buffyverse tattoos

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goldenboy

Scooby
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Angel (David Boreanaz) had a tat on a shoulderblade. Cordi (Charisma) had the popular extreme lower back tat. I assume these are the actor's tattoos, not the characters? Not positive. Cause it's not an issue, real plot point in the show, so...

Lindsay had those tats for protection, power, season 5 Angel. Tattoos came up now and again for mystical, power reasons.

I've had a slow burning theory about the tattoo/piercing phenomenon in modern America. It seems to have peaked in maybe the mid 90's. Now starting to taper off, I think. Popular among Xers. A casual observer might just consider this a common act of rebellion, a desire for attention, uniqueness. I wonder though. For some, might it actually be a weird act of conformism? A desire to belong to something: a style, a movement, a group. A desire to create meaning, purpose, a sense of permanence.

Traditionally, tattoos have been a rite of passage, an initiation. A tribal act of conformity. I think young people in the 90's were looking for meaning, a sense of something real, permanent. It strikes me as another reaction to the "postmodern" dilemma.
 
I don't think that Angels tatoo on the sholderblade is real, can't seem to find any proof right now but I think I read it somewhere..

And also Sarah has some tattoos, I read somewhere that she regret making them because of all the time she had to spend in makeup trying to cover them up.
 
No, David's Angel tattoo was created for the show...I remember reading somewhere that Joss asked the art department to come up with a tattoo for Angel, and was surprised by the intricacy of what they came up with...

Nicky Brendon has a few tattoos I believe as well.

Now as for the popularity of tattoos, I would agree that it's probably a concealed (or unconcious) act of conformism...probably even for me. I tell myself that I want a tattoo, because my body is my own and it's a canvas , but maybe subconciously it's because some of my friends have them. I dunno, I'd rather think not 😉
 
Interesting. It always struck me as looking vaguely Asian, like an ornate Chinese dragon or something. Never got a good glimpse. I can easily imagine a Celtic illumination style though.

And a also spiteful rejection of God. The rejection of the Judeo-Christian "your body is a temple".
 
Here is a great site that has all of the cast members and also their characters tattoos: Check it out!

Also, what does Fray's tattoo look like, I've never seen it?
 
P
pyromaniac
Thanks for the link jen! That site is great
nerd4hire
nerd4hire
Great site! Some of those fan tatoos are wild.
Jenny said:
Here is a great site that has all of the cast members and also their characters tattoos: Check it out!

Also, what does Fray's tattoo look like, I've never seen it?
Click to expand...

It looks like this -
 

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Tehe. I'm chucklin. I've heard that tat described by fans as a series of crescent moons, symbolizing female strength.
 
Its amusing that in earlier seasons the actors were often made to cover up the tattoos, sometimes badly (a la Nick's in Hush), and then they became more relaxed. We saw Sarah's lower back tattoo about twice and Charisma's lower back one about 1 million times in Season 3 of Angel.
 
Nerd4hire:

"Tehe. I'm chucklin. I've heard that tat described by fans as a series of crescent moons, symbolizing female strength."



"From the New York Times Magazine, November 18, 2001

Symbol Making

Charles Baldwin, a retired environmental-health engineer, explains his role in developing the biohazard symbol, which is now showing up everywhere.

"I was working with the Dow Chemical company at the time, in 1966, developing containment systems for the Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health. And it became obvious to us that there were a lot of different so-called warning symbols in the various laboratories that we visited, but there was no standardization. We saw a need for this kind of a symbol and proceeded to develop some symbols with the help of the Dow marketing people -- the package-design department, I think it was called. The only parameters that I set down for them to noodle through were, it had to be unique and something that would be striking enough that it would be remembered. We wanted something that was memorable but meaningless, so we could educate people as to what it means.

"We tested the sample symbols across the country -- the marketing department had survey groups to test different labels for Dow products. There were half a dozen of our original symbols in this survey of 24 different symbols. The rest were recognizable, like the peanut man for Planter's peanuts, the Texaco star, the Shell Oil symbol, the Red Cross and the swastika. They were asked to look at them and then asked to guess at what each one meant. The biohazard symbol got the fewest guesses. Then we went back one week later to the same set of people and the same set of symbols, plus 36 more common ones, and asked them which of these did they remember the best. And they picked out the biohazard symbol.

