Tattoos can have many different meanings to the wearer. Sometimes those meanings can even change over time. For example a tattoo that was done with a friend present may one day become a memorial tattoo if the friend passes away. Tattoos can mark significant events in a person’s life, the birth of a child, or journey taken. They can be about something the wearer is passionate about, or has played a major role in that person’s life.
Whatever the reason a person has for getting a tattoo, most of the time there is a story to be told. A while back I talked about modified members of the armed services. Today I found a story about one serviceman that I thought would be nice to share.
Sergeant Matthew Jackson, a bomb disposal expert from the 1st EOD Company, likes to quote Charles Manson in relation to his job – “total paranoia is total awareness.” It helps to keep his mind focused when he and his explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) team are working on one of the countless IEDs they have come across during their deployment in southern Afghanistan.
Jackson, on first meeting, looks just a tad eccentric. An English major at college, he is a big Hemingway fan. He wears thick black-rimmed glasses, and along the length of his left arm are a series of tattoos of the molecular structures of different types of explosives. Some call it his crib sheet, but he regards it as a portrait gallery of close friends, whom he refers to fondly as he lists their explosive properties and relative levels of oxygen content. In the center of his forearm is TNT – “the base of all explosives,” by his wrist are blasting cap explosives, nitroglycerin is further up his arm, but his personal favorite, he says with the enthusiasm of a professional collector, is RDX – the main component of C4 – “it’s just neat, it’s sensitive, it’s powerful…”
While Sergeant Jackson goes on to describe how the life of an EOD tech isn’t anything like it is in the film “The Hurt Locker”, he still is responsible daily for the lives of his company, and everyone else serving in Afghanistan. So while the sergeant’s tattoos are jokingly called a “crib sheet”, those chemical compounds are responsible every day for injuries and possibly death for any number of troops or civilians.
Sergeant Jackson’s arms tell a story. The story of a man who puts his life on the line every day to make sure people get home safely. I know that there are ModBlog readers who have served, and I can think of a specific IAM member that ended up coming home after being wounded by an IED. The stories that Matthew has are his own to share. So while we can see part of the story on the surface, it is what is underneath that carries the full tale.
This story is just like everyone else’s. Not everyone with a tattoo has a story that is tied to life or death, but we all have a story to tell. The ink is just the surface, the outer shell of the person inside. The tattoos are the story from inside being reflected on the outside. They are as much a part of ourselves as the stories that make up our life are.
Sometimes the daily grind can be overwhelming. Work, family, friends, bills, kids, and more can all be a joy at times and a curse at others. While we’re all flying through space on this spinning top we call home, sometimes it can feel great just to stop everything and be still.
To everyone the act of being still can mean many things. To some it is a form of release, allowing the stresses of the world flow out of their bodies. For others stillness can evoke feelings of anxiety, the calm before the storm as it were, the moment where everything just seems too good to be true. Even in nature stillness can have many meanings. Those early moments at dawn when a lake is perfectly still, just existing waiting for the world to begin again and reflect itself in its surface, the stillness of the night before still echoing across the glassy surface in the form of the mists. Then there are the predator and prey. The predator stalks its prey until it finds the perfect position to mount its attack, holding everything in and becoming a rock, immovable yet capable of motion. The waiting, the thinking, becoming so still with focus that the rest of the world falls away. While the predator waits, the prey becomes still as well, not with calm or focus, but with fear. Knowing there is danger around and that the slightest movement will set in motion a cascade of events that could be the end of its existence.
The stillness of the world cannot exist without the movement. The time after the world has stopped. The first fish leaping from the water to eat an insect, causing the first waves to break the surface, waves that will continue to move until the next morning when the cycle begins again. The moment where the stillness has fulfilled its purpose and the time to act is present, releasing all the energy locked within in one swift and sudden movement. When the fear changes from the overwhelming power to be still, to the realization that by remaining still will be the end, and movement is what is necessary to survive.
Looking at this photo of IAM: Radical Kiba, you can see the stillness in her. Lost within herself she is looking out on the world. There’s no way to know how she is feeling, but you can feel the stillness.
What is stillness to you? Is it the calm of the water at dawn, the anticipation of the predator waiting to strike, or is it the fear of the prey? Or is it something else, something that only you can feel?
