issues in relation to how they are read. Firstly, his
promotion is a ruse by Semyon to have him murdered by
Soyka’s revenge-seeking brothers in place of Kirill (who
ordered the killing). This results in a scene set within a bathhouse in which Nikolai is positioned to be recognized as Kirill
due to the wearing of the star tattoos, eliciting a brutal knife
fight in which the naked Nikolai demonstrates that much of his
body bears crime-based tattoos. Secondly, the twist of the film
is that Nikolai is an undercover Russian police officer, sent to
infiltrate the Vory v Zakone. Therefore, as Timothy Holland
states, the tattoos represent ‘biographical fiction’, and operating ‘as both armour and a decoy, the fables written on
Nikolai’s skin, which are legitimized by the authors who
inscribed them, promise the truth to those capable of “reading”
him’ (2017, p. 146). The aesthetic power of Russian prison
tattoos is also a potent visual aspect of Nikolai Itchenko
(Marton Csokas) in The Equalizer (2014), as his heavily tattooed body displays the possession of Captain’s stars, and a
knife below the neck motif, which signifies that he has killed.
However, while, as Benson argues, tattoos can act as ‘a way of
“reclaiming” the body for the self’ (2000, p. 249), films such as
Eastern Promises and Memento demonstrate this ethos with
regard to the power of tattoos, and their ability to aid the
invention of a self.
TATTOOS IN FANTASY AND HORROR
Regarding films that fall into the genres of fantasy and horror,
the theme of tattooing as a means of self-creation and selfnarrative has a number of potent examples. For instance,
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57
tattoos ‘speaking’ are the narrative focus and conceptual theme
of The Illustrated Man (1969), which (based on the short story
collection by Ray Bradbury) is set in the Carnival Era of the
early 1930s, in which Carl (Rod Steiger) seeks revenge on Felicia
(Claire Bloom), who covered his body with vibrant tattoo
designs. The conceit of the film is that Carl’s tattoos animate to
tell stories of future events to those who view them.
Tattoos represent distinctive aspects of self within
contemporary science fiction and fantasy films, such as
Divergent (2014), based upon Veronica Roth’s Young Adult
(YA) novel series. Charting a future world that divides its
population into differing factions (Dauntless, Abnegation,
Candour, Erudite and Amity), tattoos play a significant role.
For example, the character of Four (Theo James) wears an
elaborate tattoo on his back that unites all of the factions,
while Tris (Shailene Woodley) is tattooed with three ravens on
her collarbone to represent her family, and Tori (Maggie Q),
who is a tattoo artist, wears a hawk design to signify the
overcoming of personal fears. Staying with YA adaptations,
the film version of Stephenie Meyer’s novel, The Twilight
Saga: New Moon (2009) based upon Bella Swan’s (Kristen
Stewart) romance with the vampire Edward Cullen (Robert
Pattison), sees Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) symbolize his
joining of the Quileute Tribe wolf pack (sworn enemies of the
vampires) with the tribal tattoo that all members wear. While
in Waterworld (1995), the key to survival is found in a tattoo
on Enola’s (Tina Majorino) back that represents a cryptic map
showing the route to the only dry land left on the planet. In
other instances tattoos in fantasy style films represent
idiosyncratic visual aspects of fearsomeness, such as Viper’s
(Lee-Anne Liebenberg) distinctive facial tattoos in the futuristic adventure Doomsday (2008). And tattoos form the
distinctive aesthetic of the dragon-killer, Denton Van Zan
(Matthew McConaughey), in Reign of Fire (2002), which is
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similarly reflected with regard to Caine Wise’s (Channing
Tatum) ornate arm tattoo (and neck design), which is part of
his genetically enhanced alien hunter persona in Jupiter
Ascending (2015). Tattoos also serve as iconic character
symbols, as is the case with Dr Frank-N-Furter’s (Tim Curry)
bleeding heart/dagger/BOSS and 4711 tattoo designs in The
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). However, tattoos can
have a practical function, as in the supernatural drama,
Constantine (2005), in which John Constantine’s (Keanu
Reeves) mystical forearm tattoo designs have the power to
summon demons when placed together. Alternatively, tattoos
are an aspect of control and ownership, as in Mad Max: Fury
Road (2015), in which when Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy)
is captured by the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh KeaysByrne) and has his body and health data forcibly tattooed
on his back, part of which identifies him as having organs
suitable for extraction.
In more horror-oriented films, tattoos are foregrounded as
signs of alternative culture, as in The Wizard of Gore (2007),
in which Montag the Magnificent’s (Crispin Glover) on-stage
magic act ends in murder and mutilation. Visible tattoos are a
part of the ‘subcultural’ audiences’ visual style, but the film is
notable in that all of the victims of Montag are played by
members of the alternative beauty website, the Suicide Girls,
which exclusively showcases tattooed and pierced models.
However, the transformative power of tattoos is a key aspect
of Red Dragon (2002), adapted from Thomas Harris’ novel,
in which the killer, Francis Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes) wears a
large tattoo design of a dragon, inspired by the art of William
Blake, which symbolizes his ‘becoming’ into a new entity (the
belief that drives his murderous actions). This element is
further visually stressed in the TV series, Hannibal
(2013–2015), whereby Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) imagines the dragon tattoo moving and coiling around his body,
Tattoos in Film
59
truly becoming a part of his self and symbolizing his transformation. The idea of tattoos and self-identity is also an
aspect of The Green Inferno (2013). Framed as an homage to
the 1980s cannibal horror films (such as Cannibal Holocaust
and Cannibal Ferox), The Green Inferno follows the activities
of a group of environmental activists who travel to the
Amazon rainforest to protest against a petrochemical company engaged in forest clearance, but who are captured by a
cannibalistic tribe when their plane crash-lands in the jungle.
One of the group, Samantha (Magda Apanowicz) sports a
number of tattoos, and on seeing a jaguar declares that the
animal will be the inspiration for her next tattoo (with
the scene serving as a gently satirical commentary on the
Millennial practice of inscribing life experiences into the skin
through tattoos). However, Samantha’s tattoos soon become
the focus of horror when the failure of her escape bid is
revealed to the group through a number of the tribe’s children
wearing tattooed patches of her skin.
However, there are other horror films in which tattoos as
an art form are key components of the narratives. For
example, The Tattooist (2007) explores both the nature of
traditional Samoan tattooing and the expropriation of such
traditions by Western practitioners. The film is based upon an
American tattoo artist, Jake Sawyer (Jason Behr), whose
speciality is healing tattoos drawn from various global tattooing cultures. While attending a Tattoo Expo, Sawyer sees
Sina (Mia Blake) and follows her to an area of the Expo in
which a traditional Samoan pe’a tattooing ceremony is being
performed by tattooists from New Zealand. The pe’a is an
ancient tradition in which men receive a tattoo from mid-torso
to knees (women receive the malu), which is used
contemporaneously to celebrate Samoan roots (Dance, 2019).
Clandestinely looking on at the tattooing ceremony, with the
use of the traditional hammer and chisel tapping technique,
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Jake steals a chisel from a display cabinet for use in his own
practice. Commenting on the Western embrace of ‘tribal’
tattoo designs and techniques, Turner argues that:
Traditional Maori or Japanese signs are woven into
global consumerism, where they are endlessly
modernized, producing a complex hybridization of
signs and messages. Globalization has produced a
melange of tattoos which are ironically self-referential
and repetitive, and the very hybridity of tattoo genres
playfully questions the authenticity of these
commercial body marks.
(1999, p. 40)
Sawyer’s lack of authenticity is tragically revealed when the
father of a gravely ill boy, whose ‘healing’ tattoo failed to save
his life, confronts Sawyer and pushes him to the ground, in
which Sawyer cuts his palm with the tattoo chisel. This scene
both reveals the cynical lack of authenticity that Sawyer has for
the differing tattoo traditions he expropriates, but it also sets the
supernatural part of the plot in train. On feeling guilty for his act
of theft, Sawyer travels to Auckland in New Zealand to return
the chisel. On arrival, he seeks out a previous employer, and
starts work in the Bedlam tattoo studio, from where he tattoos a
number of clients, and seeks out Sina to return the tool. Yet,
Sawyer’s hand wound does not heal, and even oozes ink.
Furthermore, he catches sights of a ghostly figure in mirrors, and
constantly hears a tapping sound. More horrifically, each of
Sawyer’s clients die, as their tattoos continually expand to the
point that they copiously bleed black tattoo ink. The crux of the
film revolves around Sawyer attempting to find a solution to
the phenomenon as he has also tattooed Sina, and her tattoo
begins to enlarge. The stealing of the chisel is what is responsible
as it contains the vengeful spirit of Lomi (Ian Vincent), whose
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61
pe’a became infected due to the inadequate practice of Mr. Va’a
(David Fane), who would not take Lomi to the hospital as it
would have shamed him. Therefore, Lomi, who Va’a claimed to
have fled because he could not ensure the pain of the pe’a,
bringing disgrace on his family, becomes the spectral Tattooist,
who continues the tattooing process begun by Sawyer. Thus,
while a horror film, the narrative is also centrally concerned
with the tradition of the pe’a, from Va’a ritually cutting off his
tattooed skin in the wake of his confession (which restores
honour to Lomi and his family, and ends his supernatural tattooing), to the nature of Western attitudes to the practice. As the
pe’a artist states to Sawyer, ‘I have worked for years to try to
make people see tatau for what it is, but there’s always people
like you who think you can come in and take without asking’.
Significantly, having learned the lesson of expropriation, the
film ends with Sawyer completing the design the Tattooist
produced in his own specialism, giving Sina a backpiece that
represents a hybrid of Samoan and western tattoo styles.
The figure of the tattoo artist, and the status of tattooing as
an art, finds expression in a number of films, often with
associations of tattooing with deviance. A key example is
Tattoo (1981), which explores the tattoo as a form of body
modification, but also as horror and symbol of control. Based
upon the tattoo artist Karl Kinsky (Bruce Dern), who has a full
Japanese body design as a result of being stationed in Japan
when in the army, he runs a tattoo shop in Hoboken, New
York. Kinsky is hired to draw temporary tattoos on fashion
models for a photo shoot and becomes attracted to one of the
models, Maddy (Maud Adams). In becoming sexually
obsessed with Maddy, Kinsky kidnaps her and begins to
tattoo her body, to inscribe what he calls ‘the mark’, and
progressively cover her skin with floral designs to ultimately
match his own tattoo-covered self. As Mascia-Lees and Sharpe
argue, Tattoo echoes Junichiro Tanizaki’s novella, The
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
Tattooer, in which a Japanese tattooist forcibly tattoos a huge
black widow spider onto the back of a geisha. Yet, while the
geisha’s reaction to her tattoo is one of acceptance, Maddy, on
first seeing her ‘new self’ in a mirror, experiences ‘the tattoo as
worse than death’ (1992, p. 152), ultimately, and symbolically, stabbing Kinsky with his tattoo machine. As Steven
Allen (2013) states of Tattoo, the act of tattooing is represented as a mode of sadistic domination, in which the tattoo
machine becomes a phallic substitute, and power is exercised
through the permanence of the tattoos, a theme also central to
the British film, Perfect Skin (2018).
Akin to Tattoo, Perfect Skin is the story of an obsessed
tattoo artist, Bob Reid (Richard Brake), whose London-based
tattoo parlour, Perfect Skin, becomes the location for his own
drive to create the ultimate tattoo designs. The film concerns
Katia (Natalia Kostrzewa), an unemployed Polish au pair who
meets up with her friend Lucy (Jo Woodcock). Lucy has a
number of tattoos done by Bob and introduces Katia to him,
who openly admires her skin and considers her to be a ‘blank
canvas’. On meeting Bob in a bar, Katia returns to his studio,
where he drugs her, and then imprisons her in a cage in the
building’s basement. From here, Bob repeatedly drugs Katia in
order to tattoo extensive designs across her body, cuffing her
hands so that she cannot scratch and ruin the work. The
motivation for Bob’s actions are rooted in his progressive
Parkinson’s disease, which is causing hand tremors that will
soon end his tattooing career, and Katia effectively is to be his
ultimate tattooed canvas. Hence, over the course of two
months, he covers her arms, legs and upper body with a
variety of designs, and most strikingly, he shaves her head and
covers it with a large snake design, webs, petals and a snake
down the side of her face (and he fixes two metal horns to her
head). Largely a psychological thriller, Perfect Skin slides into
horror when Bob murders Lucy, dismembers her body and
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63
tattoos her head and torso. A significant aspect of the narrative is that, while reacting with horror and anger, screaming,
‘What have you done to me? This is my body!’ when she first
sees her tattooed body, she becomes intrigued by the symbolism of the designs, which Bob explains. Moreover, Bob
tattoos a perfect likeness of the image of Katia’s deceased
brother (kept in a locket she constantly wears), that
emotionally moves her. In this sense, Katia’s reactions to her
tattoos are complex, and she asks to read the books that
explore and explain the symbolism of tattoos, but she still
plans and realizes her escape, killing Bob with a piece of
broken glass and leaving the basement, the last shot showing a
radically transformed body.
While ostensibly a film dealing with the horror of a body
forcibly, and permanently, altered by the actions of another,
Perfect Skin identifies the distinctive (and debated) nature of
tattooing with regard to artistic production. This is especially
evident when Bob, reflecting upon the nature of his actions as
her inscribed skin is increasingly covered, states to Katia,
‘Now it’s not just a tattoo, it’s a piece of art’. However, the
German film, Tattoo (2002), places the issue of tattooing as an
art form at the centre of its macabre narrative.
Tattoo opens with the scene of Lynn Wilson (Christiane
Scheda), staggering on a road at night with a large patch of
skin removed from her back, before being struck by a vehicle
and killed. Lynn’s death is investigated by detective Minks
(Christian Redl) who recruits newly graduated officer Marc
Schrader (August Diehl) as his partner. Initially, the film
appears to be a Se7en-style serial killer drama involving an
unknown assailant who murders victims and then removes
tattooed skin as trophies. But, as the narrative develops, it
becomes more complex, with the tattoo as an artistic artefact
becoming a central component of the story. In discussing
debates concerning the artistic status of tattoos, Kosut argues
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that a key part of the Tattoo Renaissance was the entry of
professionally trained artists into the industry, which would
reinforce the ‘idea that some tattoos are indeed art, rather
than craft or commonplace bodily decoration’ (2014, p. 146).
However, as D. Angus Vail stresses, the distinction developed
between ‘tattoo art’ and ‘tattoos’, a contrast based upon the
distinctive aesthetic elements in each style. Hence, while many
tattoos are small and stylistically limited, ‘artistic’ tattoos ‘are
commonly large, often colourful, and frequently connected to
one another. The overall visual effect of an artistic collection is
similar to clothing because it “covers” large sections of skin’
(1999, p. 326). This latter description of tattoos is what drives
the narrative of Tattoo, as the film is centrally about individuals who collect prized tattooed skin.
In terms of representation, the film does present a dichotomous approach to tattooing, in that the day-to-day practice
is associated with the underground (the one studio depicted in
the film is not a clinical environment, and the artist is giving a
tattoo to an under-aged boy) and differs markedly from the
world of elite artists. The arrival of Lynn’s college friend,
Maya Kroner (Nadeshda Brennicke) reveals that the missing
tattoo from Lynn’s back was the work of a famed Japanese
artist, Hori Hiromitsu, who only tattooed 12 people and then
committed suicide. Hence, all of those who wear the now rare
Hiromitsu designs are being murdered for their now valuable
skin. Therefore, the status of tattoos as art is central to the
film, as the mystery of the narrative concerns the existence of a
tattoo trade market. As such, the film features characters who
sell patches of their skin containing requested tattoos, but the
enigmatic and unseen character ‘Irezumi’, a major collector,
kills for their desired art, seeking to acquire the complete
Hiromitsu collection. The detectives learn of the tattoo collector world through the lawyer Frank Schoubya (Johan
Leysen), who acts as a broker for Irezumi, but who is also an
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65
avid collector, as revealed by his gallery space filled with
framed tattooed skins and a full bodysuit. With regard to the
aesthetic status of tattoos, Schoubya, on seeing Lynn’s tattooed skin, declares that it is the ‘pinnacle of tattoo art,
perhaps of all art’, reflecting Howard Becker’s view that ‘art is
what people treat as art’ (Vail, 1999, p. 325). However, Maya
reveals that she wears a previously unknown thirteenth Hiromitsu design, a full body tattoo of Japanese-style waves, and
is used as bait to bring Irezumi out into the open. Yet, the
twist at the climax of the film is that Maya obtains Lynn’s
tattoo and is revealed to be Irezumi, with the last image of her
in a restaurant appraising a waiter’s ornamental tattoo on his
arm. However, the final sequence of the film depicts Schrader
undergoing the traditional Japanese tattoo process and
obtaining the same design as Maya, with the intention of
using himself within the illicit tattoo trade as a means by
which to continue the pursuit of Irezumi. Hence, Tattoo, while
often graphically violent, consistently represents the tattoo as
a form of art, indeed, an art form so potent that some will sell
their skins, while others will kill for them.
TATTOOS IN THE MAINSTREAM
Looking at tattoos in the popular cultural medium of film,
many of the key elements of the cultural and social development of the practice find representation. Hence, tattoos
represent communicative mediums, self-expression, rebellion,
marks of deviance and threat, and often reflect the underground ethos that arguably defined them. Yet, the cultural
understanding of tattoos is that, from the 1970s and accelerating in the 2000s, they have unequivocally undergone a
mainstreaming in terms of social and cultural visibility, and
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this is equally evident with regard to filmic representations.
For example, one of the most memorable comedic moments in
the popular film, The Hangover Part 2 (2011) is the revelation
of Stu’s (Ed Helms) large Mike Tyson–style facial tattoo,
acquired during a drunken night in Bangkok that disastrously
includes a trip to a tattoo studio. Tattoos are also a central
feature in Pete Davidson’s semi-autobiographical comedydrama, The King of Staten Island (2020), in which his own
tattoo collection is extensively featured. However, a clear
indication of such mainstream representation is the presence
of tattoos in Disney’s Moana (2016).
Derived from Polynesian mythology, the story of the film is
based upon Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) leaving her island to
seek out the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson), who stole the
heart of the goddess, Te Fiti, an action that has resulted in a
progressive environmental devastation affecting all of the
islands. The film features Polynesian tattoos in a number of
ways, firstly the islanders wear the pe’a and malu, and Maui is
not only comprehensively tattooed, but his tattoos have
magical abilities. For instance, Maui’s tattoos constantly
animate not only to convey his history but also to provide
commentary on current events and actions. Thus, in the ultimate expression of tattoos expressing me-ness, Maui wears a
tattooed image of himself, which constantly ‘speaks’ to him
through acting out scenarios, most significantly, acting as his
conscience when he does not wish to help Moana in her quest.
It is ultimately revealed that Maui’s tattoos magically appear
on his body when he earns them, and with the return of the
heart, the image of Moana becomes his latest inscribed image.
As such, tattoos play an important aesthetic, cultural and
narrative role within Moana, and bring tattoos to the cinematic tradition of Disney, although Captain Jack Sparrow
does have a tattoo in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, based
on the Disney theme park.
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67
With regard to alternative mainstream cinematic ‘universes’, tattoos are present in the Harry Potter and the Goblet
of Fire (2005), as represented by the Death Eaters’ skull and
snake motifs, and tattoos have also become increasingly
evident in the superhero genre. An early example is evident in
Marvel’s Blade series (1998–2004), in which a key aspect of
the half-vampire Blade’s (Wesley Snipes) image includes the
distinctive tribal-style tattoos on his shoulders and neck.
Furthermore, in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Drax’s
(Dave Bautista) body is heavily tattooed, with the designs that
tell the story of his life history, while the central character of
Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) in Venom (2018) includes Hardy’s
own tattoos. Furthermore, tattoos are a salient part of the
aesthetic in Black Panther (2018), as most strikingly illustrated with reference to the Wakandan peacekeeping force,
the Dora Milaje, and General Okoye’s (Danai Gurira) ornate
head tattoo design.
In DC’s superhero films, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman character displays extensive tattoos across his arms and body
based upon traditional Polynesian designs (including the
actor’s own forearm design) in both Justice League (2017) and
Aquaman (2018). However, tattoos are a significant and
persistent feature in the ensemble adventure, Suicide Squad
(2016), in which a number of characters are tattooed. For
example, characters such as Monster T (Common) has a
number of head designs, while Diablo (Jay Hernandez) wears
numerous gang-style body and facial tattoos, with his face
fashioned in the likeness of a skull with a prominent scythe
design on his forehead. Furthermore, the film’s version of The
Joker (Jared Leto) is heavily tattooed, with motifs such as
smiles on his arm and hand, a skull jester, a knife through the
Batman symbol, multiple Ha Ha Has written on his forearms
and chest, facial tattoos, and the word ‘JOKER’ emblazoned
across his upper abdomen. Additionally, the Joker’s partner in
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crime, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) has a number of
distinctive tattoos, such as: a diamond jester pattern on her
right arm, ‘Property of the Joker’ on her left shoulder, and the
word ‘Rotten’ written along her jawline and a black heart on
her cheek, designs also evident in Cathy Yan’s Harley Quinn:
Birds of Prey (2020). As Leanne Butkovic states of the history
of the Harley Quinn character:
The Suicide Squad Harley Quinn was the first overtly
tattooed Harley Quinn, maybe a nod to our culture
simply becoming more tolerant of visible tattoos on
women, but also suggesting that tattoos are for
delinquents. (Notice how the vast majority of
superheroes are ink-free while their antagonists have
been tattooed a hundred times over?).
