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Episode one
‘For one man to take on all those supervillains just by putting a mask on. It’s incredible’. From the earnest look on tattoo-lover James’s face, you could be forgiven for wondering if he realises that Batman is a fictional character. But then, there’s plenty that defies belief in this series opener documenting – if never really exploring – our current love of body art.
There’s a man having his dog’s ashes tattooed on his arm. A lady having nipples inked on to her body to restore her confidence after a partial mastectomy. And another gent whose facial tattoos have prevented him from finding work for two years. As hinted above, there’s no real attempt to analyse this trend in a wider context – a better film would wonder whether we, as a society are becoming more sentimental, more extrovert, more demonstrative, more impulsive.
But it’s mindlessly entertaining, even as it maintains C4’s disappointing recent tendency to produce documentaries that point and stare without asking any real questions.