I’ve intentionally been avoiding writing a story about the Millennium Trilogy for a while now. While I haven’t read the books, I have seen the films which are believably good, but despite the title, the tattoo in question doesn’t really play a major role in the films. Sure the character of Lisbeth sports a massive back piece, but seeing as how you only see it a couple of times and the actress, Noomi Rapace, didn’t actually get it tattooed on herself I just assumed that the entire thing was a non-story.
Today I was pleasantly proven wrong.
Before we begin, here’s the trailer for the first film: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
I use Google news alerts to flag stories that have specific key words in them. Tattoo of course being one of them. So you can imagine that with these films gaining international acclaim, the books being bestsellers, and casting rumors flying around for the American adaptations, my inbox has been filled for the past few months of stories about the trilogy. For the most part I just dismiss them, but since they finally got around to casting the role of Lisbeth in the American films, the e-mails have died down.
Yet here I am today, talking about the thing I promised not to discuss on ModBlog. The reason I’m bringing it up now? Well, I’ll let this article from The Mirror fill you in.
Winning a career-making role in the Dragon Tattoo films brought a strange mixture of pleasure and pain to rising star Noomi Rapace. The 30-year-old actress knew she had to nail the part of androgynous anti-hero Lisbeth Salander – or risk offending the many fans of the creator, best-selling author Stieg Larsson. So to really convince as the punky, chain-smoking, kick-ass computer hacker, Noomi embarked on a remarkable transformation. She went on a strict diet, trained in kickboxing and Thai boxing and even took her motorcycle licence. A non-smoker, she began puffing her way through “thousands of cigarettes” both on-set and off it. And she wouldn’t even consider faking all those piercings in Salander’s ears and nose because, as Noomi puts it, “I wanted to feel those piercings in myself.”
You’ll often hear of actors undergoing massive physical changes for a role. De Niro gained a significant amount of weight for his role in Raging Bull, while Christian Bale lost a frightening amount of weight in a short period of time for his role in The Machinist, only to gain it all back plus more in a couple months to be ready for his role in Batman Begins. Actors are required to change themselves to some degree for a role, sometimes it’s simply a costume, and others require a lot more commitment. So for Noomi Rapace, in order to fully transform into the character of Lisbeth she drastically changed not only her physical appearance, but also her behaviour months before filming.
While the diet and smoking is one aspect of the transformation, this being ModBlog I wanted to focus on her mods. You get a brief glimpse of them in the trailer but having seen the films it is obvious that she didn’t just opt for one or two piercings to personify the character. I counted about 10-12 seperate piercings spread out over her lobes, cartilage, nostrils and septum. While by ModBlog standards this isn’t anything too significant, to see an actress portray a character so well, and commit to that many mods is something significant. While the character of Lisbeth is certainly troubled, and goes through several drastic events over the course of the series, what we’re seeing is essentially a mainstream film that doesn’t treat modifications as some form of joke or used as shock value.
I’m sure we’ve all seen films where a “punk” character appears on screen wielding a vast array of facial piercings simply to appear intimidating to the viewer, yet in these films the piercings appear to be just a natural extension of the character. In fact, in the scenes where she isn’t wearing her piercings you get a sense of discomfort looking at her, as if something is missing. Which of course there is. I think an accurate analogy to this would be the NYC skyline post 9-11. The image of the skyline had been etched into the minds of millions of people, and now, looking at it, there is something missing. I’m not making any political statements or anything like that, but the idea that something is removed from an image that everyone was used to seeing makes one feel that sense of “not right”. Of course the NYC skyline itself evokes a lot of feelings, but I think you get where I was going with this. I really think that with Noomi Racpace’s commitment to the role, combined with a skilled filmmaker, that this may be the first portrayal of a modified person that actually captures the essence of the modified culture. Where the focus is on the character, and not the mods, yet when the mods are removed you can tell something has changed not only on her physical exterior, but something inside her as well.
If you were to take a look in a mirror one day and all of your mods were gone, how would you feel? What about those close to you, how do you think they would react if a modification you’ve had for years was suddenly gone without a trace? Because we don’t treat our modifications as something other than what they are, an extension of our ideal selves, we can sense the incompleteness that occurs with a mod is removed. Yes I realize people retire mods all the time, but even then, those first few days really can reveal how much our mods are a part of us.