(2020: Thrillist.com)
Tattoos in the superhero genre, therefore, still tend towards
the classic ‘rebel’ and ‘outsider’ status. Hence, tattoos in film
represent key elements of the history of tattoos, from the
representation of the tattoo as a symbol of otherness, group
and cultural solidarity, and a distinctive bodily art form, to the
self-communicative potential and nature of tattoo designs.
Furthermore, given the importance of fandom as a modern
subcultural mode, it is not surprising to note that popular
cultural icons like Harley Quinn have in turn inspired
numerous fan tattoos.
3
TATTOOING AND REALITY TV
If tattoos have featured in various films, then it is no surprise
that they have also been discernible in television, one of the
most historically prominent mediums of popular culture
(Storey, 2010). For example, in the episode of the popular
1970s American television crime series, Starsky & Hutch
(1975–1979), entitled ‘Texas Longhorn’ (1975), the detectives
track a rapist and murderer, who is identifiable by the
distinctive tattoos, consisting of rows of fishes on the inside of
both of his forearms. In the course of their investigation, the
detectives visit a tattoo studio for information on the design,
where they learn that the design confirms that the killer is a
sailor who acquired the tattoos in the South China Seas. In a
change of pace from a US action-filled cop show, the episode of
Tales of the Unexpected entitled ‘Skin’ (1980) is a dramatization of a Roald Dahl short story that begins with an impoverished former tattoo artist, Drioli (Derek Jacobi) discovering
that his old artist friend, Soutine (Boris Isarov), is now famous
and his works command great fortunes. A flashback to 1913
reveals that having taught Soutine the rudiments of tattooing,
Drioli has Soutine paint a portrait of his wife on his back and
then tattoo over the painting, immortalising the art onto his
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
skin forever. In revealing his art to a gallery owner, there is a
bidding battle to buy the tattoo. Ultimately, Drioli is made an
offer by a hotelier to live in luxury in Cannes for the rest of his
life, with the proviso that he constantly displays the priceless
Soutine artwork. Yet, in a macabre twist, the detached artwork
is then seen being offered for sale in Argentina, and it is
revealed that the hotel does not exist. A salient aspect of Skin is
not simply the tattoo-based plot concept, but the interesting
depiction of early tattoo-machine-based techniques, and, most
significantly, the debate as to whether tattooing constitutes an
art form (which Soutine ultimately accedes is indeed the case).
In other television examples, in amongst the conspiracy
theories and alien activities, The X-Files episode ‘Never Again’
(1997) features a plot in which a man’s Bettie Page–style pin-up
tattoo seemingly speaks to him (voiced by Jodie Foster) and
commands him to commit murder. But the episode is also
significant in that Agent Scully (Gillian Anderson) obtains an
Ouroboros tattoo on her back in the course of her investigation. While in Brimstone (1998–1999), Ezekiel Stone (Peter
Horton) is charged by the Devil (John Glover) to recapture 113
evil souls that have escaped from Hell, with Stone’s body,
bearing 113 tattoos that symbolize each soul (which progressively disappear as each soul is returned to Hell). Although as
Derek John Roberts (2012) suggests, 1990s television culture,
from situation comedies to crime dramas, often had the tendency to represent tattoos as either impediments to respectable
employment or as stereotyped signifiers of criminality.
In the context of twenty-first-century popular television, tattoos have arguably become multifaceted in terms of representation and tattoo depictions. For example, while the prison drama
Orange is the New Black (2013–2019) incorporates a number of
tattooed female characters (and features the practice of prison
tattooing), the crime series Prison Break (2005–2009) takes a
different, and far more high concept approach to the subject.
Tattooing and Reality TV
71
Based upon an elaborate plot of a man unjustly sent to Death
Row, his brother gets himself incarcerated in the same prison in
order to stage a daring and intricate escape. The conceit of the
show is that, given his profession as a structural engineer, the
central character of Michael Schofield (Wentworth Miller) has a
tattoo that consists of a coded layout of the prison and key
information central to the escape plan. This issue of coding is also
at the heart of the action-drama, Blindspot (2015–), the story of
an amnesic, Jane Doe (Jamie Alexander), who is abandoned in
Times Square in a bag, naked, revealing that her body is covered
in cryptic tattoos, the significance of which she has no memory of
acquiring. In terms of narrative and plot, the tattoos are progressively revealed to be clues to who she is and to her previous
life. Tattoos also feature extensively in the crime drama Sons of
Anarchy (2008–2014), centred upon the activities of a
California-based motorcycle club involved in both legal and
illegal business activities, evoking a contemporary ‘rebel’
perception of the tattoo as the marker of ‘the outsider’ (Atkinson,
2003, p. 41). In this show, the gang’s tattoo insignia of the Grim
Reaper also acts as a mark of gang solidarity and identity (and is
worn by many fans of the show). Furthermore, modern historical
dramas have also significantly featured depictions of tattooing,
such as the gang-solidarity tattooing practice in the 1938-set
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (2020), and Taboo (2017), set in
1814, and which focuses upon the character of James Keziah
Delaney (Tom Hardy), who returns to England following
12 years in Africa, an experience marked into Delaney’s skin in
the form of tribal tattoo designs. And, going back further into
history, Vikings (2013-) features a number of Norse characters
who are extensively tattooed, but most strikingly the central
character, Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel), whose ornate head
tattoos are a key part of the aesthetic of the character (and who
has inspired many fans to acquire Ragnar tattoo portraits).
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However, while tattoos are present in differing ways in
fictional television, a key concentration of representations of
tattooing in contemporary popular culture has been within what
is dubbed reality TV. This is a multifaceted genre that Ruth A.
Deller describes as representing ‘arguably the defining television
format of the twenty-first century’ (2020, p. 11), and reality TV
has played a significant role in the representation of tattooing.
REALITY TV: A GENRE OF MANY FORMS
In the view of Jonathan Bignell (2005), reality TV gets its
designator from its focus upon representations of reality in the
form of unscripted interactions, rather than being based upon
a fictional narrative. As such, while some scenarios presented
in reality TV shows may be artificial (the settings, studio
environments, etc.), they are distinguished in their use of nonactors or professional entertainers (Andrejevic, 2004). However, the provenance of reality TV is an interesting one from
an historical perspective, as Michel Essany states:
Depending on who you ask, reality television is either
the newest trend in contemporary programming or
the oldest format of the entire broadcast medium. To
a degree, however, both perspectives are accurate.
Reality television has existed since the advent of
television itself, yet only recently has the genre
emerged as the preeminent programming format of
the modern era. The 1948 debut of Candid Camera is
often hailed as the epic birth of reality television [that]
cleverly placed real people in contrived situations to
elicit humorous but otherwise harmless reactions.
(2008, p. 17)
Tattooing and Reality TV
73
As Laurie Ouellette and James Hay assert, the genre’s
defining trait is capturing how ‘ordinary’ people engage with
challenges and the behaviours of others to the extent that reality
TV ‘invests the minutiae of everyday life with dramatic importance’ (2008, p. 4). However, this has evolved into numerous
formats and approaches to the capturing of ‘reality’ in a televisual form, such as the PBS series, An American Family, broadcast in 1973, which charted a family’s reaction and coping
strategies with the repercussions of divorce. Furthermore, in the
1990s, ‘docusoaps’ like Airline (1998–2007) represented narratives that filmed the lives of a number of individuals with
differing roles, but within the context of a narrative and sustained set of interactions within a real-life professional context.
By the end of the 1990s, reality TV would radically evolve and
become a major presence within twenty-first-century media
culture. As Sue Holmes and Deborah Jermyn state, as it rose to
media prominence, reality TV would actually begin to ‘move
away from an attempt to “capture” “a life lived” to the televisual
arenas of formatted environments in which the more traditional
observational rhetoric of documentary jostle for space with the
discourses of display and performance’ (2004, p. 5). The major
development in this direction was the popularity of the globally
syndicated reality TV–based gameshow, Big Brother, in which a
number of contestants were confined within an enclosed Big
Brother House under 24-hour camera surveillance.
The key to its success, according to Nick Couldry, was its
intrinsic quality of the mixture of ‘artificial entertainment and
human reality’ (2003, p. 106), or, as Misha Kavka stresses, Big
Brother initiated ‘the introduction of fabricated competitive
environments to reality TV’ (2012, p. 3). Certainly, this style of
format has proven to be influential, to the extent that it has
inspired subsequent (and highly successful) shows of this type
that bring people together in enclosed environment set-ups, such
as The Bachelor (2002–present), Temptation Island (2001–
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present) and Love Island (2015–present). In other instances, the
docusoap has evolved into ‘pre-planned but mostly unscripted
programming with non-professional actors in non-fictional scenarios’ (Deery, 2015, p. 3). Prominent examples of these which
follow the lives, loves and numerous interpersonal conflicts of
particular groups include Keeping Up With The Kardashians
(2007–present), The Real Housewives series (2006–present),
Made in Chelsea (2011–present), or Vanderpump Rules
(2013–present), all of which showcase mediated acts of selfdisclosure (Tal-Or and Hershman-Shitrit, 2015).
As Misha Kavka and Brenda R. Weber assert, reality TV
shows involve real people, but within the context of ‘the labour
of self-performance as marketable product’ (2017, p. 4).
Consequently, reality TV rarely presents any form of pure
televisual vérité, but rather combines everyday filmed scenarios
with elements of artifice, or what June Deery calls stated actuality, whereby reality TV events ‘take place in a real time and
place, but there will be different mixes of contrivance and
spontaneity before, during, and after filming’ (2015, p. 29).
Furthermore, the genre of reality TV is something of an
umbrella concept as it covers a number of differing formats and
reality-based trends. As Essany contends, reality TV ranges
from Documentary Reality, to Romance Reality, and what he
calls Professional Reality, the latter of which focuses upon ‘the
daily performance of a particular occupation’ (2008, p. 10), and
which would include the tattooing-based series, Miami Ink.
THE TATTOOIST, THE STUDIO AND THE CLIENT:
TELEVISING TATTOOING AND MEDIATING
INK STORIES
First broadcast in 2005, Miami Ink would run until 2008, and
represented a distinctive addition to the subgenre of alternative
Tattooing and Reality TV
75
profession-style reality TV shows that were popular in the
2000s (covering occupations as diverse as pawnbrokers, car
repo teams, deep-sea fishing crews, storage unit bidders and
bounty hunters). Furthermore, given the perception that the
beginning of the twenty-first century represented a new phase of
the Tattoo Renaissance (Atkinson, 2003), the new focus upon
tattooing from the perspective of reality TV was a significant
one, especially with regard to the growing perception that tattooing was becoming increasingly mainstreamed and normalized as a bodily practice.
The opening up of both tattoo studios and tattoo culture to
reality TV scrutiny constituted a significant development in
terms of revealing what is arguably the heart of tattooing: the
tattoo studio. As Sanders states, the tattoo studio has been
chiefly associated with anxiety, especially for those with little
experience of tattooing, in which the ‘novice client possesses, at
best, minimal knowledge of what the tattooing process entails’
(2008, p. 119). Tattoo studios have had a long-standing reputation as secretive environments that have a unique atmosphere
due to the constant buzzing sound of tattoo machines, and the
striking aroma of cleaning products, which can render the
tattoo studio as an inviting, exciting or even intimidating space
for those unaccustomed with the process (Modesti, 2008;
Barron, 2017). Reality TV, then, revealed exactly what happens behind the studio doors, the relationship between the artist
and the client (Atkinson’s nexus of the figuration), and the
motivations for individuals to become tattooed. In this regard,
Real Time’s Miami Ink would be the trail-blazing mediation of
the tattooing world, setting up a platform for other (and
diverse) reality TV formats that followed.
Miami Ink (2005–2008) charts the opening of a tattoo
studio, in Miami, its development as a business, relationship
with clients and the work of its artists. Co-owned by Ami
James and Chris Núñez, and joined by the tattoos artists Chris
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Garver, Darren Brass, Katherine Von Drachenberg (Kat Von
D) and Yojiro (Yoji) Harada, Ami James’ apprentice, the
series examines the practice of tattooing, and the interrelationship of the differing artists. As such, the early episodes
present biographies of each artist, and their particular specialisms (Japanese, portraits, Black and grey, etc.). In terms of
the series opening up the nature of tattooing, the technical
aspects of the practice are clearly both visualized and
explained by the artists. For instance, Ami James talks
through the preparation needed to tattoo a client (preparing
the stencil, selecting the appropriate needles, shaders, ink
choices, etc.) in addition to explaining the sterilization process. Furthermore, the series showed close-ups of the act of
tattooing, clearly depicting how the artist applies the outline
to the design, then the colouring and shading. In this regard, it
is significant that the first episode of Miami Ink has a
distinctively documentary feel as it focuses on the biographies
of the artists, and, crucially in terms of mediating not simply
the reality of the tattoo studio and its culture, but shows, in
detail, the act of tattooing. For example, the series revealed
how an artist can successfully undo a design gone wrong (as
with the case of a client whose script in Italian turned out to be
misspelled). In terms of the interactions between the artists, a
further significant insight is that of the representation of the
role and status of the tattoo apprentice within the studio. This
aspect of the series focuses on the relationship between Ami
James and Yoji, and is often the source of humour within the
series as Yoji is often the victim of pranks. However, the issue
of the status of the apprentice, the artist-in-training, is a
crucial aspect of the tattoo industry, albeit, usually consisting
of everything ‘that everyone else doesn’t want to do’ (Garlick,
2012, p. 39). This is a factor that Miami Ink charts (given that
Yoji has a family to support), and so a key dynamic of the
series is Yoji’s desire to begin tattooing professionally (which
Tattooing and Reality TV
77
he ultimately does). Yet, this aspect of the narrative is
important because, as Ami James states to the camera, the
apprentice period is a crucial moment in the training of a
tattoo artist, and the often tough challenging that Yoji experiences is a reflection of James’ own relationship with his
mentor. In this sense, then, the traditional ‘craft’ component
and history of tattooing is a key feature of the revelatory
nature of the series, and contributes to the ‘tattoo education’
that the viewer gains.
Still, while key aspects of the tattoo industry and the dayto-day workings of the tattoo studio are an important factor
in Miami Ink, the primary focus is, unsurprisingly, on the act
of tattooing, but also on the motivations of the client to be
tattooed. This latter aspect represents the dominant trope
within the episodes, and forms the enduring leitmotif that runs
throughout the entire series. In this regard, Miami Ink serves
to reinforce the post-1970s transformation in tattooing, as the
issue of ‘tattoo stories’ is central to the format. In this sense,
clients enter into the studio and explain what design they wish
to have; however, the majority of prospective clients then
explain what the motivation for the design is, usually through
a combination of speaking with the chosen artist and directto-camera testimonies. Consequently, the dominant trope
with regard to tattoo motivation is that the design is not
merely aesthetic, but serves a symbolic purpose, and possesses
communicative value.
In her analysis of reality TV and Miami Ink, Louise
Woodstock stresses the ways in which the ‘tattoo stories’ are
framed in terms of onscreen interaction, but the monologue
segments, in which the client and the artist reflect upon the
tattoo design and the personal narrative that informs it,
establishes a potent sense of intimacy. Accordingly, the tattoo
is never simply an aesthetically motivated act (a design chosen
simply because the client likes it), but becomes an emotional
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process, with the completed tattoo representing a form of
empowerment and personal closure (with each episode typically featuring five to six tattoos). As such, the reason why
clients seek to be tattooed are linked to a range of personal
issues, such as bereavement, illness, personal misfortune, or
the overcoming of addictions. In this context, Woodstock
argues, the tattooing processes represented in Miami Ink act
as therapeutically motivated narratives of the self, whereby:
Each interaction between tattoo artists and client
becomes an opportunity to tell a story about
transforming significant life experiences into
affirmations of individual identity and familial
loyalty. At the heart of this exchange sits the tattoo
itself, saturated with symbolism. Time and time
again, both artists and clients endow tattoos with
transformative power and consider them expressive
marks of both inner self and the social bonds that
unite the self and loved ones.
(2014, p. 781)
Therefore, Miami Ink’s representational strategy foregrounds the contemporary perception of tattoos possessing a
distinctive sense of ‘communicative value’ (Doss and Ebesu
Hubbard, 2009) and the ability to act as ‘a signifier of a new
life trajectory, a fresh beginning for the person’ (Atkinson,
2003, p. 187). If the Tattoo Renaissance arguably enabled the
tattoo to enable the wearer to achieve a custom-designed
expression of ‘me-ness’, tattoo-themed Reality TV shows such
as Miami Ink demonstrate this mode of personalized and
individualized symbolic communication through tattoos. For
this reason, the tattoos represented within Miami Ink serve,
Woodstock argues, as ‘visual, personal moral guideposts,
reminding the individual of what matters most’ (2014, p. 793).
Tattooing and Reality TV
79
Furthermore, this sentiment is similarly expressed by the artists
in the series, as Ami James states of this ‘therapeutic’ relationship, ‘It feels good to know that our art helps people move
beyond their tragedies in their lives’. Of course, like many
reality TV shows, Miami Ink is not a documentary, and
underlining the central tattoo story focus of the series are a
number of human dramas that affect the ‘cast’ of the show and
which reflect the ‘reality soap’ quality that the series has, with
its ‘mix of observational-style documentary and soap opera
elements’ (Hill, 2005, p. 9). In Miami Ink, these range from
family issues and health factors (Chris Garver’s chronic back
problems, caused by years of tattooing), to the various personality clashes and conflicts that feature throughout the episodes, most notably Ami James’ volatile relationships with
Chris Núñez and Kat Von D, the latter of which resulted in
Von D leaving the studio.
The ‘docusoap’ mix of human drama and the symbolic,
personalized nature of tattooing would be a factor much
more pronounced in Miami Ink’s successor show, NY Ink
(2011–2013). Here, Ami James relocates to New York City to
open a new tattoo studio, Wooster St. Social Club, recruiting
a new array of artists consisting of: Tim Henricks, Tommy
Montoya, Chris Torres, Megan Massacre and James’ new
apprentice, Billy DeCola. The initial drama of the series
consists of James stressing that the operational costs of a
studio located in New York are considerably higher than in
Miami, and so the studio will need a consistently high turnover of clients. Akin to Miami Ink, the majority of the
featured tattoos are presented in terms of symbolic/
personalized/emotional client stories, and which again is
represented through a combination of the client speaking to
the artist and directly to the screen in a separate testimonial
segment. The personal motivations range from commemorations for deceased parents, grandparents and children, family
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tributes, traumatic life experiences and life journeys (such as
gender transition). However, the studio also features celebrity
tattooees, such as the hip-hop artist Method Man, and Corey
Taylor, the lead singer from the metal band Slipknot – both of
whom acquired tattoos with personal, symbolic meanings.
Hence, NY Ink consolidates the perception of the tattoo as a
symbol of self. However, the series also foregrounds key ways
in which reality TV veers into dramality, as the level of personal conflict is pervasive and multifaceted within the
narrative.
As Deery argues, a key component in reality TV narratives is
that ‘TV producers anticipate drama, find drama, heighten
drama, or induce drama’ (2015, p. 35). In this context, much of
the conflict-inspired drama within NY Ink stems from the artist
Chris Torres, whose self-confessedly aggressive demeanour
brings him into conflict with a number of the studio personnel.
This ranges from fights with the shop manager, Jessica Gahring, the floor manager, Robear Chinosi and Ami James, to the
point that James and Torres engage in an MMA-style fight in
the gym located in the shop’s basement to settle their differences. However, a serious issue that is part of the drama/
conflict dynamic featuring Torres is what is seen within the
studio as his problematic behaviour and attitudes towards the
studio’s only female artist, Megan Massacre. Indeed, on arrival
at the studio, Torres assumes that she is not an artist, but one of
the support staff. This flags an issue that has been historically
endemic within the industry with regard to the status of female
artists, but which has become a major aspect of change with an
increasing number of art-trained female artists entering the
industry (Yuen Thompson, 2015). Massacre discusses this issue
in her book, The Art of the Tattoo, with regard to the treatment and attitudes she experienced within the tattoo industry,
but also in a wider social context in the early 2000s. As she
states of her apprentice years:
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81
At this time, being young and female in a heavily
male-dominated industry, it wasn’t always easy to
get respect at tattoo studios. There were also times
when clients refused to get tattooed by me simply
because I was a woman. Publicly some people
treated me negatively as well about being heavily
tattooed. I remember being out maybe grocery
shopping or going about my normal day, and
passersby would just walk up to me, feeling
compelled to share their distaste for the way I
looked. That’s why I was so surprised when
tattooing appeared on TV.
