Tattooed Vikings, Racial Politics, and the Imaginary Middle Ages
Keywords:
Vikings television show, medievalism, tattoos, white ethnonationalism, masculinityAbstract
This paper takes the representation of tattooing on the television series Vikings as a site through which to address the political ramifications of a popular medievalism. The essay considers the significance of the tattoos applied to several characters in the show (Rollo, Floki, and Ragnar in particular). All of whom are loosely based on documented figures from Norse history and legend. The paper explores how the idealized, tattooed male bodies of the television show intersect with modern desires for history and embodiment, a nexus of desire that is particularly and troublingly evident in the recent resurgence of far-right ethnonationalism in the United States and Europe.
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