Reviews for The Tattooed Lady: A History

The average rating for The Tattooed Lady: A History based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-06-27 00:00:00 Stephen Miller Let's just pretend that it wouldn't suck to live during the depression, barely getting to bathe or see your family, scraping by doing the same things over and over again while feigning enthusiasm night after night as people shamelessly stare you down. Let's me pretend I don't have horrible stage-fright, am not a hidey sort who gets homesick during weekend-long vacations, and am absolutely not so needle-phobic, I had to have my parents hold me down to get shots as a child like I was some kind of asylum patient. Combining elements of time-travel and a completely different personality index, and removing any and all physical discomfort intrinsic to the gig, I would SO be a tattooed lady in an early 20th century American circus. I have the haircut for it and everything. Alas, it is 2014, and I am not Scott Bakula. Fortunately, there is a wealth of books out there which allow modern weird-enthusiasts to explore the dusty landscapes of a time which was arguably a thousand times more aesthetically dynamic than the nip-tuck that is now. I'm all mushy heart-parts for the circus look, all grimy-bright and faded-flashy. The offensive elements are not lost on me, of course, from the whole gawking at people with physical handicaps and the monetization of things like obesity and the confinement and mistreatment of wild animals, to the "abducted by savages" narrative embraced by a large segment of the tattooed lady circuit, which an ethnocentric, bible-banging, and simmeringly racist American viewing public bought hook, line, and sinker. Oh no, the bad Indian man kidnapped poor, innocent white girl me and raped me with tattoo needles! Yeah, that's a fucked up lie to spin, but that sort of exotic fear-mongering was a huge driving force behind the popularity of a lot of sideshow acts of the carnival heyday. Apparently, people back then also liked having their presumptions and misconceptions about the world validated and reinforced through entertainment. Imagine that! This book is basically a swelled out thesis on the history of tattooing particularly in relation to American women, and the role that famous caravan ladies played in shaping cultural acceptance of female body art, and tattooing in general. I would bump it up star-wise if not for the fact that the repeat button was hit on a lot of the information so much that the book is essentially begging for a take-no-prisoners editor, and also for the fact that the author was maybe a little too generous with the tattooed ladies when it came to excusing their use of abduction stories. I know, I know, different time and place, but I am the me of the now and totally think it's okay to look back on history and call bullshit through 20/20 hindsight when it comes to such culturally harmful racial stereotypes. I'm not one of those "ban Mark Twain" trigger warning crazies or anything, I'm just saying call it out for what it is. This book is not void of criticism in that regard, it's just a little more glossed over than I would have hoped. But this book is about the women behind the myths, and the specific, actual-factuals of their lives rather than the larger cultural clashes of the (to put it mildly, turbulent) time. These women were plenty interesting all by themselves, and consistently had such an onslaught of sometimes lovely, sometimes amusing, and often barfy tattoos that they became quite beautiful when taken as a whole composition. I mean, obviously they were nothing like some of the incredible things tattoo artists are doing these days with their full color palettes and the technical know-how to create crazy-neat optical illusions, but still, not too shabby for half-past stick-and-poke: Some cool things I learned from this pretty little niche-interest book: -Winston Churchill's mom very well may have had a tattoo of a snake wrapping around her wrist. Surely I don't have to elaborate on why that's awesome. -Youngins from circus families who needed an act would often bathe their braided hair in beer and then fro it up in order to perform an act called "Moss-Haired Girl", which basically meant standing around with big hair. I could do that. -"Spidora" was another common act, which basically meant sitting around with a mirror concealing your torso, just lookin' like a spider lady doing spider lady things. I could do that. Now we just need a DeLorean and a cave to hide it in... P.S. Images 1 and 2 are from the book. Images 3 and 4 are not. I should represent the book more accurately by balancing the images more in its favor. Hey look, zebra:

Review # 2 was written on 2020-10-15 00:00:00 Tom Williamson Great book! Amazing women!