(2019, pp. 8–10)
Massacre also recounts the TLC network offer to appear
on NY Ink, for which she did face some industry criticism in
terms of commercializing tattooing, and she acknowledges
that tattoo-based reality TV is playing a role in the wider
mainstreaming of tattooing. However, her behind-the-scenes
reflections also flags the nature of reality TV, whereby the
format, while not fiction, must, as Deery argues, adopt some
conventions of fiction, such as stories and characters. In this
sense, argues Hill, a key element of reality TV is the ‘play-off
between performance and authenticity’ and sense of ‘roleplaying’ (2005, p. 52) that is an endemic feature of many
formats, in which there is a production negotiation between
participants and producers. Hence, while participants in
reality TV are not professional entertainers, and work without
scripts, they are nevertheless, engaged in processes of performativity and, as John Corner (2002) describes, effectively
performing the real. Therefore, in the context of reality TV
shows such as Miami Ink and NY Ink, while the focus is
intrinsically upon the act and craft of tattooing in each
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episode, it is not simply in the context of a documentary style
as each ‘character’ must be engaging to the viewer, a factor
confirmed by Megan Massacre. As she reflects on her initial
experiences with the television crew in the studio:
While I was confident in my tattooing, I’d never had
cameras inches away from me recording my every line
before – it made me super nervous, and it was
obvious. The producers told me if I didn’t step my
game up, I was at risk of being cut from the show.
[Following a two-week break] I was going to turn this
situation around and not let it frighten me or get me
down. I was going to enjoy it the best I could and be
the best version of myself that I could be.
(2019, p. 17)
The issue of the craft of tattooing, its culture and performativity would serve as the key connective matrix for the
first wave of tattoo-themed reality TV shows, and sometimes
to their detriment. For instance, LA Ink (2007–2011), charted
Kat Von D’s establishment of her own custom studio in Los
Angeles following her departure from the Miami Ink studio.
Having assembled her team, consisting of the artists Kim
Saigh, Hannah Aitchison, Corey Miller and shop manager
Pixie Acia, LA Ink similarly serves to exclusively focus on
tattoo clients whose design ideas reflect personal issues and
stories, and for whom the tattoo serves as a marker of
transformation. For example, as Kim Saigh remarks after
having worked on a client, ‘People always seem to get a tattoo
when they are going through a change’, while Corey Miller
asks his client, just before applying the needle, ‘What’s the
meaning of this tattoo, anyway?’ Consequently, reality TV
shows like Miami Ink, LA Ink and NY Ink explicitly foreground the perception of tattoos as signs of self-expression,
Tattooing and Reality TV
83
identity and personal uniqueness (Tiggemann and Golder,
2006). However, there is an especial, and consistent, focus on
what Laura Buss and Karen Hodges call ‘pain transformed
into beauty’ regarding the tattoo stories, whereby a painful life
incident is transformed ‘through the beauty created on the
skin’ (2017, p. 20). Furthermore, such shows have played,
argues Woodstock, a significant role in the cultural mainstreaming and normalization of tattooing in that they reject
tattoo associations of deviancy by ‘depicting tattooing, tattoo
artists, and the people who get tattoos as regular folks’ (2014,
p. 782). Yet, the balance between reality and entertainment is
sometimes a precarious one within tattoo-themed reality
shows. While the early series of LA Ink follow the studiocreation/client story tropes of Miami Ink, with the abrupt
departure of Saigh and Aitchison from Season 2, the ‘soap’
aspects become progressively more dominant in the series.
Consequently, studio feuds, interpersonal conflicts, romantic
relationships and ‘comedy’ moments (mainly provided by the
non-tattooist cast members, Mike ‘Rooftop’ Escamilla and
Arianna) progressively vie for attention amidst the technical
representations of tattooing.
Tattoo-themed shows clearly reflect what Hill argues is
the nature of the reality TV, in that it is a televisual genre
‘located in border territories, between information and
entertainment, documentary and drama’ (Hill, 2005, p. 2).
Accordingly, other examples follow this representational
model, such as Bondi Ink Tattoo Crew (2015–2017), built
around the premise of the tattoo artist, Mike Diamond, being
brought into manage the Bondi Ink studio in Australia, and
featuring artist conflicts and other business/personalityfocused dramas, but with even more extensive client testimonies based upon health issues and bereavement. Similarly,
MTV’s Black Ink Crew (2013-), focusing upon Ceaser
Emanuel’s tattoo shop in Harlem, New York, features client
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stories and relationship issues, combined with entrepreneurial initiatives as artists extend their artworks into
branded fashion lines, and which has establishing two related
series: Black Ink Crew: Chicago (2015-) and Black Ink
Crew: Compton (2019-). Also, Tattoo Girls (2017), based
upon an all-female tattoo studio in Springfield, Missouri,
also routinely mixes a focus on tattoo work on clients with
personal issues, conflicts and dramas.
However, while London Ink (2007–2009) follows the
established path of other city-based tattoo shows in terms of
showing the setting up of a new studio, there are key differences. Run by Louis Molloy (who designed and tattooed
David Beckham’s famous guardian angel back tattoo), who
recruits the artists Nikole Lowe, Dan Gold and Phil Kyle,
London Ink places much less onus on client backstories
(indeed, Molloy states that he doesn’t want to hear them).
In this regard, while still involving issues of conflict (notably
between Molloy and Gold, whereby Molloy seeks to minimize Gold’s verbal interactions with clients in order to
speed up the tattooing process), London Ink predominantly
focuses on the working practices of tattoo artists, and
stresses the technical and practical challenges that tattoo
artists face. As a result, the series examines the negotiation
process that occurs between artists and clients (which is
shown to be sometimes a frustrating experience for the
artist), and while some designs have a symbolic nature,
many are based simply on aesthetic appeal. The series also
examines the issue of pain in relation to the act of tattooing,
aftercare procedures, and illustrates how tattoo apprentices
gain entry to the studio and a tattoo training education.
This latter point is significant, as the first question Louis
Molloy asks each applicant is whether they have been to art
school, or had formal artistic training, and the ‘interview’
consists of a series of drawing tests. As such, the primacy of
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a versatile artistic performance and ability is an intrinsic
factor in the skill set of a modern tattooist. Consequently,
London Ink is perhaps the best example of a tattoo-themed
series that veers the closest to the documentary stream in
reality TV; however, further examples dynamically combine
the artistic and technical aspects of professionally tattooing
with high drama, soap opera intrigues and competition.
COMPETITIVE TATTOO REALITY TV: INK MASTER
Reality TV contains a number of differing formats, and as the
‘genre’ successfully proliferated from the early 2000s, amidst
the lifestyle shows/reality dramas, eccentric professions and
dating shows, the reality game or competition format has
become highly successful (Tsay-Vogel & Krakowiak, 2016).
These shows were/are based upon specific professional skill
sets, such as MasterChef (2005 – present), in which a number
of chefs compete before a professional panel of judges, with
one contestant eliminated each week, until a winner is
announced. This format has inspired a number reality TV
shows based upon professional activities as diverse as fashion
design, baking, tailoring, pottery and blacksmithing/knifemaking, which now represent what can be defined as the
‘competition’ or ‘game doc’ (Deery, 2015) style of reality TV.
Moreover, the professional practice of tattooing is also part of
this subgenre in the form of Ink Master (2012-present).
The series is hosted by the extensively tattooed former Red
Hot Chili Peppers and Jane’s Addiction guitarist, Dave Navarro, and judged by the tattoo artists Chris Núñez and (until
2019) Oliver Peck, with periodic guest judges (including on one
occasion the actor Hugh Jackson, judging tattoo portraits of
himself as the Wolverine character). In terms of format, Ink
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Master constitutes something of a reality TV hybrid form as it
combines the tattooing craft-focus of the likes of Miami Ink/LA
Ink/NY Ink, with the professional competition format, but also
with an element of Big Brother. Hence, a number of professional tattoo artists live within a large studio setting and
compete in a weekly series of artistic and tattooing challenges,
with one artist eliminated each week, until the winning
competitor is crowned the Ink Master. This outcome, in addition to the coveted Ink Master title, also results in a $100,000
cash prize and an extensive profile feature in Inked magazine
for the winner. Each episode consists of the Flash Challenge
and the Elimination Challenge. The Flash Challenge can
involve tattooing, but it is predominantly art-based and is tied
to technical aspects of tattooing (detail, creativity, accuracy,
dimension, for example), so competitors must engage in timed
challenges, such as making art from dice, coloured bricks,
packing tape, plexiglass and cups filled with coloured water.
The crucial importance of the Flash Challenge is that the
winner gets to assign the Human Canvases in the all-important
Elimination Challenge, in which the contestants must complete
a tattoo in a style (often incorporating a key technique) in six
hours. On this level, Ink Master works in a similar way to other
race-against-the-clock professional competition shows. The key
challenge of the series is that artists must produce work in a
variety of tattoo styles (Traditional, Japanese, Black and Grey,
Portraits, New School, Pixels, Watercolours, Geometric, BioMechanical), in addition to displaying an artistic element
featured in the Flash Challenge (finesse, contouring, negative
space, detail, adaptability). Therefore, Ink Master represents an
extensive representation of differing tattooing styles, professional practices and technical approaches. However, the
‘educational’ insights into tattoo practice are also interspersed
with key reality TV–themed tropes.
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Deery argues that a key element of reality TV is that, while
taking place in a real time and place, and with nonentertainers, there is nevertheless a strong seam of ‘dramality’ within the genre. In this sense, reality TV ‘adopts some
conventions of fiction – shaping (but not wholly composing)
stories and characters, encouraging melodrama, employing
emotive music, cliffhangers, dramatic irony, red herrings, and
so on’ (2015, p. 27). So, while Ink Master is a ‘gamedoc’ in
form, it contains a strong degree of dramality. At one level,
this arises from the ‘artificial competitive events’ central to
formats such as Big Brother (Bratich, 2007, p. 14). In terms of
construction, Ink Master incorporates this ethos in the Flash
Challenges, and extends it to the enclosed living conditions of
the competitors, in which they leave their professional and
private lives to compete on the series. While fundamental to
drama, the concepts of antagonists and protagonists is central
to the Ink Master narrative, as a significant focus of the series
involves the various human conflicts that arise between the
artists. Consequently, in addition to the actual acts of tattooing that form the basis of the competition, the show centres
on the various strategies and ‘gameplay’ that competitors
engage in to outperform, or place adverse psychological
pressure on their rivals in order to increase their chances of
gaining the coveted title of Ink Master. As a result, there are
numerous arguments and acts of antisocial behaviours played
out, in addition to the formation of distinctive alliances
intended to influence the elimination of other competitors and
secure places in the final. Part of this process involves competitors verbally undermining rival tattoo work, and taking
visible pleasure in negative critiques of work made by the
judges. In other instances, competitors engage in arguments
and even physical confrontations with other competitors (and
even with judges, on occasion), which maximises the drama
and entertainment value.
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A key element of the fusion of spectacle and conflict comes
in the form of Ink Master’s unique feature: the use of tattooees
as Human Canvases within the Elimination Challenge. This is
significant because, unlike a failed cake or brittle knife (as in
The Great British Bake-off or Forged in Fire), all of the tattoo
designs presented for judgement are permanently inscribed
into the skins of the canvases. Moreover, the nature of the
show demands that difficult body parts are tattooed, which
includes heads and necks. Indeed, a key source of conflict in
the series is that the peer-group of canvases convene together
to agree on which canvas has the ‘worst tattoo’ of each
episode, a factor that the participant cannot remedy given the
permanence of the work. Therefore, the competitive aspect of
the series is at its height within the judging section, whereby
tattoos are subject to scrutiny and meticulous professional and
artistic evaluation. In this context, those designs judged to be
weak, problematic or simply disastrous are censured in great
detail, much to the visible pleasure of fellow competitors who
smile in their enjoyment of the discomfort (and likelihood of
elimination) of the critiqued artist. Furthermore, the
combative aspect of Ink Master has become an increasingly
inherent component in the series, with the format actively
incorporating drama.
In this fashion, further iterations of the series have
included Ink Master: Master vs. Apprentice (Season 6) and
Ink Master: Battle of the Sexes (season 12), while spin-offs
include Ink Master: Redemption, in which artists face human
canvases who received critically derided designs, whereby the
artist can ‘atone’ and redeem their professional reputation by
providing an aesthetically satisfying tattoo. Additionally, the
series has continually brought back contestants to compete
against their ‘rivals’, and head up artist teams, such as the
rivalry between Cleen Rock One and Christian Buckingham.
The spin-off series, Ink Master: Grudge Match, also reflects
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this ethos as it brings together two artists who clashed during
their tenure on the show, and so they ‘settle their score’
through tattooing a winning design on a human canvas.
Finally, Ink Master: Angels featured the female artists from
Season 8, Ryan Ashley Malarkey, Kelly Doty, Nikki Simpson
and Gia Rose challenging various artists across America,
with the chance of a winning artist to secure a place on Ink
Master.
BAD INK: TATTOOS AND TELEVISUAL SHOCK VALUE
In assessing the role of spectacle within a media landscape, Guy
Debord stated that the ‘spectacle is the chief product of presentday society’ (1995, p. 16). At one level, the tattoo-themed
reality TV shows discussed so far have rendered the culture
and practice of tattooing into spectacles, with regard to the
craft of tattooing, and the motivation of individuals to be tattooed. Hence, within these shows, the tattoo design lies at their
heart, and the semiotic significance of the design is frequently a
paramount factor. On the one hand, tattoo-themed reality TV
has reinforced the fundamental aspects of the Tattoo Renaissance, but on the other hand, alternative tattoo-themed reality
TV shows present a very different image of tattooing, and, most
significantly, the motivations to become tattooed. In this
context, TV shows such as Tattoo Nightmares (2012–2015),
America’s Worst Tattoos (2012–2014), Bad Ink (2013–2014)
and Tattoo Fixers (2015-present) focus on poor quality tattoo
work and the artistic skills needed to provide effective cover-up
tattoos. The dominant tone of these shows is that of the
comedic, in which the original tattoos shown on the screen
range from those of a poor artistic quality, to disastrous design
choices. However, while the onus is firmly on the comedic
(often featuring exaggerated re-enactments of clients getting the
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‘nightmare tattoo’), these shows foreground two competing
approaches to tattoo culture: the causal approach that some
people have to acquiring them, and the skill it takes to successfully cover them up with better designs. For Hemingson,
a cover-up tattoo is a challenge as they are by their very
nature compromises. This is because the artistic freedom
available to the tattooist is limited by issues such as the
placement, size and the colour of the original design, to the
point that often ‘the only thing that covers up black is even
more black’ (2009, p. 30). However, as Megan Massacre
(who featured in America’s Worst Tattoos) argues, the coverup can have a potent symbolic effect on a person’s sense of
identity, as she states of her experience in covering up
problematic designs:
Being able to cover up people’s bad tattoos and
transform them into things of beauty wasn’t just
helping with aesthetics. It was helping people,
whether it was giving them confidence again, or
changing a bad memory.
(2019, p. 20)
In Rachel C. Falkenstern’s view, tattoos can be regarded as
symbols that remind the wearer of a specific moment in time,
and even if some are regretted, they still represent ‘mementos
of past experiences’ (2012, p. 100). Nevertheless, the cover-up
shows stress that regretted tattoos do also inspire identity
problems for their wearers, from feelings of embarrassment to
distress, as the British TV series, Tattoo Fixers, frequently
illustrates.
Set in a London-based pop-up tattoo studio, Tattoo Fixers
features the work of a number of tattoo artists, originally
consisting of Sketch Porter, Jay Hutton and Louisa Hopper (in
addition to Paisley Billings, the studio manager), the show has
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added artists such as Alice Perrin, Glen Carloss and Uzzi and
Pash Canby. The underscoring ethos of the series is that these
artists have a specific ability to transform tattoo ‘disasterpieces
into masterpieces’ and ‘to change some of Britain’s worst tattoos into walking walks of art’. In terms of format, each
episode typically features six clients who come to the studio
with a bad tattoo that needs to be covered up. Each client tells
the story of how they acquired the tattoo, usually with them
engaging in a filmed re-enactment of the events, but shot in an
exaggerated and comedic style. From here, the client reveals the
tattoo and gives an idea of what they would like as an alternative design (often only providing a vague brief – animals,
nature, skulls, mandalas, flowers), and three of the artists draw
their take on the brief and offer the designs to the client, who
must choose one and then be tattooed by that ‘winning’ artist.
In terms of tone, many of the tattoos are offensive (and often
obscene) and invariably feature sexual imagery or slogans, poor
taste imagery or jokes, profanity, or eccentric designs (portraits
of soap opera actors, for example). Many tattoos are acquired
on holidays as the result of inebriated dares, bets and peersolidarity statements, so in this sense, many tattoos do have
stories, but they seldom have any profound symbolic significance other than as a visual reminder of a moment. While
many of the designs are ill-considered and so reflect a causal
approach to being tattooed (unlike the tone of Miami Ink, etc.),
the issue of identity is still a factor within the show. As Falkenstern reflects, ‘being tattooed has changed not only how the
world views me but also, interrelatedly, my perspective of the
world and my perspective of myself’ (2012, pp. 99–100), and
many clients reflect this ethos, too. This is especially the case
with regard to crass and offensive designs that no longer fit
with a client’s current lifestyle, especially when they have had
children, which renders the designs as problematic and no
longer fitting with their current social self, status and
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personality. In this regard, the ‘reveal’ sections of each episode,
in which the client sees the cover-up design for the first time,
frequently elicits strong emotional responses. Commenting on
the phenomena of tattoo regret, Eric Madfis and Tammi Arford
assert that people who express regret with tattoos (and seek
their removal) are frequently ‘motivated to have their tattoos
removed to dissociate from the past and improve their selfidentity’ (2013, p. 549), and this is a factor that is central to
Tattoo Fixers. In this respect, the show represents a distinctive
take on the reality TV subgenre of ‘makeover television’, epitomized by shows such as The Swan (2004–2005), The Biggest
Loser (2004–2016), Queer Eye (2003–2007), or Revenge Body
with Khloé Kardashian (2017 - present). This brand of reality
TV focuses upon actively transforming the bodies of participants, and by extension their self and peer perception (Heller,
2007). Consequently, Tattoo Fixers similarly delivers lifechanging bodily transformations that help individuals to
overcome issues of embarrassment or anxiety caused by
offensive tattoo designs acquired in their youth (for example,
one client refused to visit doctors due to the offensive tattoo
they wore on their body). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tattoo Fixers
garnered negative reactions and responses from members of the
professional tattoo industry, with criticisms ranging from poor
quality tattoo work, to a lack of understanding of the
complexity and skill-levels required to execute effective coverup tattoos (Brennan, 2016). However, a much stronger
professional reaction has faced MTV’s Just Tattoo of Us
(2017-present), which effectively reverses the thematic trajectory of Tattoo Fixers.
Initially hosted by the reality TV personalities Charlotte
Crosby (of Geordie Shore fame) and Stephen Bear (who
featured in MTV’s Ex on the Beach), but with a multitude of
later guest co-hosts following Bear’s departure (such as
Lateysha Grace, Josh Ritchie, Charlotte Dawson, Joey Essex,
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Chloe Ferry and Matty T), Just Tattoo of Us places the onus
of tattooing firmly on the comedic, and the shocking. In terms
of format, couples, friends, siblings, or parents and children
each design a tattoo for the other, which is developed, and
ultimately tattooed by a professional artist in the TV studio.
Each tattoooee does not see the completed tattoo until the
‘Reveal’, in which they wear opaque ‘Fear Goggles’, which are
removed at the end of a countdown, or, as Crosby describes it:
‘You don’t get to see it until it is on your body forever’. The
issue of permanence is an important factor in Just Tattoo of
Us, as the premise of the show implies a distinctive casualness
towards tattooing on the part of contestants, who are overwhelmingly from the Millennial and Generation Z age
demographics. This is especially evident as a key element that
runs throughout the series is that of the participants ‘stitching
each other up’ with deliberately bad, or often offensive, tattoo
designs, with little to no consideration of the perpetuity of the
tattoo.
