Body Mod Blog: Tattooed Women in the Media

It is safe to say that the amount of tattooed women in television and film is limited to a select handful of characters. Of course, you have Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, whose introverted personality and badass behavior made her a one of a kind heroine. Then there are the ladies of Orange is the New Black who continuously break down barriers for female characters on television. And how could we forget Jane Doe from Blindspot, who is perhaps the most tattooed female character in history. And while it is great to have tattooed characters in the media, these characters are still promoting negative stereotypes of tattooed women. There are two stereotypes that the media presents of tattooed women and neither is particularly flattering. The first stereotype is the troublemaker and it is represented by the tattooed female characters of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Wanted, Orange is the New Black, and Suicide Squad. The tattooed women of these movies and TV shows may be heroic or present compelling character plots, yet each one of them has an incriminating past. Lisbeth Salander had several run ins with the law throughout the series and was a ward of the state because of her criminal behavior. Angelina Jolie’s character in Wanted was a bloodthirsty assassin. The women of Orange is the New Black may be inspiring but at the end of the day, they are still in prison. And of course, we cannot look past Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn who is both tattooed and a crazed psychotic villain. Despite being badass and inked, none of these characters come from great backgrounds, which leads to the assumption that all women with tattoos are from the wrong sides of the tracks. Even certain tattooed characters that don’t intend to do wrong somehow end up in big trouble, as seen in Blindspot and Bullet Through the Head. Both of these women were captured and held hostage as prisoners, and both just happen to be heavily tattooed. This contributes not only to tattooed women being portrayed as troublemakers, but as victims of their situation. As a tattooed woman, people often assume that I live a dangerous life, which could not be further from the truth. I cannot tell you how many times people tell me that I look intimidating and scary because of my tattoos, when in actuality I am a nerdy writer who enjoys cuddling with kittens more than breaking into buildings. And I’m far from the only woman with tattoos who is a victim of this stereotype. Marisa Kakoulas, a lawyer and tattooed woman, stated in a symposium at the Brooklyn museum that she is often asked if she is in biker gang and that people often question her authority as a lawyer because of her tattoos. Although men with tattoos also face are often assumed to be troublemakers, there are tattooed male characters that don’t fall under this stereotype. Take the character Josh from Younger for example, an attractive tattoo artist who acts as the love interest for the protagonist. Television and film allow for a man with tattoos to be portrayed as normal and law abiding, while females are not portrayed in the same light. 

In addition to being portrayed as troublemakers, woman with tattoos are largely portrayed as overtly sexual characters. While it is true that over all, female characters are sexualized, there is hardly any character diversity within tattooed female characters. Harley Quinn, Fox from Wanted and Lisa from Bullet Through the Head are all portrayed as super sexy and sultry characters, which is only problematic because the media is using tattooed women as props. There are plenty of films with male characters who have roles that are not sexual, like Sirius Black from Harry Potter, and we have obviously seen plenty of movies and TV shows where women are not sexualized or objectified. Yet tattooed women are almost always seen in this light. Tattooed women have become sexual props in many films and television shows and with the exception of Hannah from Girls (who we do not want to be the face of tattooed women), it is difficult to find examples of tattooed women in the media who aren’t trouble makers or exist purely for the sexual pleasure of the male audience. Why do we never see a tattooed woman as the lead in a romantic comedy? With 25% of our population having at least one tattoo and more than half of this percentage being women, you would think that there would more likeness in the media. In fact why stop with tattooed women? The majority of women on television tend to be white, straight cis-women without tattoos, which is hardly representative of all the diverse types of women out there. There is a huge disparity of representation of women on TV and film and everyone deserves to have someone in the media whom they can look up to.