That'll Leave A Mark

As I have mentioned numerous times before, TV executives are a rather unimaginative bunch. As soon as one channel comes up with a show that has even moderate ratings it will only be a matter of time before you see a strikingly similar show appear on another network. This blatant plagiarism wouldn't bother me if they were copying shows I enjoy, but too often they copy crappy reality TV shows because they are so cheap to make. The latest trend has been to make carbon copies of reality competition shows. The concept is very simple: rent a loft, get a group of aspiring artists/musicians/designers, make them live together, give them a challenge every day, pay four people of varying levels of skills themselves to judge the results, send one person home after every show, the last person remaining gets a cash prize that isn't actually enough money to change their lives and everyone is forgotten by next season, when we do it all again. It's probably very cheap to make, people seem to like it and if you change the focus of the show even slightly it may take a few weeks before people catch on that you have lifted the format. However, I think we may have reached the crossroads with this phenomenon based on the show I landed on last night, SpikeTV's "Ink Masters".

"Ink Masters" is just like every other reality competition, except the people participating are tattoo artists. The problem I have with these tattoo artists is that they are actually the highly annoying and pretentious ones who consider themselves on the same level of Picasso. They often fight with the people who have volunteered to be their canvases because they don't want to draw the tattoo as the people have asked, either because it is not challenging enough or doesn't give them the chance to express themselves and the tattooer always want to change something about it. Anyone who has worked in retail will tell you that dealing with customers is never fun, but I think tattoos are the one place where the customer is, without question, always right. They are the ones who will be looking at this for the rest of their lives, so if the artist doesn't feel like drawing a flower that day that sounds like something they are just going to have to deal with. [Sidebar: They do occasionally talk the customers into changing and I'm equally fascinated by those people. A tattoo should not a quick decision, so if in 20 minutes you can be persuaded from getting a unicorn to having the Grim Reaper on your back because the guy with 7 nose rings is feels like drawing something dark, maybe this isn't the best way to spend your afternoon.] I don't care if you want a tattoo, but if you're going to get one at least get the one you want.

Still, it was the judging portion of the show which really bothered me. The show's judges include two actual tattoo artists, but also former Jane's Addition guitarist Dave Navarro, whose only qualification for being on this panel appears to be having a lot of tattoos. The episode I saw also had a guest judge - Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs because... well, I couldn't tell you why. I don't know if Suggs is a tattoo enthusiast or even had any artistic talent, but even if he did that wouldn't feel like enough of a reason to make him a judge during an actual competition. Anyway, what happens in the judging part of the show is the four-person panel calls the artist in front of them and proceeds to point out all the flaws in their designs. Now, it's humiliating to have your mistakes pointed out like this in any setting, let alone when you are on national television. But, screw those artist, they signed up for this. My concern is for the people who actually got the tattoos. A tattoo is like any other thing in life - stare at it long enough and you'll start to notice defects. However, normally this is only something the person with the tattoo has to worry about, because they can keep any flaws they see to themselves and hope no one else notices. Here, that element has been removed. All the problems with their tattoo were just pointed out on television for the world to see. That has to be even more embarrassing.

Of course, an even worse-case scenario would be if the person who received the tattoo hadn't noticed any flaws yet. It would be a shame if they walked out of the tattoo parlor that afternoon thrilled with the finished product, turned on SpikeTV months later excited to see themselves on television and had to listen as Terrell Suggs, who for all we know can't draw a stick figure without it coming out crooked, points out that one of the hands on their hula girl tattoo appears to be off-center as all the other tattoo artists smirk while telling the camera they could have done a much better job. Suddenly not only is that poor person self-conscious about the drawing which has permanently been drawn on to their skin but every one of their friends also knows what is wrong with it, which normally would only happen if they had pointed it out. People have the right to keep things like having a messed-up tattoo to themselves. That is why I think this may be as far as we need to go with these reality competition shows - the producers appear to have forgotten this impacts lives beyond the people who are trying to win money. I just don't think anything this permanent should be done as a game show. I know that technically the artists are the ones in a competition, but the people getting tattooed are the ones who can really lose.