"The color was blaze orange, one of the colors chosen in Arctic exploration as being the most visible under the most conditions. It was three-sided because if it were on a box containing biohazardous material and the box was moved around, transported, it might wind up in different positions. Another thing -- we needed something that was easily stenciled.

"The next major step was presenting it to the scientific community. I did that by writing a paper in the journal Science [Science 158: 264-265, 1967]. The next was to get the authorization from the various people that would be using it. As soon as it was adopted by the Centers for Disease Control, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Institutes of Health, that's pretty good acceptance. And that was it.

"Every time I go into the doctor's office or the dentist's office or a hospital anywhere, I've always got my eye out for it. Naturally, I'm proud of the fact that I was able to come up with something, or direct a program that evolved into this symbol that's so widely recognized, so helpful. But I ran into a peculiar situation one time a couple years ago when someone was putting on a seminar on biohazards. As gifts for the participants, he devised a beautiful tie with little biohazard symbols all over it. This got me upset, and I sent him kind of a nasty letter saying this symbol was not designed to be used sartorially."

As told to John Cook Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company "



http://www.hms.harvard.edu/orsp/coms/BSRs/History-of-Biohazard-Symbol.htm
 
nerd4hire
nerd4hire
It's cute though. Fray is a biohazard.
I read somewhere that Faith's wasnt real either. I cannot really confirm or deny that report, I just heard about it.
 
Faith's or Eliza's? cos the characters is real but Eliza doesnt have that tattoo.
 
That website was really neat Jenny! Thanks for sharing.

I've got to agree that while most people get tattoos to be 'their own person' or show 'uniqueness', they really aren't. Most of the time, you are getting a tattoo because somebody you know did, or you want to be able to show it off. Now, not saying that this is true with everyone, but most people.

That's why I always wanted one. But, because of the chicken within, I never got one. I am thankful today that I didn't, because I Know that I would just hate it today.
 
Jenny
Jenny
No problem hon!
nerd4hire said:
Tehe. I'm chucklin. I've heard that tat described by fans as a series of crescent moons, symbolizing female strength.
Click to expand...

You're kidding me? It's the ruddy biohazard symbol.

goldenboy said:
Interesting. It always struck me as looking vaguely Asian, like an ornate Chinese dragon or something. Never got a good glimpse. I can easily imagine a Celtic illumination style though.
Click to expand...

Celtic art has a lot in common with Eastern art, but a little more Arabic than Asian. Though the Celts originally came from the Middle East, (before splitting into the Welsh/French and Irish/Scottish groups) it's still rather furiously debated as to why they retained such an Arabic flavour. The Book of Kells, which provided Angel's tattoo has pages that wouldn't look out of place in the Koran, and a fewmiles from where I live there's a thousand year old Maltese Cross carved into a rock. Which has caused all sorts of arguments because the Maltese Cross isn't supposed to be that old, and also, was supposed to be from Malta.

SpikedBuffy said:
I've got to agree that while most people get tattoos to be 'their own person' or show 'uniqueness', they really aren't. Most of the time, you are getting a tattoo because somebody you know did, or you want to be able to show it off. Now, not saying that this is true with everyone, but most people.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say it's conformist because there are as many types of tattoos as there are tattooed people. Popeye has a tattoo, but I don't have much in common with the bloke. Somebody may attach significance to the symbol they've chosen, or the act itself, or they may just like it cosmetically. A tattoo is on some level, I suppose, a declaration of rebellion, but it's a commitment to rebellion. 😀
 
I'm getting more interested in the history, pre-history of Asian-European interaction. Like how they're finding ancient mummified red haired European-looking people in China. Interesting how ideas, art gets passed around.

Modern tattoos seem like a paradox to me. A temptation to put your own unique stamp on yourself, sometimes done out of envy or a desire to belong to a group.
 
What's interesting to me is the current MASSIVE popularity of both black tribal-style tattoos and black prison-style tattoos among people who neither belong to any tribe, or have ever been to prison. I wonder if people just like the look of black ink, or if it's some subconcious identification with rites of passage.
 
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