History Channnel’s television series Marked has a good concept, but by only the third episode the series really seems to run out of unique material. It’s not due to the lack of information about tattoos and their implications and roles within different social spheres, but because the stories of the people interviewed all begin to sound the same. Perhaps instead of sticking to fringe cultures, Marked should have looked at the symbolism of tattoos within cultures around the world. Gang pride and brotherhood mentality are interesting concepts to be studied, and the tattoos they use to create association is as good a jump-off point as anything, but it’s hard to find too much to distinguish one gang from another. Motorcycle clubs, prison brotherhoods, Yakuza, Chicano gangs, and similar organizations have very specific tattoos to signify membership, but the reasons for people joining each one and why each thinks its unique are the same across the board: protection, brotherhood, and a sense of style. Every Chicano gang thinks its look has the edge, and so does every motorcycle club. The truth? They’re all the same.
The series starts with prison tats and focuses primarily on the Aryan Brotherhood and then narrows it down even further by focusing on the Texas branch. There’s a certain level of morbid fascination surrounding an organization that prides itself on the merits of its race under the guise of survival. “We protect our own.” In a very primitive, tribal sense it makes sense and seems to serve as a logical motivation for banding together (even if it stems from a foolish racist regime), but what the gang and organization has always failed to consider is the lack of necessity for that mentality on the outside, where the enemy isn’t just around the corner. Tattoos, as all our parents have told us, don’t come off. The racist work of art the Aryan Brotherhood embeds into its skin loses a lot of its relevance and ferocity when taken out of a prison context, looking instead like a silly, shortsighted mistake.
Where the series would normally progress to either a new aspect of the cultural significance of tattoos, it instead just takes a step to the side and makes the follow-up episode about biker gangs. The fabled 1% of biker gangs, alleged by the government to be the small subsection of the culture that commits illegal acts, have become more of a caricature thanks to their personification in popular media. Shows like Sons of Anarchy can only do so much to erase that stigma of brutishness that has led many people to think of bikers as burly men with tattoos and ridiculously trimmed facial hair, and this segment of Marked only sets them back. Letting biker gangs so thoroughly convinced of their own credo have face time explaining why they join the biker gangs and why their tattoos have meaning beyond pretty pictures is a double-edged sword. We may learn about the coded references within the pictures, but we’re also left with the impression that the men on the screen didn’t join the gangs by choice, but because they have little else to offer the world, so they band together and create a world of their own where they can feel relevant. Marked, as a series, stumbles once again by following this episode with one about Chicano gangs, where once again burly men talk about why their tattoos are deep and significant of a warrior. It’s laughable unless you’ve somehow maintained a reverence for this small subsect of culture which seems more and more obsolete with every day.
The entire series follows this trend of endowing its subjects with a sense of self-importance that only someone with a pre-established respect for the culture won’t scoff at. Further complicating the series’ message is the subjective nature of art. I myself do think tattoos are an interesting art form open to many different styles and interpretations, but the level to which the people in Marked take the concept, and the level of severity with which they treat those who have tattoos different than their own doesn’t seem cool or even interesting, it’s just stupid and ignorant. While Marked gives interesting insight into the use of tattoos in different cultures (though to be fair none of these cultures are really different), it also reinforces the idea in anyone watching that there is some credibility to tattoos rewarded by criminal brotherhoods. In reality, this is a series glamorizing a sense of criminal identity while doing little to explore the international significance of the tattoo as it exists in Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and truly disparate cultures.
DVD Bonus Features
None.
"Marked: The Complete Season One" is on sale May 25, 2010 and is not rated. Documentary. Starring Various.
