Written in Skin: Suicidegirls

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    Abstract

    Our bodies define a border between ourselves and the world around us. However we might feel about our body, it is what we present to the world. Victoria L. Blum in her book Flesh Wounds discusses how bodies are a form of inkblots, where discontent is projected onto. As bodies can be modified, we may choose to alter how we are perceived and to at least some extent control the discontent we may project onto our own body. Through body modification, we can alter the impression of our personality and express a cultural solidarity, as Chris Rojek points out.
    Tattoos, piercings and other body modifications become ways to express a difference from or identification with, a particular cultural segment. Body modification marks a personal subjectivity, just as it marks a border around those who participate. A distinctive bodily border is formed through the use of body modifications, and it can be viewed as a semiotic strategy to negotiate and navigate cultural borders.
    Suicidegirls.com is a website which is both an online community, but also a softcore pin-up site, where the models feature extensive body modifications in the form of tattoos and piercings. The website promotes a democratic approach to the photo shoots, as the models remain in control, not the photographer. Marked by their body modifications, the Suicide Girls (as they call themselves), they actively attempt to subvert the typical pin-up conventions, by transgressing mainstream standards of beauty.
    In what seems remarkably similar to Judith Butler's account of subversive bodily acts, the pin-up shoots of the Suicide Girls mount a critique of a culture's view of the body as a natural entity. Cultural borders are crossed, as the bodies of the Suicide Girls embed ink into their bodies in the form of tattoos, and gender is played as a subversive game against the expectations of pin-up conventions. Acting as different and impure bodies, the Suicide Girls represent a threat to conventional conceptions of the body.
    OriginalsprogEngelsk
    TidsskriftNordlit
    Udgave nummer24
    Sider (fra-til)45-52
    StatusUdgivet - 2009

    Emneord

    • subkultur
    • krop
    • tatoveringer
    • pinup

    Citationsformater