The key moment in each episode is when the participants
remove the Fear Goggles (cued by dramatic, tension-building
music) and look at the designs in a mirror, with the reactions
frequently being emotional. As one participant exclaims, ‘Is
that some sort of joke? It’s just a joke. That’s there for life’. In
other instances, participants react with anger at an offensive
tattoo design (often hurling the Fear Goggles at their ‘tattoo
partner’) prior to storming off the set. In this sense, the show
balances outrageousness with the drama aspect endemic to
many reality TV shows, but underscored with the status of the
tattoo as a symbol of comedy and provocation. In this regard,
many participants appreciate the humour, no matter how
ridiculous or offensive the design is, as one participant states,
‘It is bad, but it’s a game’. However, not all participants seek
to shock, and there are designs that are aesthetically effective,
in addition to representing romantic messages or symbols of
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friendship and even marriage proposals via tattoo. Nonetheless, the majority of tattoos produced in the show are of the
spectacle variety that elicits expletive-filled initial reactions or
laughter at the absurdity or crassness of the tattoos.
Once the tattoos are revealed, each participant is asked to
reveal the story behind the design, which vary from personal
jokes and embarrassing life events, to ‘tattoo messages’ to
influence behaviour changes (a mother having a wristwatch
tattooed on her daughter to improve her poor punctuality, for
example). Yet, the dominant issue in Just Tattoo of Us is one in
which tattoos are used as jokes and symbols of humiliation, or
as deliberate ‘stich-ups’ that are the product of ‘people with no
fear of consequence or responsibility’ (Golby, 2019 the
Guardian.com) with regard to the permanence of their inked
statements. However, from an ethical and professional
perspective, Just Tattoo of Us has been criticised by British
tattoo artists. As Kevin Paul, notable for his tattoo work on Ed
Sheeran, states:
The show on MTV is absolutely diabolical. They’re
destroying people’s bodies. They’re leaving them
with horrendous tattoos that mentally effect them for
the rest of their lives. They’re stuck with these things
and if they try to get rid of them they’ve got to go
through years worth of pain getting them removed
and a lot of expense, for the sake of what? A million
people laughing at them on TV. It’s disgraceful that
that’s been allowed on TV.
(Wetherill, 2018: dailystar.co.uk)
Yet, the series has proven to be highly successful, with
numerous series, and MTV have produced an American
version hosted by Jersey Shore star Nicole Polizzi and actor
Nico Tortorella.
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TATTOO STORIES AND SUBCULTURAL TRACES
While the motivating stories featured in Just Tattoo of Us
serve as the means by which to create comedic and shocking
tattoos, MTV also have a version of the format that is very
different, in the form of Positive Inking (2019 - present).
While the concept is similar – a person speaks of a significant life issue interpreted by an artist into a tattoo design,
which the tattooee only sees on completion – the tone is
radically different to that of MTV’s more abrasive and
anarchic reality TV counterpart. In Positive Inking, the
onus is on tattoos acting as what Chris W. Martin calls
‘emotional signifiers’ (2018, p. 2), as each participant tells a
personal story based upon a life event (to the artist and in
cutaways directly to the camera) that are linked to illnesses,
life-changing accidents and traumas involving professional
experiences (firefighters, for example). Given that the tagline for the series is, ‘Every tattoo has a personal story’,
tattoos act as symbols of healing, inspiration, closure and
body positivity in the form of aesthetically, symbolically
effective and gratifying tattoo designs. This ethos is also
evident in the US series, Hero Ink (2019-present), focusing
upon Prison Break Tattoos, a studio situated in Houston,
Texas, and owned by BK Klev, a 25-year veteran of the
Houston police department. The concept of the series is
based upon the tattoos that first responders (police officers
and law enforcement personnel, firefighters, Emergency
Medical Responders and members of the military) receive to
commemorate an incident experienced in the line of duty.
Tattooed by the artists Robbie Caron, Janice Danger, Tony
Four Fingers, Zoey Taylor and Rich Verdino, all ex-first
responders, each client narrates the story behind the tattoo
(officers shot or stabbed in the line of duty, tributes to
partners, fire recues, surviving armed sieges), with the
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verbal testimonies enhanced with body-cam footage, news
coverage and personal photographs. In this context, the
tattoos commemorate traumatic events, but also anchor
professional statuses and relationships.
In Mifflin’s view, reality TV shows such as Miami Ink and
LA Ink ‘normalized tattooing and reduced the rebellious stereotypes associated with it’ (2013, p. 111), a factor reinforced
by Ami James’ reflections on the impact of his studio in Miami,
‘That shop changed how people perceived tattoo culture. People started getting tattooed because of what happened in that
shop’ (Gomez, 2018). Moreover, James reunited with Darren
Brass, Chris Garver, Tommy Montoya and Chris Nuñez, for
The Tattoo Shop (2018), an innovative docuseries for Facebook Watch that pared away the drama aspects of the human
conflict components of tattoo-themed reality TV to focus much
more extensively on the technical craft of tattooing. Consequently, in its differing forms, reality TV that is based upon
tattooing has proven to be a significant factor in both the
heightened visibility of tattooing in popular culture (and
beyond), and as a force in further mainstreaming tattooing.
However, there are tattoo-based reality TV shows that
correspond with what Essany calls Documentary Reality, the
‘truest form of reality television…which almost entirely eliminates a conscious entertainment perspective from the production process’ (2008, p. 5). For instance, Tattoo Age
(2017–2018) consists of documentary profiles of noted artists
such as: Ed Hardy, Robert Ryan, Chris Trevino, Annette
LaRue, Thom DeVita, Bert Krak, Mary Joy Scott, Chris
Garver, Taki and Horitomo, Dr Woo and Valerie Vargas.
Also representing the documentary reality approach, Viceland’s Needles and Pins (2017) turns the focus away from the
mainstream and back into the subcultural values, expressions,
and status of tattooing. Fronted by the London-based tattoo
artist, Grace Neutral, Needles and Pins acknowledges the
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mainstream perception that tattooing has in the twenty-first
century and explores how it is difficult to see it as an act of
radical self-expression given its apparent normalization and
social and cultural pervasiveness. However, in taking a global
perspective, Neutral stresses that she ‘wanted to share some of
the cultures and techniques that helped evolve the art’ (in
Kaviani, 2017: the 4th Wall.org) and to illustrate that tattooing is not entirely mainstreamed, as there remain differing
national and cultural attitudes to the practice. Within a UK
context, Neutral interviews the iconic British artist, Lal
Hardy, who stresses that the Internet has removed the classical
secrecy of the tattooing world, and especially the studio.
Moreover, she seeks out contemporary expressions of the
Skinhead subculture, whose members employ Traditionalstyle tattoos that express the original, non-racist expression
of the culture (focusing on an appreciation of Reggae),
whereby tattoos, as one respondent states, shows ‘your true
identity, your true self’. Moreover, Neutral’s travels to New
Zealand see her interact with artists who are engaging in
traditional moko techniques to reclaim the practice (once
outlawed during European colonialism) and employ traditional tools (with needles carved from boar tusks).
In Los Angeles, Neutral examines Chicano styles and
tattooing culture, traditionally associated with Chicano
communities in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California,
and traditionally stressing a range of signifiers, from Christian devotion, and gang affiliation, to individualistic values
and community solidarity (Govenor, 1988). Meeting a
number of prominent Chicano artists who maintain a
tradition of making tattoo machines from a variety of common appliances (for some artists these skills were honed
while in prison), Neutral seeks to examine and present an
‘authentic’ tattoo culture that is rooted in traditions of street
life, family and enduring religious iconography. This is
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especially significant in its comparison with Las Vegas, a
city that has 24-hour tattoo studios, wedding chapel and
tattoo shop combos and tattoo establishments situated
within major casinos. However, from such visible and
mainstreamed culture, Neutral’s travels to Japan and South
Korea reveal that tattooing is an underground activity. For
instance, in Japan, regardless of the rich tattooing history
and heritage of Irezumi, the government has issued an edict
that only licenced medical practitioners can engage in tattooing, and non-licenced artists can face fines or arrest.
Furthermore, with the enduring association of tattooing with
the Yakuza gang/organized crime culture, tattooed individuals are often detained and questioned by police. As such,
tattoos, irrespective of new Anime-driven trends, are not
widely accepted in mainstream Japanese culture.
A similar association between tattooing and gang culture is
also prevalent in South Korea, and still possesses a rebellious
nature given the older generation’s rejection of the practice. As
such, at one point Neutral is informed by an elderly man that
in Korean culture, ‘she would find it difficult to get married’
given her extensively tattooed body. However, it is significant
that a source of changing attitudes is being driven from within
popular culture by successful K-Pop stars such as Jay Park,
whose extensive tattoo collection is ensuring that tattooing is
becoming a visible part of South Korean media (although his
tattoos are sometimes blurred out in some television performances). In this sense, a distinctive ‘young tattoo revolution’ is
slowly, but progressively developing in South Korean culture,
in part driven by tattooed celebrities.
The major issues that arise from Grace Neutral’s international tattoo journeys is to remind the viewer that beyond the
mainstream tattoo culture of the Western world, tattooing is
not universally normalized, and that the tattooed can still be
considered to be outsiders. Thus, undergoing tattooing can
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constitute a spiritual act on the one hand, but also an act of
defiant self-expression on the other. Moreover, in each episode
Neutral asks for a small tattoo design from the artists that she
meets, enabling her to commemorate her global tattoo journey
and capture the essence of tattoos as representing bodily
‘snapshots in time’ (MacNaughton, 2011, p. 73).
Therefore, reality TV, in differing ways and with divergent thematic and tonal approaches, has proven to be a
significant twenty-first-century popular cultural expression
of tattooing and tattoo culture, opening up the tattoo studio
to wider scrutiny, stressing the symbolic value of tattoos, but
also illustrating the decidedly casual and unsymbolic properties of some tattoos. Furthermore, television representations also crucially remind us that tattoo culture is not
internationally uniform, and that wearing ink can still be,
and is, a defiantly rebellious act of embodied self-expression.
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4
SOCIAL MEDIA AND DIGITAL
TATTOO COMMUNITIES
If the prevalence and plethora of reality TV shows dedicated
(albeit with very divergent formats and stylistic approaches) to
tattooing has created bodies of viewers, the issue of tattoo collectives (frequently allied to such TV shows) is arguably at its
most potent and concentrated within digital online spaces and,
most specifically, social media platforms. At one level, these
spaces can be clearly be read to represent distinctive, and globally
diffused technological expressions of Atkinson’s tattoo figuration approach to tattooed collectives. In this sense, the relationship chains forged between the tattooed are established not
through studio-based interactions, but via digital ‘ties that bind
seemingly isolated individuals together in social interchange’
(2003, p. 125). However, the issue of Internet forums and social
media sites representing potent expressions of virtual communal
spaces is a compelling one, with a rich sociological and technological underpinning. In this regard, the understanding of tattooed social actors forming a distinctive communal form
arguably finds contemporary revival in relation to the ways in
which tattooing is active in digital platforms. As such, these
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platforms represent virtual, and interactive, meeting points for
globally dispersed tattoo enthusiasts and serve as a further
showcase for the cultural visibility of 21st century tattooing.
TATTOO COMMUNITY REVISITED
The idea of a discernible tattoo community identified by
DeMello in relation to tattoo magazines and tattoo conventions
are issues that have also been developed by later tattoo commentators, such as Beverly Yuen Thompson. With regard to the
significance of the tattoo convention, Yuen Thompson argues
that prior to mid-1970s, there was no authentic ‘tattoo community’ that could be said to exist beyond individual tattoo
shops. Nevertheless, this began to change with the first
assembly of tattooists, organised by the artist Eddie Funk, at
the National Tattoo Club of the World, in 1974. Subsequently,
tattoo conventions became an increasingly established aspect of
the industry as they served as vital meeting points for both
tattooists, tattoo collectors, tattoo enthusiasts and aspiring
artists, and they enabled artists to ‘work on new clients
otherwise inaccessible geographically’ (2015, p. 143).
Certainly, conventions have become a central feature in the
contemporary tattoo industry, and wider tattoo culture, and
many have become established as major perennial events,
including The Amsterdam Tattoo Convention, the Golden
State Tattoo Expo, The Milano Tattoo Convention, the
Titanic Tattoo Convention, Belfast and The Great British
Tattoo Show. Tattoo conventions act as venues in which
tattoo artists and tattoo enthusiasts interact, but they also
attract media attention in terms of print, broadcast and digital
news coverage, in addition to offering the opportunity of
featuring in leading tattoo magazines (which often sponsor
conventions). Therefore, conventions serve as potent
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environments for tattoo artists not only to engage in work but
also for their work to come to the attention of fellow artists,
the public, the media and core tattoo publications.
For Yuen Thompson, the idea of a tattoo community
developed centrally through conventions, but also magazines,
which rose to prominence with the publication of Tattoo
Magazine in 1984, one of the first key tattoo publications, followed by the publication of many more titles throughout the
1990s and 2000s. In terms of editorial and stylistic approach:
All of these tattoo magazines have a similar formula.
They feature articles on tattoo artists, presenting their
artwork, location, and history in the industry. Articles
feature major tattoo conventions and pictures from
events. And of course, the bulk of the magazines are
filled with pictures of tattoos.
(2015, p. 148)
These aspects, argues DeMello, are key to the sentiment
generated by tattoo magazines, in which they establish feelings
of ‘communitas’ for tattooed social actors, but also play an
intrinsic role with regard to informing wider cultural perspectives on tattooing. In this sense, tattoo magazines have
remained relatively unchanged, and the issue of education,
information and interpolation is central to how they work as
tattoo-based texts. With regard to interpolation style, magazines routinely begin with an address by the editor(s) who
discusses a contemporary aspect of tattoo culture, but in an
informal, direct way to the reader. Additionally, magazines
feature interviews with artists and cover models, reader profiles, convention reports, genre and style developments, tattoo
of the month (usually selected from the featured convention),
tattooed celebrity interviews, and sections that feature select
tattoo work sent to the magazines (Skin Deep’s Skin Shots, for
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example). At one level, tattoo magazines are significant in that
they represent an example of tattoo media, in which tattooing
is critically examined and communicated, and key aspects of
the industry, the culture and tattooed social actors, are
engaged with. Furthermore, they are a longstanding and
fundamental media dedicated to tattoo discourses. In terms of
their role within a perceptible ‘tattoo community’, DeMello
refers to Benedict Anderson’s classic concept of the imagined
community to stress the foundation of a distinctive tattoothemed communal group. As such, nonvillage community
(towns and cities) are inevitably imagined communities
because the members do not, and cannot, know each other,
and so must imagine their communal connections to others in
relation to some attribute (kinship, class position, citizenship).
In this context, DeMello stresses that communities ‘like the
tattoo community provide a model for just such an understanding, in that they do not even possess the quality of spatial
boundedness that nations, cities, or neighbourhoods have’ (2000,
40). A community based upon the wearing of tattoos is predicted
on individual choice rather than more traditional communal
factors (occupation, religion, ethnicity), and is based upon a sense
of shared identity as tattooed social actors. Therefore:
Tattoo conventions…are spaces in which a sense of
identity is shared and community is celebrated on an
annual or semi-annual basis. That shared identity is
achieved on a more regular basis through creating
and consuming community-produced texts like
magazines, World Wide Web sites, or Internet
newsgroups. Here, individuals feel a sense of
community by reading about others whose values
and beliefs they share.
(2000, p. 41)
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105
At one level, the sense of a tattoo-based perception of
identity being reinforced within a culture in which tattooing ‘is
not socially sanctioned’ (2000, p. 42) has changed in many
ways since the original publication of Bodies of Inscription,
and that tattooing is now a far more mainstream practice.
Moreover, the perception that tattooing in the 21st century is
a totally normalized bodily practice is subject to question. A
key issue central to the various waves of the Tattoo Renaissance was the decisive moving away of tattooing from a
masculine practice, to one by which women actively used (and
use) tattoos as ‘emblems of empowerment’ (Mifflin, 2013, p.
4) to signify feminist identities and register rebellion against
gendered norms. Yet, commentators have argued that there
have been differential cultural expectations and attitudes with
regard to gender and tattooing. This has ranged from expectations of feminine tattoo designs (floral designs, butterflies,
dolphins, moons) and an onus on concealability (Atkinson,
2002) to the enduring attitude that visible tattoos on women
result in sexual stereotyping (Leader, 2017). As Yuen
Thompson’s work potently stresses, there are differences in
terms of social relations to lightly (or discreetly) or heavily
tattooed social actors, a factor especially heightened with
regard to extensively tattooed women, who can be judged to
be subverting conventions of femininity. For example, as
Charlotte Dann and Jane Callaghan (2019) argue, tattoo
styles or bodily placements judged to be out of fashion can
have negative connotations. In this instance, they cite the
‘tramp stamp’ tattoo, designs placed on the lower part of a
woman’s back, which, although once a popular trend, have
become the object of ridicule, and with further associations
with promiscuous behaviour. As they observe, there is no
equivalent derogatory term for tattoos on the bodies of men.
In this sense, while tattoos have, and are, argued to represent
symbols and acts of feminist rebellion against bodily gendered
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expectations, the heavily tattooed can still elicit unwanted
staring, comments and the unsolicited touching of tattoos.
However, this aspect of overt tattooing can, reinforcing
DeMello’s conception of self-identified differences between the
tattooed and the nontattooed, form the basis of collective
recognition, wherein ‘when tattooed people encounter each
other on the street and have an interaction over their tattoos,
the interaction is different’ (2015, p. 155).
The conception of communal feelings between tattooed
social actors is a pervasive one, and resources such as tattoo
conventions and tattoo magazines act as focal points for the
expression of professional/industry developments, striking and
innovative examples of tattoo work and the extensive mediation of tattooed bodies. However, while DeMello focuses
extensively on the communal role that conventions and tattoo
magazines play as sources of communal solidarity and
communication, her references to the impact of Internet and
online forums have proven to be both significant and prescient.
This is because the brief references (owing to the time of her
writing) to the contribution that the still nascent World Wide
Web sites could play in establishing a clear a sense of community for tattooed social actors have become a dynamic locus
of engagement with tattoo culture, especially with the proliferation of social media platforms.
THE CONCEPT OF THE ONLINE COMMUNITY
The online spaces that DeMello refers to as connective sites
for the meeting of tattoo enthusiast constitute the developments initiated during what Nancy K. Baym (2010) calls the
‘textual Internet’ of the 1980s. The textual Internet was
characterized by Multiuser-Domains (MUDs), whereby, via
online chat rooms, role play was undertaken within
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collectively created imaginative alternative worlds (Wertheim,
1999). These geographically diffused ‘virtual’ meeting places
were then radically developed with the invention of the World
Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee and his team in 1991, which
connected hypertext technology to the Internet and ultimately
‘formed the basis of a new type of networked communication’
(Dijck, 2013). The impact of this conception of computerbased networked communication of the Internet lead some
commentators to see the potential that such networks had to
create new forms of social configurations in the form of virtual
communities. One of the earliest proponents of this approach
was Howard Rheingold, who had been actively engaged with
online computer-mediated communications since the mid1980s with the WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link’).
Within WELL, people from across the world would log-in to
engage in conversations and messages and forge deep friendships. For Rheingold, virtual communities are ‘social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry
on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient
human feeling to form webs of personal relationships in
cyberspace’ (1994, p. 5).
As Manuel Castells argues in The Internet Galaxy (2001),
the emergence of the Internet as a new communication
medium was rapidly embroiled in conflicting assessments
about the rise of new patterns of social interaction in the wake
of the technology. On the one hand, the formation of virtual
communities, primarily based on online communication, was
interpreted as the culmination of an historical process of
separation between locality and sociability that was longstanding anyway. And so with the increasing fragmentation of
society, new patterns, based upon distinctive, and selective,
aspects of social relations that could replace territorially
bound forms of human interaction developed. Yet, on the
other hand, critics feared that the increasing impact of the
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Internet would lead to growing social isolation, and even
contribute to the progressive breakdown of social communication (Turkle, 2011).
Nevertheless, for supporters, the Internet’s contribution to
new forms of community was a positive development that was
‘different, but not necessarily inferior to, previous forms of social
interaction’ (Castells, 2001, p. 125). In this sense, such groupings possess a shared sense of purpose, interest and involve a
reciprocal sharing of information and services to constitute the
status of an online community (Preece, 2000). For Castells, these
social groupings technically constitute an expression of ‘networked individualism’, associations that are created by individuals on the basis of specific predilections, knowledge and
backgrounds (Siapera, 2018). The important aspect of the
concept of networked individualism is that it is a social formation, and does not describe a collection of isolated individuals:
Rather, ‘individuals build their networks, online and
off-line, on the basis of their interests, values,
affinities, and projects…On-line networks, when
they stabilize in their practice, may build
communities, virtual communities, different from
physical communities, but not necessarily less intense
or less effective in binding and mobilizing…In other
instances, these online networks become forms of
specialized communities, that is, forms of sociability
constructed around specific interests.
(Castells, 2001, pp. 131–132)
This early 21st century development reflects the burgeoning
tattoo-related online communal activity cited by DeMello. In
terms of the nature of these groupings, they reflect the links
established between subcultures and online networks, in
which the Internet acts ‘as a means of communicating with
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“like-minded” others, while at the same time asserting their
insider knowledge and authority’ (Bennett, 2005, pp.
