I did my presentation on Chapter 9 of Caplan’s textbook, which was about class and tattoos in Victorian Britain. The role of consumerism in creating social norms was central to the article and brought up a central question about the commodification of the body. Tattooing is so distinct as a form of art, cultivating an art object out of the body. The role of agency in this, making the body objectified by the tattooist but subject in choosing the modification, is especially interesting to me. Based off of our previous class discussions, this interplay of power is usually used as a form of resistance, liberation, or at least an assertion of individuality. However, in the context of the article, tattoos weren’t always exercised as a form of personal liberty. They functioned more as tangible markers of an abstract social exchange, standing in for more material forms of wealth (*talking about the British aristocracy, not the sailors).

The role of tattooing among wealthy British patrons made me think about how the culture of the oppressed is often co-opted by the oppressor as a tool of control. I recently watched “Paris is Burning,” a film about drag culture in NYC during the 1980s, and part of the film is about the appropriation of queer culture by mainstream, cis-gendered, and heterosexual celebrities. For lower-class citizens that had been ostracized or shamed by mainstream culture, tattoos served as a sort of token that helped mark their belonging to a certain group. Wealthy aristocrats took this tradition and warped it, using the stigma and perceived deviance that was associated with tattooing to create a form of “deep play.” This is a term used by Clifford Geertz (p. 136) to describe the irrational and often dangerous behavior that provides entertainment or satisfaction. Because tattooing is so risky, both medically and socially, and didn’t have any necessary benefits, it could be categorized as deep play. I feel like this connects to the 19th century French (and probably British too?) obsession with “the spectacle,” or the shocking and avant garde forms of art that provided entertainment for the wealthy upper classes. I remember learning about tours of the sewers and catacombs that the aristocracy would go on, simply for a new and shocking experience. Tattoos seemed to function in a similar way, being exciting and tantalizing, while also symbolizing extreme wealth and the capacity for leisure (long amounts of time required for the actual tattoo and the recovery from it). There’s a quote in the chapter (p. 153) that says “the impulse for consumption ran deeper than the outward display and emulation of fashionable clothing” and that tattooing “indicated the depth to which economic relations infiltrated the tissues of the body.” It was a clear display of extravagant and deeply internalized consumerism, which is really different from how we’ve discussed it in the past.

When thinking about the commodification of the body among the wealthy, it’s really interesting to consider the other end of the spectrum. We’ve talked (and read) a lot about how the most valuable and mobile possession is the body itself, and is the only absolutely guaranteed property. For people who did not or could not own any material items, whether they were enslaved, in jail, at sea, or in the military, the body was a primary and precious object. It maintained a sense of individuality, but also served as a canvas for memory. Tattoos of loved ones, events, and markers of identity were extremely common among the lower class, and eventually turned into a symbol of culture for people who were not part of mainstream consumerism. So, whether one had too much and objects were meaningless, or too little and objects meant too much, tattoos were crucial in transcending the dependence on material objects.