You know what I’m tired of seeing in movies and movie trailers? Tattoos.
Yeah, this from a girl with more ink than her own highly-inked husband. Clearly, it’s not that I have anything against tattoos, I’m just really tired of seeing them used as some kind of “watch this film, it’s got a bad-ass heroine/hero, whose bad-assery is obviously immense because they have this giant bad ass tattoo” gimmick. And then when you watch the movie, you see that tattoo maybe one time, usually in an overly-emphasized muscle shot (for a man) or a sexually explicit woman-as-object voyeur pleasing shot (for a woman), then…never again. What a cliché.
Tattoos, by their nature, are a symbol and usually have some private meaning to their wearers. For movie characters to have these giant symbols on their bodies, as an audience member, you expect there to be some point or purpose to them. If there isn’t, why feature them? It would be like a character in some romantic comedy carrying a shovel around for the entire film and never give any reason for it. No other characters comment on it, nothing. Just a shovel, folks, why the strange looks? Basically, tattoos in movie posters and on the characters are just as meaningless as a shovel. A notable exception is the angel character in “Legion”, but I’m not even trying, and I can already come up with at least three.
Just a little personal gripe.
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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.