really really bad curved design the
stencil for it just just typed up on a
font on word I just stuck on his head my
name is dr. Matt Lauda I'm an art
historian and director of American
Studies at the University of Essex I'm a
historian of tattooing and today we're
going to be looking at some tattoos in
movies to see if they're any good or not
that kind of motto at the top of his
back fortune favors the brave is what it
translates to it is apparently the motto
of quite a lot of like military
regiments including a Marine Regiment
from Hawaii which is where Keanu Reeves
traces his heritage from but also
various other kind of police forces and
an organization so you can read in that
and it potentially some kind of military
history that he's been part of a Marine
unit maybe some of the tattoos on his
shoulders evoke Russian prison tattooing
summer statues may indicate for example
that he was very aggressive in prison
the house themselves are copied pretty
closely from a print by Albrecht Durer
the engraver they have the right kind of
color tonality it like really really
really works
Garda Miami I apparently the production
crew got really fed up and he got really
fill up with him sit for hours the poor
job every day so they contrived this
like laser removal scene he gets the
whole body suit like one go
Chris would like would literally kill
you when your lasering it basically pops
the skin cell and lets your lymph nodes
your lymphatic system use the sort of
standard bit of your body's waste
disposal mechanisms to remove the ink
you'd need more than one session to
remove it
you'd have loads of score scoring and
and you'd be dead these were done by a
tattooer called um Tom Berg bonus points
for getting a tattooer to do it
I chronically liked beautifully done I
think they're really really nice and
it's a clever kind of conceit I think
whether or not you get away with it in
real life I doubt I doubt it
highest budget movie at the time ever
made wasn't it but they couldn't afford
a good Chinese English translator
linguistically it's a mess
so it's got Japanese character in their
Pangaea graphically it's a mess as well
like it doesn't actually tell them where
it should be it points to look at least
four points the globe so it wouldn't
even be that useful as a map like why
the 26th century they're still doing
real night he's looking tattoos that's a
bit of a thing certainly whilst then
certainly is now people getting very
heavily tattooed on their hands and
their necks first so they can like kind
of walk around and look super heavily
tattooed even though they haven't got
that many tattoos I wouldn't have said
this to blade space obviously but you
know it's a bit of it's a bit of a
hipster thing to be doing really iconic
like I think one of the reasons you saw
like spiky tribal everywhere in late
night early 2000s is because those
people had seen blade and thought it
looked awesome places where skin tones
are dark you find less tattooing
traditionally because English doesn't
show up as well under black skin you
know tattooing has gone on to be a
really really big important part of like
contemporary American black culture and
again I think probably Wesley Snipes is
rolling this movie is a big part of that
you know it sort of showed that tattoos
did look really awesome on on black skin
if they're done well
died fighting next to me my point
exactly
on Momoa they actually look pretty even
in close-up look fairly like tattoos
actually they're not super black like
they've just been painted on with with
black paint Aquaman's had to use a kind
of Polynesian inspired but they're not
specifically any particular Polynesian
tradition
Mamaw as tattoos are Hawaiian triangles
around his arm in Pacific cultures
there's a real kind of sense of
connection to one's ancestors and family
and tattoos are a way of kind of
indicating connection to that they're
kind of hexagon things on his on his
breastplate on particularly traditional
but they kind of work actually these
probably are some of the worst movie
tattoos in movie tattoo history curved
design the stencil for it just just
typed up on a font on word or just stuck
on his head it's weird because like the
sort overall look of it
he's like 2003 but some of the
typography and things are much more like
now so it's all indicating that maybe he
got tattooed quite recently it just
reminds me of like too many you know 18
year olds on Instagram who who are
getting their faces satis I think it
makes them look crazy
these do look like transversal in
tattoos although the panther on Daenerys
army sees real tattoo if a panty was the
first time he'd shown that in film and
more than the back piece the the piece
is the the script that run his arms and
staff and the Loretto heart on his and
on his chest is that they look really
bad
they look really messed up which which
would make sense if they were done you
know in prison or intimately you know
not not in a professional tattoo shop ed
hardy the famous American tattoo history
once described tattooing there's like a
therapy I think there's something to
that right like you're getting tattooed
you haven't you're being touched by a
stranger and you can imagine it being
this kind of process of cathartic
cathartic conversation to produce it I
mean for the movie it works as a real
kind of straightforward symbolism of his
character you know he's a he's a
vengeful you know corn
[Music]
well I think a bit self-defeating is
that if you want to be a secret
underground organization it's probably
not that useful to be marking yourself
out as such particularly not in a place
that's really visible in a lot of
criminal cultures that have had
traditional tattooing or perhaps are
doing as part of their initiation so in
Russia and in South American Japanese
criminal gangs a lot of them are moving
away from tattooing now because it makes
it a bit harder to commit crime if you
like marked out as a member of the gang
you know four-leaf clover is really
lucky so maybe a 3d flavor is like not
lucky at all is there some kind of
connection to you know superheroes and
mutants and you know some other
connection they go some people are human
some people are mutants some people are
superheroes is that the connection who
knows it's very heavy how clean-cut
white boy like trying to look tough in
the early 2000s kind of tattooing
