IA few years ago, there was a television show in the United Kingdom called “Just Tattoo of Us” (which could be roughly translated as “just a tattoo of us”): relatives came in pairs to get tattooed, the particularity being that each chose the other’s tattoo, the design as well as the location, and that they only discovered it once it was finished. The results were generally gruesome, with one ending up with a drawing of a woman defecating on her lower back, another with a cat on her stomach, her navel acting as an anus. Tears and amazement guaranteed at the moment of the revelation.
In the tattoos and television category, another program has been broadcast in the United States since 2012, “Ink Master”, a competition between professional tattooists who compete through different challenges decided by the judges, until only the best remain in the final. Less malicious than its British cousin, the show is still based on volunteer guinea pigs who serve as support for the tests and have absolutely no say in the drawing permanently engraved on their body – and even less on the tattoo artist, potentially the worst of all, who will be eliminated in the first episodes. It is up to them to remain impassive during the examination by the judges who will not hesitate to loudly criticize the mediocrity of the tattoo created. During a special human organs test, one of them, for example, had the joy of leaving with, under his armpit, a horrible heart drawn with its ventricles and traces of dripping blood.
“Tattoo Cover,” which, as its name does not indicate, is a French show, is the complete opposite of these principles. Here, the tattooed are the center of all attention, and the tattoo artists are only there to help them “erase part of their painful life”as the protagonists often say.
Kindness is essential
Every Thursday evening, on TFX, we can see a handful of unhappy tattooed people come in turn to a shop located somewhere in Paris to talk about their misery and show, quite ashamed, the object of their distress. Youthful mistake engraved in a dubious back room (often of a sexual nature), declaration of a love which is no longer current (and difficult to bear by the new partner) or tattoo simply very poorly done by an unprofessional professional. conscientious… The candidates, who no longer dare to wear short sleeves or shorts, come to seek deliverance from the three professionals who constantly repeat that one should not get a tattoo anywhere, anywhere how and to shame these unscrupulous tattoo artists responsible for the damage.
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