169–170). As DeMello argues, early online forums such as
rec.arts.bodyart (RAB) accord closely with this description as it
served as a forum for tattooed (and pierced) individuals to
come together and, ‘like the tattoo convention, provide another
space in which community is realized’ (2000, pp. 37–38). The
identification of online forums constituting distinctive social
spaces developed rapidly throughout the 2000s, an expansion
facilitated and driven by the creation of what would be termed
Web 2.0. As Christian Fuchs (2017) argues, the term Web 2.0
(devised in 2005 by the publisher Tim O’Reilly) described key
developments in Internet technologies predicated upon participation, user experience and the status of the user as contributor, namely, social media. Social media sites consisted (and
consist) of ‘networked information services designed to support
in-depth social interaction, community formation, collaborative opportunities and collaborative work’ (2017, p. 38).
Ranging from early platforms such as Friendster, Myspace and
Bebo to Facebook, Reddit, Renren, YouTube, Twitter, Sina
Weibo, WeChat, Line, Pinterest, TikTok and the app-based
platform Instagram, social media has become an intrinsic
digital presence in contemporary culture.
Moreover, social media enables ‘anyone to develop and
display their creativity, to empathize with others and to find
connection, communication and communion’ (Meikle, 2016,
p. 9). This latter conception of the nature of social media is
shared by other commentators, such as Wendy K. Bendoni,
who argues that such media networks ‘provide a social platform for like-minded individuals to congregate and create
communities in the virtual world’ (2017, p. 58). Indeed, as
Keith N. Hampton and Barry Wellman argue, features such as
Facebook’s ‘friends’ lists instil persistent and pervasive community networks that are meaningful and flexible as they
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‘provide opportunities for partial commitments to different
social milieus’ (2018, p. 648). Likewise, post Web 2.0, social
media platforms also represent addendums to print media
forms that add crucial interactive and communal forms, by
which print formats become opened up to participatory
functions that communicates culture and enables direct user
involvement (Fuchs, 2014).
DIGITAL REMEDIATION: THE TATTOO MAGAZINE
AND THE TATTOO STUDIO
In her assessment of fashion magazines and fashion media,
Agnès Rocamora examines how new media forms transform
established mediums, often drastically developing them, but
still retaining key aspects of the traditional formats. As such,
contemporary digital media has, inevitably, developed (and
sometimes replaced) long-established print media forms in a
process called ‘remediation’, a progression ‘whereby both
new and old media represent and refashion each other’
(2012, p. 101). As stated earlier, the tattoo magazine, since
the mid-1980s, has been both a significant source of contact
to instil and reflect a sense of a distinctive ‘tattoo community’, in addition to representing a prominent form of tattoobased media. In DeMello’s assessment of print forms, she
argues that media texts on tattooing, in addition to helping
to cement a palpable ‘tattoo community’, are also intrinsic to
that community (and wider readers) in that, especially in
magazine formats, they act to ‘define the discourse surrounding tattooing’ (2000, p. 32). Contemporaneously,
tattoo magazines in print form continue to fulfil this purpose,
but they have also engaged dynamically with the process of
remediation to have additional digital forms present within
prominent social media platforms, such as Inked magazine.
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111
First published in 2004, Inked combines tattoo coverage
and tattoo lifestyle features with stories and coverage related
to culture and style (including music, fashion, art and sports).
In terms of print format, Inked features interviews with tattoo
artists and cover models, but also a frequent focus on tattooed
celebrities (including Kat Von D, Travis Barker, Amber Rose,
Skylar Grey, Tove Lo, Adam Levine, Dave Navarro, Ronda
Rousey and Post Malone). Furthermore, highlighting the
‘community’ aspect that DeMello argues is a prime function of
the tattoo magazine, Inked also includes an editorial address,
but also direct inputs from readers in the forms of a letters
page and the ‘Inkedstagam’ section that features selected
photographs submitted by heavily tattooed readers and tattoo
models. However, while there are ‘interactive’ aspects of the
Inked print form, the communal quality is intensified with the
digital version of the magazine.
One digital format of Inked is the magazine’s official website, www.inkedmag.com. A key aspect of this platform is that
it acts as a closely aligned digital version of the print magazine,
in that many of the prominent features on the homepage mirror
those of the current print magazine (features, interviews, etc.).
However, it does have additional news features drawn from the
tattoo world (the latest celebrity tattoos, for example), tattoo
convention reports, profiles of specific tattoo styles or ‘bad
tattoo’ visual galleries. Furthermore, the site contains popular
culture news (film releases, celebrity stories, red carpet events
tied to tattoo culture), and, from a business perspective, the site
serves as a means by which readers can financially subscribe to
the magazine, in both print and digital forms, and purchase
back copies of the magazine. In this context, the www.inkedmag.com site is a clearly remediated form of the print magazine, but the communal qualities that the magazine offers are
intensified with Inked magazine’s official social media page on
the Facebook platform.
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The initial factor relating to Inked’s Facebook page is that
it has a section entitled ‘Community’, within which there are
options for followers to invite their Facebook Friends and to
link to the www.inkedmag.com official site. In terms of the
scale of the ‘community’, this section clearly numbers how
many users have elected to click the Like/Follow options
(11,937,953 and 11,362,908, respectively, as of the time of
writing). Additionally, a banner statement at the top of the
page reads: ‘We are Inked’ simultaneously serves as a statement of identity for the magazine/site, but also serves as a
descriptor that encompasses the tattooed bodily identity of
many followers. With regard to content, the Facebook platform, like the official website, includes articles featured in
current and recent issues of the print magazine. However, it
also serves as an ecommerce platform as it contains a number
of features that advertise official merchandise, mainly consisting of clothing items (beanie hats, t-shirts, branded
jewellery, etc.), with links to the magazine’s online shop for
immediate purchasing. As one would expect, there are features on artists and tattoo models, and reports on prominent
tattoo conventions, but the site also contains a number of
tattoo-themed sections. For example, there are clickable
images that explore specific tattoo styles and genres (blackand-grey, for example) as produced by respected tattoo
artists. Additionally, there are features that highlight tattoorelated information, such as visual charts of human bodies
with the most painful tattoo spots marked out as well as the
posting of images geared to inspire follower debates (examples of heavy tattooed bodies, striking design choices or facial
tattooing). In other instances, there are features that are
included for purely entertainment purposes (cats as pin-ups
photo slideshows, for example). Furthermore, the site
includes numerous videos of subjects such as tattoos being
applied, major tattoo events, and artist, tattoo model and
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celebrity interviews. In this sense, then, if the magazine
readership, as DeMello argues, represents a space for community meeting, then the Inked Facebook site reflects this, but
with a crucial addition: the pervasive, real-time, interactivity
that followers of the site have with the various features.
Subsequently, the tattoo community aspect of a social media
platform such as Inked magazine is arguably enhanced due to
its inherent participatory nature.
While the print form of Inked magazine is ‘interactive’ in
the sense that there is editorial address and some degree of
readers’ voices being present in letters sections and photographic features, these elements are, by their very nature,
both limited and abstract. However, the social media iteration of the magazine reflects the nature of social media, based
upon the theme of ‘digitized conversation’ (whether in the
form of the actual posting of words, or of images) in a
convergent, participatory media form. As Henry Jenkins
states, online digital technologies and platforms contrast
sharply with traditional media forms, based on a form of
‘passive media spectatorship’ that has now increasingly given
way to media forms in which participants engage with content, but also with other users (2008, p. 3). As such, each
feature and image in the Inked magazine Facebook site
contains numerous user responses. In many instances, these
are simply ‘Likes’ with regard to the image (and example of a
particular tattoo artist’s work, for example), or a simple
short written supportive statement. However, a crucial
aspect is that postings on the site frequently lead to debates
and differing opinions. For instance, with regard to a
photograph of a woman with a large, vibrantly coloured
tattoo design one side of her head and face, the design elicits
a variety of responses. Comments in this regard range from
dislike and rejection (commenting on the placement, the
quality of the art and the potential barriers to future
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employment that such as prominent and permanently visible
may pose) to admiration of the art, but with caveats that they
themselves would not have a tattoo in that placement.
Furthermore, other users simply express their critical views
through posting humorous memes that act as visual indicators of ridicule and rejection of the tattoo and its placement.
With DeMello’s idea of a media-based ‘tattoo community’
still in mind, the Inked magazine Facebook site is significant
in that users will frequently respond to features through the
posting of images of their own tattoos, which can then become
the subject of wider user debate and response. The key issue
here is that the Inked magazine Facebook site is ostensibly a
‘corporate’ space as it is the official page of a magazine published by Quadra Media LLC (which also publishes Rebel Ink
and Freshly INKED). However, it is widely populated with
comments, likes and self-posted images by users (in addition to
commentators alerting other users to particular features and
tattoo imagery). Consequently, the social media space of Inked
magazine cogently reflects the contemporary process of
spreadable media.
As conceptualized by Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford and Joshua
Green, spreadability is the driving aspect of a digital media
culture, in which content is transposed as it enters different
networks and niche online communities. Accordingly, as
‘material spreads, it gets remade: either literally through
various forms of sampling and remixing, or figuratively, via its
insertion into ongoing conversations and across various
platforms’ (2013, p. 27). In this context, digital spreadability
enables users to shape media environments, disperse material,
commentary and imagery, a result of ‘shifts in the nature of
technologies which make it easier to produce, upload,
download, appropriate, remix, recirculate, and embed content’ (2013, p. 298). This issue of convergence, what Jenkins
describes as ‘the flow of content across multiple media
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platforms’ (2008, p. 2) is central to the nature of Inked
magazine, in which traditional print and a range of media sites
actively share content, and engages in a similar process of
shareability (with content shared from print, Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram and the official website). For example, the
inkedmag.com site shares tattoo images drawn from a number
of Instagram pages that displays particular user-posted images
of a noteworthy aspect of tattoo culture, such as the now
substantial number of people with portrait tattoos of the
music star, Billie Eilish, who rose to fame in 2019. However,
the issue of shareability within a site such as the Inked
magazine Facebook page, with the constant sharing of tattoo
artists’ work, is also indicative of the ways in which social
media has decisively remediated the tattoo studio.
THE DIGITAL STUDIO
Reflecting upon his ethnographic research into the culture of
tattooing in the United States, conducted in the 1980s, Clinton
R. Sanders spent much of his data-collecting time in a commercial tattoo shop in which many of the clients ‘generally
chose tattoo designs from the numerous sheets of “flash”
covering the available wall space’ (1988, p. 222). Similarly, as
part of his conception of a tattoo figuration, Atkinson also
acknowledges the traditional value of the shop as a primary
site in connecting with fellow tattoo enthusiasts, achieved
through ‘hanging out in tattoo studios and displaying one’s
‘work’ to heavily tattooed others’ (2003, p. 118). In this sense,
for much of the professional history of tattooing, the tattoo
studio represented the most fundamental communicative
platform for a particular artist, or group of artists. Hence, as
Atkinson further elaborates, not only was the studio the
ultimate (and intimate) expression of the figuration, the
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relationship between the tattooist and the client, it also
communicated the work and style of an artist, from flash
designs on the walls to the printed portfolios freely available
for scrutiny in the studio. Therefore, the most direct way to
see a prospective artists’ work was through physically seeing
their tattoo work on clients, or through coming into contact
with 2-D representations of their designs. Yet, the Facebook
site Tattoo Social (previously Tattoo Drop) is an artist-based
space in which various tattooists upload examples of their
designs, providing a professionally focused site for portfolio
sharing and user commentary on tattoo work. A crucial corollary of this digital ‘relationship’ is that it enhances trust
between the client and the artist as the client has a clear
expectation of the style of tattoo that they will receive. In this
context, social media has changed this traditional process, and
dramatically extended the degree to which prospective clients
can see artists’ styles and examples of work. Indeed, as Taylor
Bryant (2018) contends, social media platforms, especially
Instagram, have fundamentally transformed tattoo culture.
In Bryant’s view, social media has revolutionized the relationship between the tattoo artist and the client as it has
altered the spatial dynamic. This is so because clients are not
limited to working with artists in their immediate geographical area, as they can receive updates of city visits (or guest
spots at other studios) posted on artists’ personal social media
sites. Furthermore, the now-pervasive use of social media in
the tattooing industry is another factor making tattooing more
accessible to more social actors. In this sense, prospective
clients can follow an artist and evaluate their work over an
extended period of time (and from a distance) before
committing to ultimately deciding to make contact and book
an appointment for a tattoo by that artist. Consequently, the
traditional artists’ portfolio is now a digitized social media–
communicated artefact and crucial business resource for
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studios (Barron, 2017). Moreover, these digital portfolios are
updated by artists on a continual basis, hence the practice of
artists using mobiles to photograph completed tattoos for
instant posting to social media pages, is a key part of
contemporary tattoo practice. Likewise, many artists take
additional mobile videoed clips of completed tattoos that are
initially obscured by soap and then dramatically revealed –
footage that is frequently shared by wider tattoo-based social
media sites. As Bryant argues, the impact of social media
platforms has been dramatic, and is driven by the digitally
immersed Millennial and Generation Z demographics, with
the result that artists report that an increasing number of
clients are coming through Instagram. Moreover, the social
media connection is a reciprocal one because,
Instagram is a feedback-driven platform, for
customers, it acts as something of a Yelp for tattoo
artists. For artists, it’s another way for them to
promote themselves and build their community. It
also allows customers to get to know the artist better.
(Bryant, 2018)
Yet, there is one primary negative outcome in response to the
extensive displaying of tattoo work across social media sites,
and that is the impact on the originality of tattoo designs. One of
the key consequences of the Tattoo Renaissance was the
growing accessibility of personalized custom tattoo work, and
the diminishment of flash art, that was very likely to adorn the
bodies of numerous other tattoo enthusiasts, and to be essentially the exact the same motif. In this context, the key aspect of
post 1970s tattoo culture was the desire to use, via original and
personalized tattoo designs, aspects of self-definition and so
symbolically enable a tattooed person to feel ‘different’ (Sanders
& Vail, 2008, p. 51). Yet, as Bryant notes, one person’s unique
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and highly individualized custom work, due to its presence on
social media, can be, via a screenshot, brought to an artist and so
then end up being tattooed onto the body of another social
actor. Ironically, therefore, while social media has (and continues to have) a transformative effect on the tattoo industry,
and tattoo culture, it has, unexpectedly, transformed many
tattoos, no matter how initially innovative, original and
bespoke to one particular person and their biography, into a
digital (and digitally accessible) form of flash art. However,
there are artists who do not see this as a negative outcome. For
example, as the tattoo artist, Cris Cleen, states of his practice
and attitude to design choice:
I have a book of flash that customers can pick
anything they like from. I do this because that is what
tattoos are: they are designs that all people are worthy
of wearing. That’s the whole appeal for me, ever since
I got my first tattoo. Tattoos are ideas that we all
relate to…Getting something just for you – that no
one else can have – is elitist, and takes away the
sharing experience of wearing something that other
people see and think, yeah, I get it, I feel that too.
(in Snape, 2018, p. 282)
At one level, the accessible portfolios of artists across
numerous social media platforms mean that this outcome is
inevitable, because, as Cleen potently observes of the impact
of social media, now no ‘tattoo is custom’ and so, because any
original design is visible, and so is copy-able, ‘everything
becomes flash’ (in Snape, 2018, p. 282). However, social
media platforms proved to be a crucial means for artists to
stay connected with the ‘tattoo community’ during the 2020
COVID-19 global lockdown that resulted in studios closing in
the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. During this period,
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119
artists could stay in contact with clients who had booked
tattoo work prior to the lockdown, showcase prospective
designs and sell bespoke artwork online.
TATTOO FANDOM AND PARTICIPATORY
DIGITAL CULTURES
In assessing 21st century subcultural social groupings, Andy
Bennett stresses a key issue is that such configurations are fluid
and foreground lifestyle preferences, aesthetic feelings and
practices. Moreover, the Internet has formed a significant
expression for such groupings, especially given its inherent
capacity to connect individuals in a translocal context, but
also as such spaces are built upon ‘more fluid understandings
of membership’ (2014, p. 97). If the idea of a palpable and
clearly defined ‘tattoo community’ can still to be considered
with some caution (as Atkinson does), the issue of fandom
arguably helps to reconsider this in relation to tattooing and
social media. In their critical analysis of spreadable media,
Jenkins, Ford and Green link such digital practices to the
impact they have with regard to online forms of fandom, and
the nature of contemporary fan activity. As they state:
Fandoms are one type of collectivity (in that they are
acting as communities rather than as individuals) and
connectivity (in that their power is amplified through
their access to networked communications) whose
presence is being felt in contemporary culture.
Members of minority or subcultural communities,
various kinds of activist and DIY groups, and
different affinity groups are also linked through
shared ‘sociality’ and ‘identity’.
(2013, p. 166)
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This understanding of what digital network technologies,
and primarily social media platforms, means for fan groups is
of key importance with regard to tattoo enthusiasts engaging
with tattoo-themed online media, and the references to issues
such as ‘affinity groups’ is applicable to tattoo ‘fans’. However,
Jenkins’ (1992) analysis of the nature of spreadable media in
this regard connects with his early work on the communal
nature of fandom, as expressed in his now-classic book,
Textual Poachers, in which he examined the participatory
activities and communal groupings of fans in relation to media
culture. Therefore, a key aspect of fan behaviour is that they
implement a distinctive mode of reception with regard to the
object of their fandom. As such, fans make a conscious process
of selection with regard to a particular cultural text (television,
film, music, etc.), but also invariably wish to talk about the
particular text with other fans. Traditionally, fans joined
organizations or attended conventions, enabling them to
engage in sustained discussions of their favoured media texts,
but also exchanging fans letters, and making use of early chat
sites on computer networks. The crucial issue for Jenkins is
that, from this perspective, fandom constitutes a particular
interpretative community, a communal space in which differing
textual interpretations are subject to negotiation, and where
alternative readings or evaluations of particular texts are proposed, debated or challenged. With reference to tattoo-themed
social media sites such as Inked magazine, these processes are
evident in a digital context. For example, image postings and
features based upon specific tattoo designs, trends and examples of bodily placement result in a wide range of differing, and
often competing, perspectives.
Given the photography-based nature of Instagram and its
basis as a visual ‘conduit for communication’ (Leaver, Highfield, & Abidin, 2020, p. 1), tattoo-themed Instagram sites
such as Tattoo Inkspiration (4.5 million followers) and
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Tattoos of Inztagram (5 million followers) represent extensive, but interactive and participatory tattoo image repositories. Primarily, these social media sites consist of the
postings of particular artists’ work, but they are also networks
by which tattooed social actors can upload images of their
tattoo designs and tattooed bodies. For instance, Tattoos of
Inztagram combines artist showcases with user-posted imagery, tattoo models, trend styles, tattoo-themed comedic memes
and celebrities with tattoos (such as David Beckham, Adam
Levine and Conor MacGregor). Moreover, all of the images
can be liked, commented upon and shared with other users
across other social media platforms. Tattoo Inkspiration
contains similar content, but as the name of the site indicates,
it is presented as not only a place in which tattoo enthusiasts
can engage with tattoo imagery and exemplars of tattoo work,
but also seek inspiration for their own future tattoo designs.
Therefore, these sites present a compendium of differing
aspects of tattoo culture, such as professional tattoo model
shots and artist portfolio images. Furthermore, the wealth of
visual material posted to these platforms is also driven by the
convergent impact of smartphones, and the practice of taking
the ‘selfie’, which has resulted in a flood of user-generated
content uploaded online (Gannon & Prothero, 2018), and
many images on such social media sites are selfies posted by
tattooed social actors. Additionally, such sites (and a myriad
of others) present a compelling catalogue of differing tattoo
styles, genres and trends (often related to popular cultural
texts, such as It or Joker film character designs), and a diverse
array of tattooed bodies, ranging from those with minimal or
light designs, to the extensively and heavily tattooed.
In this context, tattoo-related social media sites keenly
represent a contemporary expression of what Jenkins dubbed
the fan-based ‘art world’. The concept of the art world, derived
from Howard Becker’s Art Worlds (originally published in
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1982), explains the various components that underpin the production and distribution of art, whereby an art world is ‘an
established network of cooperative links among participants’
(2008, p. 34–35). In this sense, the concept of the art world refers
to the conventions that underpin how art works are aesthetically
understood, how they are circulated, exhibited and sold, and the
systems of critical evaluation that underscore these processes. In
the context of cultures of fandom, Jenkins stresses the ways in
which fan conventions and modes of networking (fanzines,
newsletters, online forums, etc.) play a central role in the distribution of knowledge about particular media productions
(comic books, science fiction novels, new film or television
releases). Furthermore, fandom constitutes its own distinctive
Art World founded in the form of fan-produced texts which
contribute to the shared sense of appreciation for a particular
cultural form. What is important in this analysis is that, due to
the nature of such art worlds, fandom constitutes a definite, but
alternative, form of social community. In this context,
[The] fan’s appropriation of media texts provides a
ready body of common references that facilitates
communication with others scattered across a broad
geographic area, fans who one may never-or only
seldom-meet face to face but who share a common
sense of identity and interests’ [and who are] defined
through their common relationship with shared texts’.