Looking back at these films with the knowledge of the actor’s commitment to the part, it really shines a light on how a person who is modified isn’t defined by their mods, but by who they are as a person. While this isn’t anything new to us, there still is a large portion of the population that doesn’t realize it. Given that the titular dragon tattoo is the one modification in the film that isn’t a real mod, I thought I should close this post out with a real dragon tattoo from the BMEzine.com tattoo galleries.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has seen the films. Can anyone else who has seen them weigh in? Did Noomi Rapace actually getting the piercings done change your view of the films and her portrayal, or does her performance stand out on its own without the piercings being a factor?
Well it turns out that when Jennifer Love Hewitt appeared on a talk show ranting about her vajazzle, it was only a matter of time before someone thought to get creative with paint instead of jewels.
A while back I brought you some interesting news on the fine art of Vajazzling, which as we all know now, is the act of adorning one’s vagina with little Swarovski crystals. Enhancing the mons pubis has since been an explosive trend in 2010, and I’m happy to bring you the latest installment: vatooing (also spelled “vattooing!”). Vatooing, is also known as “twatooing,” “vatuing,” or simply “vagina tattooing.” Except these tats (vats?) aren’t painful because they’re applied painstakingly with an airbrush
So while this isn’t a permanent (or even semi-permanent) mod, it is always interesting to see what people will do to modify themselves when they know it has 0 chance of being permanent. The Completely Bare chain of spas in NYC are the ones trying to make this fad as popular as the gluing of crystals to your nether regions. Although after watching the video, I’m not completely sold on the “painstakingly applied” technique. As far as I can see they’re limited to using a pre-made stencil with an airbrush.
I know I’ve posted about body painting in the past, and in a lot of cases an argument can be made that it is a form of art. Can the same be said for this procedure? Or do you think that this is just a quick way to cash in on the fad of women who want to live on the wild side, but not have any real permanence to it? This also begs the question, is this trend limited to women? Essentially they’re only adding gems and paint to the area around the vagina, couldn’t men get something done down there as well? There’s already a debate going on as to whether this should be called “Vattooing” or “Twatooing”, if we add men to the mix, should it be called something else? Possibly “Dattooing”, no, that name is taken by the guys trying to create digital tattoos. What about “Cockattooing”, I think it has a nice ring to it.
Now if this temporary tattoo/gemming business really isn’t your cup of tea, there’s always our genital tattoo galleries where you can go to see the real thing.
This ad, designed by Zeitsprung Commercial in Germany got sent to me last night by ModBlog reader Broodje. For those that can’t watch the video at work, allow me to sum it up for you. A man dressed in a bear costume is walking around the streets to cheerful music giving out hugs to people as he strolls along. Then, the lighting darkens as the man in the costume pulls off the bear’s head to reveal his heavily modified face. The tagline of the ad appears as he roars at the camera and stalks away: ”You can’t see H.I.V. But you can prevent it”.
I’m not sure how you may react to this, but I’m on the same page as Broodje, in that we’re both more than a little upset by the implications that this PSA gives off. While the message itself is a good one, the end result may be giving a lot of people a bad impression of the modded community. To me this is saying that not only can you get H.I.V. from a hug, but that someone who is heavily modified is probably infected and it is best to stay away from them.
As for the actor in the bear costume, I have no idea if he knew what the PSA was for, or if it mattered to him how he would be portrayed in the final cut. The fact remains that as much as we try to show the world that modded people aren’t any different from the rest of the world, things like this come along and tap into some base fear that people have of the unknown, setting any progress that has been made back in the process.
I think what troubles me most about this, is that this type of thing is exactly the reason that Jessie had such a huge media circus around his arrest. The media is consistently associating heavily modified people with as many negative connotations as they can. Now we’ve come to a point that not only are heavily modified people scary because they’re “all violent”, but they “all have H.I.V. and should be avoided at all costs”.
What do you think? Am I reading too much into the ad, or is there really an undercurrent in the media that is directly attempting to demonize a group of people just because they choose to take control of their bodies.
UPDATE: It turns out that this video was part of the 2009 HIVisible campaign, and is starring none other than BME’s own IAM:Sicko. So it appears I was completely off base with my interpretation of the ad. Thanks to Bastian for filling me in and clarifying the message.
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