by Charlie Brewer


Along with knowing how to change a car wheel over, farting and owning one pair of shoes, having a beer belly has always been on my list of things women simply can’t do. To be fair I’d never actually given it much thought but if asked I’m almost certain I’ve have replied ‘no way, you’re kidding me right?’

Yesterday I stumbled across a gallery for some competition called Miss Tattoo Australia. Not only was my beer belly rule instantly shattered but how I wish I could take the visual experience back.

Oh god how I wish I could take it back.

I like tattoos on a woman as much as the next guy. Something about them whispers to me that this girls not just your run of the mill everyday come boring Betty. At least once in her life she’s decided to do something stupid and hey, that’s good enough for me.

Combine that allure with beer bellies, tan lines, beer bellies, muffin top bikini bottoms, beer bellies, breast flabbage, beer bellies, thunder thighs, more beer bellies and you’ve essentially got Miss Tattoo Australia.

It’s bad enough that we hold regular beauty pageants which make contestants “cry for hours each night“, do we really need to be giving superficial people like me opportunities to shoot fish in a barrel?

Having said that I assume if you enter yourself into a beauty pageant you’ve kind of gotten over the idea you’re no longer daddies little princess anymore and that you’re being judged. What I can’t understand is are we supposed to be judging the artwork, the body the artwork is on or both?

Surely the body the tattoo has been inked onto plays some part in it’s artistic value. I don’t have much experience in the area but there has got to be some tattoos that are look good on some body types and not on others.

For example I can’t imagine a rose thorn tattoo looking any good on an obese person. Rose thorns are relatively thin and if anything you’d just be drawing attention to your wide open spaces.

Conversely little skinny people with large grand scale tattoos tend to be drowned out and it’s easy to forget you’re actually looking at a person, rather then an upright canvas of technicolour vomit.

With this in mind some of the body types in the photo above are in my opinion just not meant for tattoos. I mean sure get a tattoo if you want one but to enter a tattoo beauty pageant and be judged? Lady you’ve got more balls then I do.

I’m sorry to all the tattoo lovers out there but if these are the best canvas displays New South Wales could come up with to enter into Miss Tattoo Australia then something went horribly wrong.

Honestly I’d rather stare at an eye rolling line of women sporting cliched Japanese character tattoos on their ankles. Hell so long as their bodies were a little bit better taken care of I’d rather be staring at anything, even transexual Thai males.

I tried really hard to be objective in deciding which one was my pick of the bunch. I tried so hard I even stared at the photos through alternative black thick rimmed glasses but still wound up settling on the bleach blonde Sarah Keirs.

Not because I have a particular liking of the bleach blonde look but because of the complete and utter lack of competition.

I did try to see what the fuss over the actual winner Mae Cheung was (second from the right in the first photo), but I couldn’t get over the fact that her nose was probably longer then my entire face.

I’ve seen that look before in Grey’s Anatomy Sandra Oh and it just doesn’t do anything for me, tattoos or no tattoos.

If you ignore the stereotypicalness, Keirs on the other hand at least has the semblance of a well sculpted canvas to house her body work with respectable dignity.

For a pageant that is supposed to promote tattoo body work I can’t help but feel like the entire visual experience was a giant exercise in reverse achievism.

Kudos for giving it a go though ladies, better luck next year.

1. 10 Things I miss about living in Australia
2. Kyle Sandilands' body makes me want to throw up
3. Culling camels makes Australia a third world country?