The Tattoo Renaissance: Popular Narratives and Neglected Stories of Body Ink’s History in American Culture
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Authors
Fabiani, Christina
Date
2024-05-23
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
History , Cultural History , Social History , American History , Tattooing , Body Modification , Subculture Theory , Deviance , Respectability , Cultural Economy , Critical Race Theory , White Hierarchies
Alternative Title
Abstract
This dissertation examines the American tattoo renaissance from the late 1960s through the 1980s, an era in which a subcultural movement worked to elevate body ink from its stigmatized status in American culture to an appreciated and mainstream position as a fine art. I explore this period as a cultural tipping point in body ink’s American history that was (and is) presented as a white liberal movement that redefined the practice to suit the middle-class palate. Tattoos became commodified as popular fashion items that symbolized the wearer’s individuality, bodily autonomy, and open-mindedness. Upon deeper investigation, however, I show that this ‘official’ and dominative narrative exists and persists through the erasure of marginalized individuals and social groups from the practice’s cultural production and hegemonic memory.
I interpret an extensive source base through an intersectional lens grounded in analytical frameworks of subculture theory, cultural economies, and critical race, and I uncover the complex subcultural boundaries that governed the tattoo trade and in fact reinforced dominant American ideals of patriarchal heteronormativity, racial superiority, and white respectability. Firstly, I explore how and why the renaissance-era tattoo community’s aesthetic and behavioural standards were deliberately produced and policed to legitimize the trade in the public eye. My research reveals that the mechanisms involved in the popularization of body ink in America mirrored the sociopolitical climate at the time. Secondly, my research foregrounds, and thus reverses the silences around, individuals and social groups largely omitted from the trade’s cultural production and popular history. I showcase how these people and communities embraced, rejected, and/or transformed (often simultaneously) the subcultural standards that directed the mainstream body ink industry in ways that disrupt the hegemonic memory of this critical period in the trade’s history.
My research not only complicates popular narratives of body ink advocates and their legitimizing efforts during the trade’s renaissance period but also highlights the lived realities of individuals and social groups who existed on the margins of mainstream tattoo culture, positions that mirrored their status within American society at large.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International