(1992, p. 213)
A significant factor with regard to social media sites such as
Tattoos of Inztagram or Tattoo Inkspiration is that they
represent key examples of communal perception (with followers numbering in the millions), but that they are literally
tattoo-themed art worlds. Accordingly, their Instagram pages
are virtual tattoo galleries, while other sites, such as Tattoo
Social Media and Digital Tattoo Communities
123
Snob, serve as personally curated collections considered
(however, subjective that may be) to be of the highest quality
tattooing. Alternatively, a site like Things & Ink combines
artist and design profiles with commentary and debate issues
relating to gender and tattooing and female tattoo culture and
its community needs and concerns. As such, a particular focus
in this regard concerns historic contexts that consistently
challenges pervading gender tattoo stereotypes that tattooing
was traditionally a masculine practice (profiling early artists
such as Maud Wagner, for example), but also addresses current issues of tattoo-based sexism and inappropriate attitudes
and touching presumptions directed towards tattooed women.
In other social media sites, however, such as Tattoodo, the
gallery aspect is central, but the site serves as a convergent
meeting point for tattoo enthusiasts and the tattoo industry.
Cofounded by Ami James, Tattoodo has some 20 million
followers across its key social media platforms (Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, Tattoodo.com), with 2 billion site visits
registered per month, and advertises itself as the ‘World’s #1
tattoo community’. At one level, Tattoodo highlights and
celebrates tattoo practice, culture, trends, designs, videos,
‘Tattoos of the Day’ features, etc., on its social media sites, but
its unique selling point is that it enables tattoo enthusiasts to
book consultations with artists aligned to Tattoodo.
Furthermore, Tattoodo enables clients to connect with artists
from across the world to provide a custom design. As Ami
James explains:
It’s a platform where you can get a tattoo design. A
lot of people have ideas for their next tattoo, but very
few have the actual design. We built a platform
where you can create a competition, put $100, $200,
or $300 in escrow, and start getting personalized
designs from our 3,000 artists worldwide. The
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designs depend on how good your design brief is, and
how active you are on giving feedback to the artists…
We also have a section called Design Store where you
can buy designs from some of the best artists on the
planet. You can takes these designs to your local
tattoo artist, or receive them as a print or iphone [sic]
cover, etc.
(Anon, 2014)
The issue of tattoo-based social media sites centered on
the collation and participatory interaction of tattoo enthusiasts represents a reflection of DeMello’s conception of
media-based tattoo community, but in a much more engaged
form. Moreover, the idea of seeing such social media sites as
digital art worlds gives them a potent quality with regard to
curating tattoo culture. In this context, a consequence, and
impact, of tattoo-based social media sites is that, thanks to
their intrinsic participatory nature, they constitute significant spaces in which myriad aspects of tattoo culture are
captured, and so will be preserved in a rich, digital form. In
relation to the digital impact of mobile technologies, Elisa
Giaccardi argues that they play a vital role in establishing
‘new digitally mediated forms of heritage practice’ (2012,
p. 2). The crucial issue is that social actors in possession of
such technologies can easily share user-generated content in
differing contexts of affiliation, such as tattoo-themed social
media sites, and as danah boyd (2014) stresses, a key
component of social media expression is its persistence and
durability as digital content. Consequently, social media
platforms offer distinctive paths to the creation of ‘media
museums’ (Russo, 2012) that record (and continue to
record) the evolutions and changing expressions of tattoo
culture.
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THE TATTOO COMMUNITY SPEAKS: INTERACTING
WITH SUBCULTURAL TATTOO CELEBRITIES
In his study of fandom, Mark Duffett stresses that, in addition to
the mediatisation of fandom into a collective form of public
practice, online communications have ‘turned the fan community from a network of local cultures of periodic rituals [such as
convention participation] into a non-stop process of social
effervescence’ (2013, p. 293). Moreover, this culture has also had
a dramatic effect in terms of celebrity fandom, because the ‘net
has created new opportunities for fans to feel closer to their stars’
(2013, p. 237). This apparent relationship is a digital culmination of a now longstanding connection between the public and
celebrities via traditional mass communication media. In relation
to the impact of the then ‘new’ media of the 1950s: radio, movies
and especially television, Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl
argued that these media, based on feelings of intimacy directed
out to audiences by actors and presenters, could establish a
‘simulacrum of conversational give and take’ that they dubbed
the para-social interaction (1956, p. 215). As Robert van Krieken
(2012) states of this mode of interaction, while based upon
nonreciprocation, many fans do nonetheless feel connected to
media personalities, and can take inspiration from them as to
how they live their lives and interact with others. However, the
issue of connection is arguably different when considered from
the perspective of social media. This is because, as Baym (2012)
argues, there is a chance that a celebrity may actually respond to
a tweet, comment or image post on their official site (if only to
click the ‘Like’ option), or may even engage in direct interaction
with a fan. Yet, in the context of tattoo culture, this possibility of
contact and interaction is far more likely with regard to ‘celebrity
tattooists’, or tattooists who have some media renown.
This category invariably involves tattooists featured on
tattoo-themed reality TV shows. At one level, the relationship
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between such artists and tattoo enthusiasts is, by definition,
more intimate in nature than that experienced in wider celebrity
culture. In this context, while figures such as Ami James, Chris
Garver, Tommy Helm, Ryan Ashley, Cleen Rock One, Kelly
Doty, Megan Jean Morris, Jay Hutton, Nikole Lowe, Alice
Perrin, Megan Massacre or Grace Neutral are media personalities, they represent examples of a category that Bertha Chin
and Matt Hills dub the ‘subcultural celebrity’. Thus, while
possessing a media presence, this is a mode of ‘celebrity that is
restricted rather than general, being recognised by specific (fan/
subcultural) audiences rather than being culturally ubiquitous’
(2008, p. 253). However, in the context of a form of fame
based upon tattooing, the issue of connection to enthusiasts, or
tattoo ‘fans’ is all the more unique due to the fact that subculturally famous tattooists are invariably working artists. For
instance, the British tattooist, Grace Neutral (discussed in
Chapter 3 in relation to the television series Needles and Pins)
has 647,000 Instagram followers and the image galleries are a
fusion of examples of her tattoo work, photographs of her site
working on clients, convention appearances, fashion shoots
and screenshots from various Needles and Pins episodes. In this
context, image comments on her site represent a combination
of comments on her specific work with clients, and her status as
a television personality, but her renown is, in the main, subculturally connected with her status as a tattooist (with an
artistic specialism in hand-poked tattoo techniques) and largely
in relation to tattoo culture.
In terms of media status, Kat Von D is a major breakout
celebrity in relation to her prominent starring roles in reality
TV shows, album releases and cosmetics and fragrance
ranges, and in terms of social media presence, she has followers that number in the millions (Facebook – 11,875,557
followers; Instagram – 7.3 million followers; Twitter – 1.97
million followers). However, in their examination of fan/
Social Media and Digital Tattoo Communities
127
celebrity interactions, Melissa A, Click, Hyunji Lee and Holly
Willson Holladay (2013) identify that social media–based
reciprocity can be established between fans and celebrities,
from the intimate and personal information posted by a
celebrity on their platforms to reactions by them to public
postings. In the context of their analysis of the social media
relationship between Lady Gaga and her fans, the reciprocal
relationships can be positive and inspirational, but this is not
always the case. In 2019, Kat Von D revealed, through her
social media platforms, her new tattoo: a design that blacks
out a large part of her left arm, covering many previous tattoos. The technique is a potentially complicated one (ensuring
a quick process to avoid scarring that will mar the surface
effect), but it is a style that divides artistic views. Artists that
specialize in the style argue that black-out tattoos ‘offer a
customer the chance to have something that has a connection
with the roots of tattooing – solid and black with a neat and
clean look to it’ (Rimmer Givens, 2020, p. 46). Reflecting this
assessment of the style, on November the 4th 2019, Kat Von D
posted, ‘I’m so in love with my new blacked out arm tattooed
by @hoode215! Can’t believe it only took him 1.5 hours – and
it’s the most consistent, true black I have ever seen!’ (Bowenback, 2019: Cosmopolitan.com). Via Instagram, however,
many users posted very negative response reactions to the
work, such as:
It literally looks like the ink was sprayed on!
For a tattoo artist and someone with so much artistic
skill, this seems…well it’s just terrible. I’ll say it. And
people taking [sic] like it’s such an artistic
expression…is it. Looks like an arm was dipped in a
can of paint.
(Bowenbank, Cosmopolitan.com 2019)
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With regard to the issue of social media reciprocity, Von D
responded to such messages (and many more like them) in a
later post, in which she said:
Even though tattoos are an outward expression, they
really aren’t for anyone else other than the person
wearing it…Yes, I did decide to black out a large
portion of old, crappy tattoos on my arm…
Regardless of what people might think about it, I
absolutely LOVE how simple and clean it looks now.
(Noor, 2019, the Guardian.com)
Such exchanges stress that an online ‘tattoo community’ is
far from monolithic in how it evaluates tattoos and tattooing,
but the crucial legacy of Web 2.0 is that social media has made
an unprecedented impact on the ways in which tattoo
enthusiasts, via convergent digital technologies, can engage,
and, crucially, publicly contribute to tattoo discourses. While
the idea that the communal contacts established through
social media represent merely a form of ‘depersonalized intimacy’ (Jagoe, 2016), Hampton and Wellman stress that
mobile phones and social media have a key communal power
as they ‘provide opportunities for partial commitments to
different social milieus’ (2018, p. 648). As this chapter has
explored, the milieu of tattooing has a pervasive and multifaceted presence in social media. Therefore, whether tattoothemed social media sites represent a digital expression of
DeMello’s conception of a media-linked tattoo community, or
a digital addition to the interpersonal ties that bind tattoo
enthusiasts together that constitute Atkinson’s conception of
the figuration, social media plays an intrinsic media role in
contemporary tattoo culture. In this sense, given the differing
perspectives and levels of engagement evident on social
media sites, they reflect what Jenkins calls ‘participatory
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129
communities’ (Jenkins, Ito, & boyd, 2016, p. 12). Hence, such
platforms are digital places in which distinctive voices can be
communicated and heard; where tattoo styles, practices and
trends can be debated, valorised or critiqued. They are where
the public can interact with the tattooists seen on reality TV
(possibly to the artists’ chagrin, as with Kat Von D), and
where artists and clients can make contact and engage in the
practice of tattooing. In addition, given the convergent,
participatory and spreadable nature of social media, they are
platforms where tattoo enthusiasts can digitally commune,
and, can, more importantly, add images of their own tattooed
bodies to the sites that may well become the tattoo ‘media
museums’ of the future.
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5
TATTOOS AND POPULAR
PERSONALITIES: INKED
CELEBRITIES
Given the growing significance of reality TV, and the plethora
of tattooed-themed reality TV shows, all featuring a number
of professional artists, it is little surprise that one outcome of
the genre is its ability to enable ‘ordinary people to transform
into celebrities’ (Jerslev & Mortensen, 2018, p. 169). For
example, some participants in reality TV shows as disparate as
Big Brother, Made in Chelsea, The Only Way is Essex, Jersey
Shore, Geordie Shore or Love Island have become notable
celebrity and media figures. As such, via the tattoo-based
shows discussed in the previous chapter, this process is also
evident with regard to a number of tattooists. Consequently,
due to their appearances on shows such as Miami Ink, LA
Ink, NY Ink, Tattoo Fixers or Just Tattoo of Us, professional
tattoo artists such as Ami James, Chris Núñez, Jay Hutton,
Danny Robinson, Cally-Jo, Charl Davies, Kat Von D and
Megan Massacre have become celebrity figures, albeit of the
subcultural variety. This is because, in the main, their cultural
visibility reflects the subcultural form because their level of
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media fame tends to consolidate their reputation and presence
in tattoo-based discourses and contexts (other tattoo-themed
TV shows, or featured guest spots at international tattoo
conventions), which significantly boost their social media
follower numbers. However, with a level of fame that has
consolidated their professional status within the industry, but
it has also provided a level of celebrity that does have a further
cultural reach.
For example, while Megan Massacre’s appearance on NY
Ink lead to further TV work in Bondi Ink Tattoo Crew and
America’s Worst Tattoos, in addition to her opening her own
studio in New York City, Grit N Glory, she is now also a
clothing designer, model and writer. Moreover, Kat Von D
has engaged in a number of cultural and business ventures.
For instance, in addition to running her own tattoo studio,
High Voltage, she has also diversified into the fragrance
market with her Saint 1 Sinner line, and the cosmetics
industry with the release of her Vegan Beauty range. Such
activities reflect what Turner refers to as the process whereby,
as public media figures’ prominence rises, the ‘celebrity
can develop their public persona as a commercial asset’ (2014,
p. 37). Similarly, Ami James released the tattoo-themed Ink
Clothing line, selling tattoo-inspired apparel and jewellery. Of
course, tattooing has made an impact in high fashion before
such developments, most notably due to what Christian
Audigier, the founder of the Von Dutch fashion brand, did
with the name and tattoo imagery of the iconic tattooist, Don
Ed Hardy in releasing an apparel line.
Alternatively, due to social media and a celebrity cadre who
have increasingly, and publicly, embraced tattooing, a number
of tattoo artists have become media figures due to their literal
proximity to celebrities, in that they are the artists who are
selected to tattoo their bodies. Consequently, the tattoo artists
Keith ‘Bang Bang’ McCurdy, Jon Boy, Dr. Woo, Kevin Paul and
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133
Nikko Hurtado have tattooed a number of celebrities such as
Kendall Jenner, Halsey, Rihanna, Rita Ora, Justin Bieber, David
Beckham, Miley Cyrus, Drake, Harry Styles, Selena Gomez,
Emilia Clarke, Ed Sheeran and Dwayne Johnson. In addition to
being the go-to artist for such famous figures, while celebrities
are in the act of being tattooed, their social media updates and
selfies of the tattooing and the completed tattoo have contributed to this cadre of artists becoming a notable professional
group. Consequently, their status and cultural visibility has
become considerable, with artists such Dr. Woo reported to
have waiting lists of up to two years for prospective clients
(Gardner, 2019) and having 1.6 million Instagram followers.
However, the key element of the rise of ‘elite tattooists’ is that
tattooed celebrities have become increasingly visible via popular
cultural representation.
Writing in 2009, Josh Adams examined the enduring
association between tattooing and deviance (in the United
States), concluding that the practice of tattooing seemed to
hold on to some of its marginal characteristics. In this sense, as
he states, despite ‘the changes within the industry, embodied
in the notion of the Tattoo Renaissance, it is understandably
difficult to shed tattoo’s negative associations after
generations of active stigmatization’ (2009, p. 285). However,
the influence of film, television, social media and celebrity is
arguably negating many of these tenacious attitudes,
especially with regard to the ways in which celebrity culture is
actively mainstreaming images of tattooed bodies, but also
confronting the areas that Adams argues constitute the areas
most stigmatized, which are the face, neck, hands and fingers.
And so, while many celebrities are lightly tattooed, with
minimalist designs, others are both heavily and visibly tattooed in precisely the areas Adams flags; to the extent that it is
celebrity culture that is arguably a prime force in changing
attitudes to such previously ‘taboo’ tattooed areas.
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TATTOOS AND MEDIATED CELEBRITY BODIES
The veneration of distinctive individuals possessing (or
perceived to possess) great renown, from royalty, artists,
poets, or political leaders, is an ancient component of human
history. Moreover, the access to fame expanded through the
development of mass communication media, epitomized by
the creation of movie stars via Hollywood (Braudy, 1986).
However, there is perception that there is a distinctive
difference between classic conceptions of fame and
contemporary celebrity. As Robin D. Barnes argues, in a
traditional sense, fame was invariably associated with some
public demonstration of unique skill or achievement, whereas
celebrity ‘is more transient, relying on marketing, timing, and
instant appeal’ (2010, p. 19). Hence, contemporary celebrity
accommodates film stars, music icons, political advocates and
reality TV personalities. In this regard, celebrity is based upon
a cultural group’s ‘capacity to attract attention’ and being
‘well known (highly visible) in itself in at least one public
arena’ (van Krieken, 2012, p. 10). Furthermore, the vehicle to
attain this status of renown is invariably achieved through the
media (Giles, 2000). Consequently, while fame is an ancient
aspect of human culture, as Ellis Cashmore contends:
Celebrity culture became a feature of social life,
especially in the developed world, during the late
1980s/early 1990s, and extended into the twenty-first
century, assisted by a global media, which promoted,
lauded, sometimes abominated, and occasionally
annihilated figures, principally from entertainment
and sports.
(2014, p. 8)
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135
For Cashmore, modern celebrity culture is characterized by
media-driven fame (television, print media, the Internet and
digital platforms), and so, as Sean Redmond stresses, given the
crucial role of media, celebrities are ‘representational
constructs’ that express social conceptions of class, gender,
sexuality, race and ethnicity, modes of consumerism and
identity (2014). This is based on the ways in which individuals
react to celebrities, as sources of entertainment, figures of deep
affection (sometimes leading to pathological behaviours, such
as stalking) or as attitudinal or bodily ‘role models’. For
Cashmore, the status of celebrities representing a distinctive
standard of beauty became evident from 1930s Hollywood and
has become a crucial aspect of celebrity discourse and cultural
influence. Therefore, as Redmond argues with regard to the
primacy of celebrity bodies within contemporary media culture:
‘One can see how celebrity bodies work to transmit dominant
cultural values about race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality,
age and social class’ (2019, p. 109). This aspect of celebrities
representing bodily role models that inspire members of the
public to engage in physical, cosmetic or surgical procedures to
emulate them is a significant aspect of sociological and cultural
approaches to the impact of celebrity culture. As Anthony
Elliott contends, celebrity, from a sociological perspective, has
been evaluated with regard to the ways in which celebrity
connects with concerns with self, identity and the body within a
consumer culture, to the degree that celebrity culture ‘speaks
directly on certain basic concerns to do with the body, ageing
and desire’ (2018, p. 307). However, a distinctive addendum to
discourses surrounding celebrity bodies, and how they are
culturally perceived and assessed, is the ways in which tattooing has become part of this phenomena. This is especially significant as tattooing has become progressively more visible as
part of celebrity, especially in the context of 21st century media
culture. As such, in addition to representations of tattooing in
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film, television and social media platforms, it is now common
to see tattoos adorning the bodies of a variety of celebrities,
including sports stars such as WWE wrestler, Ronda Rousey
(and various other wrestling stars) and football and NBA stars
like Marcos Rojo and Kevin Wayne Durant. Furthermore,
David Beckham, Johnny Depp and Ruby Rose’s extensively
tattooed bodies adorn mainstream advertising media for
brands such as Breitling and Tudor luxury watches, Dior fragrances and Urban Decay cosmetics. In this regard, celebrity
culture represents a significant media contributor to the
ongoing process of the ‘normalization’ of tattooing, in which,
via celebrity, the ‘tattoo world has now become the ultimate in
chic’ (Saltz, 2006, p. 13).
In the view of the tattooist, Henk Schiffmacher (2005), the
wearing of tattoos on the bodies of social elites is not an
unprecedented cultural phenomenon as tattoos have, in
differing times, been embraced by the ‘lower social classes’
and aristocrats, artists and intellectuals keen to shock
respectable tastes, push against social boundaries and indulge
in cultural trends. Hence, the renewed visibility of tattooing
with regard to contemporary celebrity cultural ‘elites’ represents a rejuvenation of this bodily practice. In placing the role
of celebrity in the context of the changes in Western tattoo
culture from the 1970s, while limited in terms of both
numbers and visibility, Catherine Grognard (1994) argues
that celebrity influence did play a role as part of the perceived
renaissance of tattooing. This was because, in addition to the
self-expressive aspects of tattooing that progressively characterized this period, the wearing of tattoos by film stars and
musicians also bestowed upon tattooing a distinctively fashionable status. The new-found ‘prestige’ of tattooing was
culturally signified by the fact that iconic film stars and performers such Sean Connery and Cher represented an early
wave of famous tattooed bodies. However, nonmainstream
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137
figures also illustrated further alternative early examples of
what Grogard dubs the popular cultural tattooed ‘brotherhood’. For example, the cult actor, and member of Andy
Warhol’s Factory artistic collective, Joe Dallesandro’s ‘Little
Joe’ tattoo (inscribed on his upper right arm) was a conspicuous aspect of his off-screen persona, and his image in iconic
Paul Morrissey films, such as Flesh (1968) and Trash (1970).
