Prompt 5

The National Geographic pictorial features tattoos from all around the world, including our own backyard. The beautiful photos are paired with descriptions on the cultural, historical, and symbolic meaning for the tattoos and modifications of the subject. The tattoos are viewed as non-normative and as having great meaning or significance to the person's life. Even the subjects from the western world, living in California, are pictured for their "tribal" tattoos and embracement of their Modern Primitivist way of life. This is shown through the picture as well by juxtaposing their half naked bodies covered in tribal tattoos and marking with the modernism of the Golden Gate Bridge. The body is seen as a means of expressing one's self, culture, ritual, and tradition.
The NPR program, Marketplace, however, approaches the tatooed body in a different way. They look to explain and understand how the tatooed body is becoming more domestic. The program argues that tattoos are becoming more mainstream and normative in the workforce as the younger generations are being employed. Bodies and modifications are not seen in the workforce as a symolic self-expression that is honored and ritualized, such as the bodies from National Geographic, but rather they are merely tolerated because of the need for skilled employees.
I agree with Marketplace in the idea that tattoos are becoming a more normative body modificiation. The broadcast states that the tattoos tolerated are still required to be discreet and tasteful. In this way, I believe the younger generations are normalizing tattoos and employers soon will have little choice but to provide leeway in this subject. While extreme body modification still is considered very non-normative and looked on as exotic, small body modifications are slowly making their way into normative society step by step.