nautical star made famous by the guy
from pink 182 Chinese characters
apparently one of them says ice skating
one that says criminal in the back you
can just sort of imagine this that the
prop design or the costume design is
just like flicking through a kind of
yeah what would this like tough criminal
guy oh yeah he'd like I definitely have
criminal toad on his back wouldn't he
because that's that's what hardcore
criminals do you know google image that
[ __ ] like Chinese character tattoos
or tattoos and getting that like
nautical star tattoo up you know cross
on his arm I think is his definitely his
real tattoo they're not the kind of
thing that a particularly kind of
accurate for the kind of things people
getting done in prison in that period
but they're quite kind of standards you
know suburban white boy trying to look
tough tattoos from that period a bit
they're a bit David Beckham they're a
bit kind of eh economy prison inspiring
from him
tattoos are really indicative of like
some kind of character flaw right this
idea of like stigmata again the idea
that somehow people's evil or or badness
is like manifested on their skin it's a
pretty problematic idea and leads to
some pretty dodgy places look like
somehow we can read people's character
by what they look like so skulls and
snakes like are really traditional
tattoo images I mean we find them right
back into the like 17th century the
memento mori of the skull you know
everyone will die and even in
pre-christian mythologies but certainly
in Christianity we associate the snake
with the serpent with evil and with the
corruption of humanity and stuff so
together work really really well as lot
of allegories of human fragility it is
produced in the movie as this it's quite
little bit quite nice placement for
example I mean thanks a lot Voldemort
you know centering it on my arm not just
sticking it some randomly sometimes well
well spero these are these films are set
in a in the sort of 1730's the idea that
there was no tattooing and like before
captain cookies turns out not to be true
and there is tattooing in the European
fleets on European bodies right away
from the at least from the 17th century
beginning of 17th century all the way
through would a sailor in 1730 have a
tattoo of this kind probably not like
it's a bit more like a kind of 1920's
1930's a glitter - actually I have to
say it looks a bit too neat a bit too
nicely done 200 years too early for that
design well well
sparrows so you might hear for example
that like Oh a swallow tattoo means you
cross the equator or swallow tattoo
means you've done so many miles at sea
or so many days at sea or something if
that is true it would have only been
true in particular narrow context so the
context of particular fleets or
particular moments in time there's not a
huge amount of kind of volcano graphic
complexity going on so to go oh you've
got a swallow tattooed on you you must
be Jack Sparrow seems pretty pretty to
me
the movie set in the 80s so that tattoo
would have been done in the 80s or maybe
even the late 70s and like there are
certain certainly tattooists who would
do in kind of black sort of fantasy
black and gray but that really looks
like an early 2000 statue the horns are
very reminiscent the work of a guy
called Paul Booth he was a real kind of
pioneer of like Gothic dark black and
gray tattooing and the nighties the ways
been stuck on as well it looks like it
could it's still healing like as if he's
only just had it done which just seems
unreasonable to me
oh it was obviously kind of comedic
reference to Mike Tyson's tattoo the
tattooists sued the film studio and said
you've infringed my copyright on me on
my artwork right I am the artist and it
went to caught Warner Brothers did
threatened to have to digitally alter
the film but eventually they settled in
the 19th century men got tattooed in the
Americas in the Pacific and put anything
up performing as tattooed man in the
circuses and in freak shows and telling
the story that they were sort of
forcibly captured and tattooed against
their will the great oh me he in the
1930s had his face tattooed in black I'm
really kind of actually very progressive
Lee and he would again use that as a
story that he was captured by jungle
natives and tattooed you know against
his world by savages baby was done by a
guy
yeah well
I was the one that said it there's no
tattooing like that really
certainly not in kind of itinerant
circles in non really high-end really
cutting-edge Studios and they weren't
really many interesting Studios in 1969
so it's just really great earring
actually the production designers just
hadn't really looked to any tattooed
people maybe it's okay because I meant
to be magic so again maybe we can
forgive him but like if this guy had
been tattooed in 1969 this would have
been like so cutting-edge and so cool
you know there were plenty of people who
were heavily tattooed coming out of the
war of this age but you wouldn't be
covered in stuff that looked like it was
from a kind of hippie free sheet from
San Francisco for four out of ten
something like that it is a hot mess
[Music]
goon ID a comic the tattoos on on the
outriders chests are sort of done which
tell the story of like of God guarding
in Imhotep and stuff they're done like
while in hotep still alive in the
universe of the movie why these
characters would have these symbols
before the plot of the movie actually
happens and then why they'd be surprised
about it happening cuz it's on their
bodies already the British Museum
mummies actually do have tattoos on them
that are figural they seem to be animal
designs and we find like much more
recent ones so about 2,000 year old
3,000 year old mummies that have
religious marks and things but that kind
of facial tattooing I think the
production's owners have probably tried
to draw some inspiration from wider
North African tattoo traditions like the
Berber people but even in those cultures
that kind of facial tattooing would more
often be almost exclusively women rather
than men previous speakers they're
obviously using tattooing to sing signal
some kind of other nurse and
primitiveness and strangeness a mass
film Italy they just don't look very
good and yeah just just bonkers
whoever designed them was like thinking
about what they imagined tattooing might
be like