Beyond the film industry, tattoos were prevalent in popular
culture, but located within distinctive subcultural spaces of
popular music, most notably heavy metal. Emerging from
numerous psychedelic bands of the late-1960s – performers
like Jimi Hendrix, and groups such as like Deep Purple, Led
Zeppelin, Steppenwolf and Iron Butterfly, such bands were
among the first to present a form of rock’n’roll that was
notably harder and louder than other forms of contemporary
popular music. Discarding the inherent psychedelic overtones
of the 1960s, heavy metal would emphasise the abrasive power
of rock to produce music that stressed sentiments of alienation,
menace, destruction and nihilism (Arnett, 1996). The genre
quickly expanded in the 1970s through bands such as Black
Sabbath, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Iron Maiden; and it
continued its expansion through the 1980s via the likes of
Metallica, Megadeth, Poison and Mötley Crüe. While, as
Andy R. Brown (2006) argues, heavy metal was neglected by
classic subcultural theorists, potentially because of its traditional focus on excessive masculinity and machismo, it has
proven to be an enduring form, developing further throughout
the 1990s and into the 21st century, albeit with a myriad of
differing expressions. Given the traditionally rebellious and
abrasive spirit of heavy metal, it is unsurprising that tattoos
have long been part of its culture and bodily aesthetic. Hence,
performers such as Ozzy Osbourne, Paul Stanley of KISS,
Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee from
Mötley Crüe, Slayer’s Tom Araya and Kerry King and Guns
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‘n’ Roses’ Duff McKagen were notable for their tattoos.
Moreover, from the 1990s onwards, the prevalence of tattooing has expanded, with many musicians sporting heavily
tattooed bodies, with prominent examples including Marilyn
Manson, Blink-182’s Travis Barker, Korn’s Brian ‘Head’
Welch, Andy Biersack of Black Veil Brides, Mastodon’s Brent
Hinds and various members of bands such as As I Lay Dying,
Avenged Sevenfold, Bring Me The Horizon, Gallows, Architects and Bad Wolves (to name but a few). Traditionally, tattooing is also mirrored by the genre’s fan base as tattooing is
also historically and contemporaneously an endemic aspect of
the heavy metal fandom, acting (in the form of chaossignifying monster figures drawn from popular culture, or
band logos and album imagery) as ‘a special mark of loyalty to
the metal subculture’ (Weinstein, 2000, p. 129). As Gill argues,
tattoos and body modification have long been used by individuals within subcultural groupings such as heavy metal fans
to identify themselves as ‘outsiders’ with fashion and body
modifications that communicate values and commitment to the
culture. The primacy of tattooing within this subculture
intensified from the early 2000s as mainstream fashion brands
began to feature clothing and accessories that were based upon
‘rock’ fashion, such as studded belts and t-shirts bearing band
logos. In the wake of fashion ‘tourists’ sporting metal imagery,
tattoos (with extensive designs and visible placements) were
seen as a key means by which to reclaim authenticity and
retain the outsider, or ‘hardcore’ cultural aesthetic and
commitment to the culture, for both fans and metal musicians
alike. However, as Gill notes:
Just as the fingerless gloves and skinny jeans had
been co-opted by the high street, so too tattoos
started to become mainstream. Celebrities such as
David Beckham and Johnny Depp started to get
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more and more tattoos – as did fashion and perfume
models from Jean Paul Gaultier to Diesel. Just as a
Motörhead t-shirt, long hair or a beard had lost their
specific semiotic meaning to a subculture, so too
tattoos no longer meant, ‘I am really into hardcore’.
(2017b)
Consequently, in Alexis Petridis’s view, the twentiethcentury conception of youth subculture is outmoded because
the digital world of the Internet ‘doesn’t spawn mass movements, bonded together by a shared taste in music, fashion
and ownership of subcultural capital: it spawns brief, microcosmic ones’ (in Gill, 2017b). Yet, as Scott Rowley, Editor-inChief of Classic Rock magazine states:
I think people enjoy being ‘different’, so subcultures
will probably always survive. Big subcultures are
now split into sub-subcultures. You’re not just into
metal, you’re into stoner or black metal or metalcore
or whatever. And there’s tension between those
smaller sects and the larger subculture. The internet
may have brought us all together, but that only
makes us all want to be different even more. It’s
much easier to find like-minded people, revel in your
own niche and feel superior to everyone else.
(in Gill, 2017c)
With reference to Black Metal, a metal form based on
occult themes, but also often anti-Christian motifs and
imagery (Hjelm, Kahn-Harris, & LeVine, 2013), it is significant to note the ways in which the Internet, via social media
platforms, does serve to bring together adherents who cleave
to a particular sub-subculture, with tattoos playing a major
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role, as illustrated by the Polish band, Behemoth. With regard
to the band’s singer and guitarist Adam ‘Nergal’ Darski’s
social media sites, they prominently feature his own extensive
tattoo collection (frequently posting images and footage of
him obtaining them and undergoing laser removal in order to
replace older designs with new ones). However, a central
aspect of Darski’s Instagram site is the posting of fan art, often
expressed in the form of tribute tattoos. As such, many
Behemoth fans wear tattoos that consist of arcane/occult
symbols that feature on album covers and there are
numerous Nergal portraits based upon the visually striking
(and often religiously controversial) stage and video costumes
that the singer wears. However, as Gill (2017c) observes,
Behemoth has also been featured in mainstream fashion, most
notably when Justin Bieber was photographed wearing one of
the band’s t-shirts, again flagging the potential for mainstream
fashion to incorporate subcultural forms.
In addition to heavy metal, hip-hop is also characterized by
many artists being extensively tattooed, especially contemporary rappers such as Lil Wayne, Tyga, Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla
$ign, Kid Ink, Lil Mosey and Travis Scott, and Travis Scott,
but the level of tattooing evident in the context of 21st century
popular culture is now not typically associated with subcultural musical forms. Because, while tattoos continue to
extensively feature in the genres of heavy metal and hip hop,
they are now also pervasive in mainstream music and adorn
the bodies of mainstream pop performers. Hence, many of the
most commercially successful and most highly mediated
music-based celebrities sport tattoos, from minimal motifs to
extensive bodily coverage. Consequently, celebrities such as
Rihanna, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga,
Justin Bieber, P!nk, Nicki Minaj, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran,
Rita Ora, Chris Brown, Adam Levine, Selena Gomez, Adele,
Blackbear, Lana Del Rey, Ariana Grande, Mabel and Post
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Malone are notable for their pop hits and their latest tattoos.
Citing the examples of Adam Levine (the lead singer with the
US band, Maroon 5), Machine Gun Kelly and Ed Sheeran,
their heavily tattooed bodies reflect the aesthetic of the heavy
metal performer, but in a mainstream musical form. Moreover, they also stress the key identity–expressive dynamic that
drove the Tattoo Renaissance, and reinforces the argument
that it was never one discrete ‘tattoo era’, but has alternatively
proven to be a successive series of events regarding the cultural
visibility and normalization of tattoos. For example, with
regard to Ed Sheeran’s 601 tattoo designs, these include a
large lion design on his chest, a koala tattoo to symbolize a
tour in Australia, a family tree symbol, lyrics from his songs,
Pingu, Disney characters and the word ‘Red’ on his left
shoulder (as a tribute to his friend and musical collaborator,
Taylor Swift). While Sheeran’s tattoos are routinely criticized
on social media platforms for their apparent lack of artistry,
given that many are simple designs, this is intentional and
expressive with regard to what the tattoos mean to him. As
Sheeran states of the lion design:
The one that means the most to me is this lion – and
it’s the one I got the most stick for. The reason I got
the lion was for Wembly. It was the biggest
achievement that I’d done. I get one every time
there’s something that I’m proud of or I want to
remember.
(Anon, 2019: Body Art Guru.com)
This explanation flags the ways in which contemporary
tattooing enables the wearer to articulate an aspect of self and
identity through bodily adornment, whereby tattoos represent
personal accounts of signification and subjectivity (Sullivan,
2001). Furthermore, Ed Sheeran is not alone in representing a
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high-profile celebrity who not only has a number of tattoos,
but whose tattoos are featured regularly in media coverage
and professional work. As such, celebrities ranging from
Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Tom Hardy, Lena Dunham,
Asia Argento and Dwayne Johnson to Lena Headey, Dave
Bautista, Kirsten Stewart, Ruby Rose and Scarlett Johansson
frequently display their extensive tattoo work. Indeed, if these
designs are not always present in professional media work
(and they often are), then they are evident in numerous
paparazzi shots on red carpets, and in self-posted social media
content. With regard to Scarlett Johansson, as a ‘fan of tattoos’ with some nine designs, she also commemorated the
completion of Avengers: Endgame (along with Robert
Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and Jeremy
Renner) with an Avengers symbol tattoo. As artist Josh Lord
states of the designs, ‘There’s a symbol for everybody in the
movie in there…Their initials are also all hidden in there’
(DeSantis, 2019: ES Insider.com).
In the view of Mary Kosut, the pervasiveness of tattooing in
celebrity culture represents both the mainstreaming of tattooing
and its commodification within contemporary culture. It also
represents a further indication of how celebrity bodies come to
represent objects of imitation and wield bodily/image influence.
Hence, in addition to celebrities possessing idealized bodies and
styles, and commercially endorsing products that consumers
associate with them, Kosut applies such imitative behaviour in
relation to celebrity to the embrace of tattooing. The issue of
fashionable role models is central to the classic examination of
the fashion system, as proffered by the sociologist, Georg Simmel, who stressed that in modern urban, but anonymizing and
impersonal, cities, individuals strive to communicate a distinctive sense of uniqueness within such settings. In this regard, a key
means by which to acquire a stylish ‘look’ is to take inspiration
from notable and influential social actors, so, as Simmel states,
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fashion ‘is the imitation of a given example and satisfies the
demand for social adaptation’ (1957: 543). Kosut evokes this
ethos with regard to tattooing, in that fans and admirers of
celebrities have the potential to acquire tattoos simply because a
celebrity has them, as she reasons, if ‘the musicians we idolize
and sometimes seek to emulate (at least in appearance) have
tattoos on their bodies, why not get one ourselves?’ (2006:
1039). In some instances, fans may directly copy a tattoo design
worn by a celebrity, but more commonly acquire a tattooed
portrait of a favoured celebrity, and Internet searches display
examples of such work dedicated to celebrities as disparate as
David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe,
Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Lana Del Rey, Kanye West,
Beyoncé, Amy Winehouse, Kobe Bryant, Taylor Swift, Kim
Kardashian and Joe Exotic. However, fans must take care in
their choice of artist, as Google abounds with pages dedicated to
disastrous celebrity tattoo portraits.
TATTOOS, FASHION AND THE CELEBRITY PUBLIC/
PRIVATE BODY
The association between tattoos and contemporary representations of the ‘celebrity body’ is one that has added to the
repertoire of influences that are extant between celebrities and
the public, but also flag fundamental changes that have occurred
with regard to the public display of tattoos, and who has them.
Hence, the tattooed body arguably plays a major role in, as
Kosut (2014) argues, the mainstreaming of tattoos, or at least a
significant role in eroding residual stereotypes and stigmas.
While tattoos are now evident across a range of media forms, a
significant expression is evident within the fashion industry, and
the promotional images and activities featuring celebrities that
are a central aspect of the industry. As the fashion academic
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Pamela Church Gibson observes, there is a longstanding relationship between famous social actors and fashion design and
communication, especially with regard to celebrities representing fashion and cosmetics exemplars and fashionable bodily
role models. As she states of the relationship between celebrities
and the public interest, it ‘combines a wish to emulate their style
and possess their perfect bodies with the desire to know as much
as possible about their private lives’ (2012: 53). Moreover, such
celebrities have increasingly become part of the fashion system,
through design work (Victoria Beckham and Kanye West, for
example), but more centrally as the images fronting fashion
brand campaigns, especially in the luxury sector. As Church
Gibson further notes, the resurgence of luxury fashion ‘in the
1990s coincided with the burgeoning of the new phase of
celebrity culture. The two speedily joined forces for their mutual
benefit’ (2012: 10). In this context, celebrity images and bodies
have become central to fashion communication and advertising,
as celebrity represents ‘a rich fantasy world to which consumers
aspire’ (Tungate, 2008, p. 122). Furthermore, celebrities are
regarded as key cultural trendsetters and innovators by consumers (Hameide, 2011) because in popular culture, ‘the
celebrity is a voice above others’ (Marshall, 1997, p. 10). Hence,
given the increasingly visible tattoos that many celebrities wear,
it is no surprise that tattooed bodies are now part of fashion
media discourses.
In examining the relationship between tattooing and
fashion, Paul Sweetman, writing in 1999, noted that tattoos in
popular and consumer culture had notably increased,
observing that many ‘celebrities now sport tattoos and piercings, and related imagery is frequently featured in advertising
copy, as well as in the work of designers such as Jean-Paul
Gaultier’ (1999: 52). The presence of tattoos in fashion has
only continued to be more prominent in the 21st century,
from tattooed fashion designers such as Alexander McQueen,
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Rick Owens, Marc Jacobs and Virgil Abloh, to a growing
number of fashion models sporting tattoo designs. With
regard to models, while some wear minimalist designs (Gisele
Bündchen, Kendall Jenner, Kate Moss, Gigi Hadid and Kaia
Gerber), others have prominent and numerous tattoos, such as
Eve Salvail, Catherine McNeil, Josh Mario John, Slick
Woods, Leebo Freeman, Stephen James, Codie Young, Anwar
Hadid, Levi Stocke, Freja Beha Erichsen and Cara Delevingne.
With regard to Cara Delevingne, her numerous tattoos (some
26 designs), which include her mother’s name, Pandora, on her
left bicep, the slogan ‘Made in England’ on the sole of her left
foot, a diamond design in her right ear, the initials ‘CJD’ on her
right hand (representing her full name), XII on her right ribcage
and the image of a lion face on her right hand index finger, are
often featured in her advertising and brand promotion work.
For instance, her lion tattoo is prominent in a TAG Heuer
campaign, and her 2019/20 work with Olivier Rousteing and
Balmain cast her in semi-nude/nude poses with many of her
tattoos designs prominently on display. A similar issue is evident
with regard to actor and film director, Angelina Jolie, who
represents a key example of a globally renowned celebrity figure
who is significantly tattooed. While many of her film roles do
not show her tattoo collection (although some do, such as
2008’s Wanted), they are frequently featured in celebrity magazines, Internet coverage and paparazzi shots at public media
events. In this regard, Jolie’s tattoos are very much a part of her
fashionable bodily image, and her personal identity. In this
fashion, Jolie’s East Asian, Thai and Cambodian Buddhist
symbols and mantras communicate Jolie’s close connections to
these locations as represented through the adoption of her child,
Maddox, and the extensive humanitarian work she has undertaken in those countries as part of the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees initiative. In this sense, her tattoos act as identity
‘anchors’, and she has described them as representing ‘a totem
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pole of my history’ (Mifflin, 2013, p. 132). Given the personal
nature of her designs, they also centrally feature as a key part of
her body image in her endorsement work with the French
perfume, cosmetics and skincare house, Guerlain, which
showcase her shoulder and back tattoo designs in their marketing campaigns and imagery.
With regard to the nature of culture in an ever-changing,
‘liquid’ world, Bauman looks at how fashion is a production
system that exists in a permanent state of flux, and which is
never (nor can it be) ever fixed. As such, argues Bauman:
It cannot stand still; it requires continuous
renegotiation. Driven by the impulse to be different
and to escape the crowds and the rat race, the mass
pursuit of the latest fashion (of the very moment),
quickly causes the current marks of distinction to
become common, vulgar and trivial, and even the
shortest lapse of attention, or even a momentary
slowing down of the speed of prestidigitation may
produce effects opposite to those intended: the loss of
individuality.
(2011: 22)
However, while the fashions and accessories that celebrities
advertise will change due to the dictates of fashion that Bauman identifies, the ‘marks of distinction’ represented by their
tattoos will not (or certainly not at the speed of fashion as
tattoo removal is not instantaneous). The tattooed fashionable
body, therefore, decisively goes against the prevailing spirit of
the fashion system. Referring again to Sweetman’s research,
many of the tattooed social actors he interviewed described
their tattoos as decorative objects, as fashion accessories.
However, while representing corporeal fashion statements,
many tattooed individuals also saw their designs as being
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‘expressive of personal interests or their own biographies’ and
as ‘an act of “self-creation”, that…helps to construct a viable
sense of self-identity’ (1999: 67–68). With regard to tattooed
celebrities popular cultural representations, and especially
fashion discourses, their tattoos communicate, within the
context of differing texts and product messages, what Sweetman dubs ‘a coherent and consistent self-narrative’ (1999: 69).
A prominent example of this process is evident with regard
to the model and actor, Ruby Rose. Beginning her media career
as a VJ for MTV, she became a notable fashion figure through
her appearances in high-profile fashion magazines such as
Vogue, InStyle and Cosmopolitan. A key part of her style was,
and is, her heavily tattooed body, which has featured in
advertising campaigns for brands such as Maybelline and
Ralph Lauren, and she became the brand ambassador for the
Urban Decay cosmetics brand in 2016. Consequently, the issue
of self-narrative and image consistency has become a key part
of Rose’s image as an actor in film and television, in that her
tattoo designs are habitually part of her onscreen characters
and image. This was notable in her role as prison inmate, Stella
Carlin, in the successful and influential prison-set comedydrama, Orange Is The New Black (2013–2019), in which her
own collection of body art is revealed. Hence, her bodily
aesthetic incorporates her iconic fashion look in terms of her
tattoos. Similarly, Rose’s own distinctive tattoos have featured
in a range of film roles, such as xXx: The Return of Xander
Cage (2017), John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), Pitch Perfect 3
(2017) and The Meg (2018). Moreover, in the television series,
Batwoman (2019), in playing Kate Kane, the Batwomen, she
portrays a tattooed young woman who takes on the mantle of
the protector of Gotham City, in which she mixes many of her
own tattoos with additional makeup-created designs unique to
the character. Given that her image is present in fashion, film
and television, Rose represents not only a prominent tattooed
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media figure, but one whose tattoos form an intrinsic part
of many of her media roles, contributing to the increasing
visibility of heavily female tattooed bodies in contemporary
popular culture.
The issue of tattoos and self-narrative within media representations is also evident in relation to the fashion and
performative work of tattooed celebrities such as Justin
Bieber, Johnny Depp, Harry Styles and Halsey. With regard to
Bieber, a key aspect of his transformation from a 13-year-old
pop singer has been his progressively extensive tattoo collection, numbering over 60 designs across his body, with full
sleeves and extensive chest work. Many of Beiber’s designs
have religious motifs that reference his avowed Christian faith,
but others represent tributes to previous partners, most
notably a wrist design dedicated to Selena Gomez. Bieber’s
tattoo work is consistently visible in many of his music videos
and live performances, but is also present in a number of
globally prominent Calvin Klein clothing and underwear
campaigns, in which his tattoos are frequently a dynamic
visual motif in brand imagery. Similarly, the actor Johnny
Depp’s promotional work for the Dior fragrance, Sauvage,
clearly features Depp’s tattoos on his forearms and hands
throughout the various media platforms of the campaign,
while former One Direction singer Harry Styles’ tattoos are
frequently on display in his work for Gucci apparel and
fragrances.
This ethos is also central to the imagery created to represent the musician Halsey, in her work with the DKNY fashion
brand. With some 351 tattoos across her body (ranging from
a butterfly, lyrics from her songs, barbed wire, an anchor,
daggers, and roses, to musical notes, the emblem of the
Mandalorians from the Star Wars universe, and a minimalist
portrait of Marilyn Manson), many of these designs are
evident in the branding imagery for DKNY clothing and
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accessories. Furthermore, Halsey’s tattoos are also on extensive display at Fashion Week events for the brand. Writing in
relation to the myriad tattoos worn by Marc Jacobs, Amy
Larocca states of the prominence of tattoos in both fashion
and celebrity culture, that:
Perhaps ‘the culture’s shift toward tattoos is of a piece
with our need to constantly reveal ourselves, to live in a
continual flow of art-directed personal
information...With tattoos we speak to one another
with messages that are supposedly for ourselves…but
also announce to the world what we’re telling
ourselves...This sort of half-reveal works especially well
for celebrities. Their tattoos get them even more public
attention, while hinting at an unspoken inner life.
(2013 The Cut.com)
The primacy of tattoos being visible across differing media
or manifest in particular forms of media communication
(Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp revealing their usually private tattoos in fashion brand images, for example) raises a
significant issue as to how the identities of celebrities have
historically been articulated with regard to public knowledge.
As Chris Rojek argues, celebrities are effectively cultural
fabrications, whose sense of self may appear to be intimate
(thanks to the parasocial relationship media can inspire for the
spectator), but the celebrity is a carefully mediated figure who
is presented to the public via the work of a range of cultural
intermediaries. Such agents (publicists, marketers, cosmetic
experts, promoters) create a public persona for a celebrity that
is easily communicable and appealing to an audience.
