Don’t Like - Movie Character Tattoos

I feel for the makeup artists who have to put tattoos on actors. They clearly want to do a good job but it seems like more often than not the tattoos fall short as their work falls into an unusual uncanny valley. This is not entirely the makeup artist’s fault. It has to be incredibly hard to get wash away ink to look like it’s been soaking into someone’s skin for years. What’s more is that they’re often asked to mimic a variety of styles the way a person would get tattoos from a variety of tattooers over their lifetime. Look at the silly tattoo on Ryan Gosling’s neck here. What do you think the story behind that little number is? Was it from a stint in jail or was he drunk and got a bad stick and poke from a friend? Who knows but it doesn’t look all that believable to me. That’s because of another thing about these tattoos, which is that they go on actors, which means we know they’re not real. Also, unlike regular people, actors carry cultural baggage with them. For instance, Ryan Gosling is Luke Glanton in The Place Beyond The Pines but not before he was Noah Calhoun in The Notebook. So when you see him in a role that feels unfamiliar to his most notable work the tattoos might oversell the role’s authenticity. Of course, he deserves an open mind for each role he plays—it’s just very difficult to give it to him or any other actor. Consequently, when I see a character with tattoos in a movie I instantly wonder if they were necessary and my general reaction is no.