Furthermore, celebrity status has traditionally rested upon a
decisive divergence between a private and a public self. As
Rojek explains:
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The social psychologist George Herbert Mead argued
that the split between the I (the ‘veridical’ self) and
the Me (the self as seen by others) is the human
condition at least since ancient times, in Western
society. The public presentation of self is always a
staged activity, in which the human actor presents a
‘front’ or ‘face’ to others while keeping a significant
portion of the self in reserve.
(2001, p. 11)
However, the visibility of tattoos across a number of media
platforms, especially with regard to the intimate and identitybased nature of many designs, serves to communicate biographical components of the private celebrity self. In this
regard, there are numerous websites exploring celebrity
tattoos that show images of many designs, discussing or
revealing their meanings. Furthermore, celebrities often
discuss the meanings of their tattoos themselves in interviews
and display them on their Instagram sites. Such actions can
serve to blur the public and the private aspects of celebrity
personalities and form points of recognition and identity
communication.
BREAKING BOUNDARIES, CHANGING STIGMA: THE
CELEBRITY TATTOO EFFECT
While stressing the seemingly ubiquitous cultural presence of
tattooing, and its apparent routine visibility in celebrity-related
media discourses, the issue of changing gender perceptions
regarding tattooing is a significant one, in which celebrity has
played a role. As Dominique Holmes argues, the increase in
women acquiring tattoos is an important 21st century
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development, and that the ‘archaic opinion of the tattooed
woman as a freak or a misfit is on its way out’ (2013, p. 7). With
reference to female celebrities such as Amy Winehouse, Rihanna
and Scarlett Johansson, Holmes states that ‘the tattooed female
surrounds us, making it a completely natural phenomenon in
today’s society’ (2013, p. 12). Yet, this was not always the case.
In the view of Yuen Thompson (2015) and Dann and Callaghan
(2019), female tattooing has suffered the stigma of being
culturally regarded as an unfeminine ‘deviant’ bodily practice,
with visible tattoos on women yielding social censure in relation
to perceptions of ‘self-mutilation’ or as rendering the female
body as ‘ugly’ (especially with regard to heavily tattooed
women). In this regard, in addition to women acquiring extensive tattoo collections that renegotiate traditional gender bodily
norms, the visibility of celebrities with tattoos can reinforce these
bodily transformations and counter any residual cultural norms.
For example, Yuen Thompson refers to the example of the singer
Janis Joplin getting a Florentine wrist bracelet tattoo from the
artist Lyle Tuttle in 1970 as representing a significant act, and so
representing a self-assured example of a female tattooed body in
popular culture. Significantly, Joplin’s tattoo inspired many
female fans to adopt similar tattoo designs. Hence, with direct
regard to gender and tattooing, Mifflin (2013) cites the important and positive influence of tattooed female celebrities such as
Kat von D and Angelina Jolie as influential cultural tattoo role
models. The visibility of celebrity women with tattoos has
therefore challenged gender demographics to influence positive
change with regard to social and cultural perceptions of tattooing in relation to female bodies. Moreover, with the prominence
of visibly tattooed celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Cara
Delevingne, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, Megan Massacre, Rita
Ora, Selena Gomez, Arianna Grande, Ruby Rose and Halsey,
the tattooed female body is culturally visible and a significant
presence in popular culture.
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As discussed in Chapter 3 with regard to the K-Pop star Jay
Park in South Korea, the tattoos worn by celebrities do not
merely represent a component of the fashionable celebrity
body, but can act to transform cultural norms and reactions to
tattoos, and bodily placement. Hence, while Jay Park has
faced criticism for his extensive tattoo collection (from family,
and even some of his fan base, due to the Korean association
of tattoos with gang and crime cultures), and been subject to
censorship, his popularity as a prominent K-Pop star, and his
media visibility, has contributed to changing attitudes towards
tattooing in contemporary South Korea (Yeo, 2016, Be.com).
Furthermore, the mutability of societal reactions to tattoos
with regard to celebrity cultural representations is also evident
in relation to bodily placements for designs long regarded as
culturally taboo and sources of stigma. As Adams argues, even
though tattooing towards the end of the first decade of the
21st century has manifestly experienced profound changes
with regard to the social acceptability of the practice, tattoos
on the face, neck, hands and fingers were still regarded as
constituting ‘“extra-stigmatizing” areas’ that retained alignments with deviance, criminality and prison cultures (2009, p.
284). In criminological research, such as Friederike Funk and
Alexander Todorov’s examination of criminal stereotypes in
courtroom settings, attitudes towards such tattooing are
indeed often negative, with reports that people ‘with a facial
tattoo are perceived as deviant from the norm’ (2013, p. 475).
Traditionally in the tattoo industry, tattoos in these placements were, as Steven Kurutz (2018) notes, called ‘Job stoppers’ because they would seriously limit employability options
for the wearers of such tattoos. Yet, the view that facial tattoos have long been ‘seen as nonmainstream, nonnormative,
deviant; as extreme forms of body modification’ (Ferreirra,
2016, p. 167) is nevertheless changing, with celebrity culture
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playing a role in this altering of social and cultural
perceptions.
In examining the ways in which facial tattoos appear to be
becoming part of the mainstream with regard to tattooing,
Kurutz states:
For decades, tattoos in highly visible areas, especially
the face, were considered the extreme in body art, at
least in Western culture. It wasn’t only members of
polite society who were put off. Even among tattoo
aficionados, the face was sacrosanct, a canvas of last
resort when the rest of the body was covered.
(2018, NY Times.com)
Anna Felicity Friedman, who runs the website Tattoo
Historian, argues that the acceptance of such visible tattoos is
a further beneficiary of increased media representations of
tattoos, most notably from celebrities and sports stars, to
tattoo magazines and tattoo-themed reality TV. Moreover,
Freidman sees the motivation to wear facial tattoos as, at one
level, a significant bodily style to gain notoriety on social
media and also, significantly, as a fusion of rebellion and
symbolic self-expression. Hence, in reference to musicians
engaging in facial tattooing, Friedman posits the view that
part of the motivation (echoing the subcultural aspects of
tattooing) for such placements ‘is to give them a rebel/criminal
allure. And some of it is a more artistic or free-spirit reference’
(in Kurutz, 2018: NY Times.com).
While some celebrity facial tattoo designs are minimalist,
such as Halsey’s Queen of Hearts motif by her left ear, Kehlani’s paper plane design on her cheek, and Justin Bieber
bearing the word ‘Grace’ above his right eyebrow, there are
other celebrity figures who sport much more extensive facial
tattooing. These include Mike Tyson, Lil Pump, Lil Xan, Rick
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Ross, Kat Von D, Lil Wayne, Tekashi 6ix9ine, Ice Cold Gucci
Mane (who did remove his famous ice cream cone tattoo, but
still has a number of other facial tattoos), Amber Rose, Aaron
Carter and the American singer, Post Malone. With an
extensive range of tattoos across his body, hands and neck,
Malone’s most famous tattoos are the various designs on his
face, which include the prominently sized words ‘Stay Away’
and ‘Still Tired’ above and below his eyes. However, in
addition to a barbed wire design across his hairline, he has a
sword, a hammer, a medieval-style gauntlet and flail, a bloody
buzzsaw, and a hammer on his cheeks and side of his face, to
the point that much of his face is now tattooed.
While such designs are clearly leading a change in perception
to previously stigmatizing tattoo placements, the contemporary
fashionable status of such tattoos, as promulgated by celebrities,
including mainstream figures such as Halsey, Justin Bieber and
most prominently, Post Malone, has resulted in a negative, or at
least a cautious, response with regard to a new tattoo trend. For
example, The British Tattoo Artist Federation (BTAF) stresses
that face tattoos can still prevent young people from securing a
job, but as Lee Clements of the BTAF reports, there has been a
‘huge increase’ in the trend of young people requesting facial
tattoos in the wake of their popularity in celebrity culture.
Consequently, with especial regard to neck, hand and facial
tattooing, the BTAF is requesting that the legal age to get a
tattoo be raised from the current 18 years-of-age to 21 to resist
the fashion-based motivation for such designs, and mitigate
against the later life effects that such visible tattoos can result in
(Williams, 2019).
While driving trends, extolling fashionable bodies, or
changing gendered bodily norms, celebrity culture also illustrates the problematic nature of tattooing with regard to
changing life experiences. Given that the key foundation of post1970s tattooing stresses the figurative nature of the practice,
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predicated upon memorialization, memories and symbolic
communication and commemoration (Sanders & Vail, 2008),
celebrity culture can also serve as a public forum highlighting
the ill-considered nature of certain tattoo designs, and the causal
attitude that tattoo decisions can be underpinned by. Rather, as
Sweetman dubs them, tattoos act as anchors of self and identity,
many celebrities have famously obtained tattoos as tributes to
significant others, only to (in the full public gaze) engage in
removal or cover-up procedures. Significant examples include
Angelina Jolie removing ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton’s
name, Khloé Kardashian taking off through laser treatment her
ex-husband Lamar Odom’s initials from her hand, Nick Cannon covering up his large Mariah Carey portrait on his back
with an alternative design and Johnny Depp altering the names
of ex-wives Winona Ryder and Amber Heard.
Perhaps highlighting the Millennial trend towards biographical tattooing, with regard to Arianna Grande and
Saturday Night Live comedian Pete Davidson, a key aspect of
their relationship was their getting tattoo tributes to each other,
only to then be covered-up at the end of their relatively shortlived romance. Hence, Grande’s ‘8418’ tattoo on her foot
(signifying Davidson’s firefighter father, who died in the 9/11
terrorist attacks) was changed to a homage to the dog she and
rapper Mac Miller shared, Myron. Furthermore, Grande
replaced the name ‘Pete’ on her ring finger with a black heart
motif (Fasanella, 2018). However, Grande’s penchant for tattooing has also included her conceptual, and very public, design
mistakes. Posting on Instagram Stories her tattoo on her palm
spelling out the song title ‘7 Rings’ in Japanese, fans pointed out
that in translation it actually referred to a Japanese style
barbecue grill. Yet, even though the tattoo was subsequently
redesigned, commentators still stated that it still did not
unambiguously read as ‘7 Rings’, but could be read as ‘Ring
seven finger’ or even ‘Seven finger ring’ (Moniuszko, 2019).
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FROM SUBCULTURE TO THE MAINSTREAM:
CELEBRITY AND THE TATTOO
The decades central to the mainstreaming of tattooing mirror
the intensification of celebrity culture, and given the primacy
of celebrities as key figures of social, cultural and fashion
influence, it is no great surprise that celebrities represent a
significant expression of tattooing in twenty-first century
popular culture. In this sense, celebrities reflect the effects of
the progressive waves of the Tattoo Renaissance and the
mainstreaming of tattooing, but also play a role in driving and
developing the normalization of tattooing. As such, tattooed
celebrity bodies are significant factors in media discourses (to
the extent that websites even, via Photoshop, ‘tattoo’ classic
celebrity icons such as Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy Onassis). However, as
Rojek states, celebrities can ‘change things and fill us with
powerful inclinations and cravings’ (2001, p. 91). Nevertheless, as the British Tattoo Artist Federation’s concerns
regarding celebrity-inspired facial tattoo trends indicates, this
can be problematic for those who do not live in the celebrity
world. Indeed, with regard to the photographer Mark
Leaver’s project on profiling people with facial tattoos, it is
only in 2016 that he stressed that ‘despite tattoos becoming
more mainstream and socially acceptable, facial tattoos
remain a niche subculture within the world of body art’
(Gordon, 2016: Daily Mail Online).
To explain this apparent influence, celebrities are argued to
exist within a world of ‘material and romantic achievement’
(Rojek,2001,p.149) andpossesslivesthathave‘beenglamorized
and romanticized’ in media and cultural discourses (Stivers,
2001, p. 122). Consequently, the transgressive nature of visible
tattoos fitstheworldoftheheavymetal,raporeven popmusician,
but for those in the public domain, extensive hand, neck and face
Tattoos and Popular Personalities: Inked Celebrities
157
tattoos may well prove to be ‘job stoppers’ and have serious lifechance impediments. Furthermore, celebrities have access to
cosmetics experts who can conceal their designs and enable them
to work on a range of professional stages, and the financial costs
of laser-removal technologies and techniques are arguably less
onerous for celebrities. Indeed, given that a key aspect of Ruby
Rose’s public persona is based upon her extensive tattoo collection, as she has found increasing success as an actor, she has
undergone laser-removal procedures. For example, she has
removednot onlyherknuckledesigns(whichread ‘JustLove’) but
also two of her most famous tattoos, the Sia lyric on her neck and
the tribute to Maybelline on her collarbone, both of which have
been absent in red carpet photographs (Karasin, 2019). Therefore, while the world of music may be an accepting environment
for extensive tattooing, including the long-held ‘taboo’ bodily
regions of hands, face and neck, adopting such celebrity trends
may prove to be a challenge for fans, or those who take fashion
direction from the world of celebrity.
This is because, as Kosut argues, tattoos are an ironic trend
because they are permanently embodied, hence, as one of her
tattooed interviewees noted, in the context of fashion, tattoos
represent a ‘fad you can’t toss away’ (2006, p. 1040). Yet,
Kosut also recognises the crucial role that celebrities have
played in the 21st mainstreaming, and commodifying, of the
practice because ‘actors and actresses seem to be just as
enchanted with tattoo as the masses’ (2006, p. 1037). In this
sense, Kosut likens the popularity of tattooing to the way in
which the original 1970s Punk subculture was semiotically coopted by the culture and fashion industries, whereby tattooing
has become ‘gentrified’ and communicated as being a ‘cool’
aspect of bodily adornment. Indeed, tattoos are not only
communicated via media, but are also frequently marketed to
consumers as part of advertising campaigns, a factor that
further erodes their historic status as symbols of rebellion or
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Tattoos and Popular Culture
cultural transgression. Given that Kosut observed this in the
early 2000s, the commercial presence of tattooing has only
accelerated as the 21st century progresses, as evidenced by the
visible presence of images of Kat Von D, Ruby Rose, Angelina
Jolie, Cara Delevingne or Halsey in fashion and cosmetics
campaigns. Furthermore, Post Malone’s high-profile media
campaign for Bud Light Seltzer, which debuted at the 2020
Super Bowl, foregrounds his tattoo collection, as the premise
of the advertising feature depicts a number of people inside his
body powering his various limbs and organs, and all sporting
his exact same distinctive tattoos. So, there is no indication
that the celebrity embrace of tattooing is abating, and that nor
is any body part off limits. Accordingly, the bodily adornment
that was once the predominant persevere of the subcultural
underground is now at the forefront of celebrity, popular and
tattoo culture.
CONCLUSION
In Bodies of Inscription, published at the very beginning of the
twenty-first century, Margo DeMello poses the following
speculative questions concerning the trajectory of tattooing
and tattoo culture:
What direction will tattooing take in the future? Will
tattooing continue its inroads into the middle-class
community? And will the youngest generations lead the
way?…Another fear is that tattoos become mainstream?
(2000, pp. 190 and 192)
In the subsequent decades, the Tattoo Renaissance, initiated
in the 1960s, continues to develop, and the Millennial and
Generation Z generations are driving the progression and cultural proliferation of tattooing. Many researchers confirm that
tattooing has become a part of mainstream culture and has
moved away from earlier, more negative connotations. As such,
the idea of tattoos as personalized symbols is a potent aspect of
contemporary tattoo culture, in that for ‘many people tattoos
are primarily permanent signifiers of specific life events or
reminders of a specific period in life’ (Bengtsson, Ostberg, &
Kjeldgaard, 2005, p. 264). However, the idea of some form of
decisive break with the associations of tattooing with subcultural expressions is arguably overstated, as Sarah Frankel,
Michelle Childs and Youn-Kyung Kim state, while ‘the tattooed
159
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subculture has become considerably less stigmatized, the lifestyle of tattooed individuals can be conceived as not in line with
mainstream culture’ (Frankel, Childs, & Kim, 2019, p. 285).
Nevertheless, the presence of tattooing in popular culture has
served to present tattooing in a variety of ways, but all connected with the role of rendering tattoos, and tattooed social
actors, more and more visible, and in some instances playing a
decisive role in the normalisation of tattooing.
It is important to take note that the relationship between
tattoos and popular culture is not entirely a contemporary one.
With regard to the hugely popular nineteenth century French
novels of Eugène Sue, The Mysteries of Paris and The
Wandering Jew, both published in serialized form, tattoos are
significant in the epic-length narratives. In The Mysteries of
Paris, serialized between 1842 and 1843 (Sue, 1824–1843/
2013), the tragic character Songbird is incarcerated in the SaintLazare prison, where she encounters the formidable She-Wolf,
the toughest inmate. In addition to her agile, muscular physique,
the most striking aspect of her body is the tattoo on her forearm
of a blue dagger plunged halfway into a red heart, with the
words ‘Death to cowards!’ written underneath the design. The
effect of the tattoo on Songbird is emotive and intimidating, as
she exclaims, ‘It’s sinister, and it frightens me’ (2015, p. 639).
While in The Wandering Jew, published in 1844 (Sue, 1844/
2016), the hero, Prince Djalma, is secretly tattooed with the
symbol of the Strangler cult on the inside of his arm while he
sleeps. The operation is a delicate one, and the symbol barely
visible, but on recognition by authorities, the tattoo leads to his
imprisonment as he is falsely accused of belonging to the
murderous and clandestine order due to his wearing their mark.
Hence, within the pages of Sue’s work, the tattoo is closely
associated with the rebellious and the other.
While there have been potent examples of cultural and media
representations before the twenty-first century, from literature
Conclusion
161
and films such as The Night of the Hunter, In Cold Blood,
Papillon, or Tattoo, such representations have intensified markedly from the early 2000s. Consequently, tattoos, in their presence
in advertising, fashion brand imagery and fashion shows, to film,
television, social media platforms and celebrity culture, have a
potent level of visibility in popular culture and differing media.
Moreover, such representations display numerous elements of the
development of tattooing. On the one hand, there are fictional
narratives that still associate tattooing with otherness, rebellion
and alternative subcultural lifestyles. On the other hand, factual
media, such as reality TV shows, have offered unprecedented
access to the world of tattooing, revealing the workings of tattoo
studios and the professional (and personal) lives of artists.
Moreover, reality TV shows the multidimensional motivations
that people have to be tattooed, from the desire to use tattoos as a
means by which to symbolically communicate a sense of ‘me-ness’
to themselves and/or wider society, to alternative representations
in which tattoos do not need to have any semiotic value at all.
Indeed, as TV shows like Tattoo Fixers and Just Tattoo of Us
illustrate, many individuals get tattoos with little to no forethought
of either the design or the consequences (especially if the tattoo is
offensive). Yet, such tattoos form the basis of popular television
shows that present bad tattoos as a source of entertainment and
(often shocking) spectacle.
Alternatively, social media sites dedicated to tattooing have
digitally revitalized print media tattoo magazines and similarly
re-energized the debate concerning the existence of a ‘tattoo
community’. While the argument that tattooed individuals form
a loosely related figuration (argued by Atkinson) is a potent one,
the ways in which social media platforms serve as digital
communal spaces is equally valid. This is because such sites
connect artists with clients, irrespective of physical distance, but
they are also spaces in which tattoo enthusiasts can ‘meet’,
upload images of their tattoos, comment on professional work
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and debate tattooing trends. Moreover, image-dominated platforms like Instagram represent significant media in terms of
rendering tattooing culturally visible. Furthermore, social media
sites act as key platforms in which tattooed celebrity bodies are
represented, amplifying the visibility of tattooed celebrities,
which both influences the acceptance of tattooing and displays
the wide spectrum of famous tattooed bodies, from heavy metal
and hip hop stars to Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber or Selena
Gomez. Yet, celebrity culture does also represent a potent
expression of key social and gender boundaries that began to
change in the early years of the Tattoo Renaissance, as exemplified by the mainstream media success and cultural visibility of
performers such as Ruby Rose and Halsey.
However, if twenty-first century versions of classic
subcultures are not based on explicit alliances to fashion styles
and musical genres, but are instead founded upon media fandoms, then popular culture itself serves as the inspiration for
numerous tattoos in the Millennial and Generation Z
demographics. Fandoms are the aspects of self that serve as
biographical signs on the skin, in the form of music personalities,
celebrities, or television and film characters drawn from the most
popular media forms. In this fashion, the connection between
popular culture and tattooing is a close one. Still, while tattoos
have become more mainstreamed, they are still a distinctive
bodily practice, and, as Buss and Hodges state, it is important to
recognise that tattooing ‘continues to be associated with
unconventionality and a youth culture interested in challenging
existing standards of personal appearance’ (2017, p. 5). Perhaps
this is clearest with regard to the increasing cultural visibility of
facial tattoos, in which celebrity figures such as Post Malone are
extending the limits of tattoos beyond what was previously
considered to be socially taboo. This results in the transforming
of tattoos into a component of celebrity image, and a highly
visible component of popular media discourses, adding to the
significant status tattooing has in popular culture.
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