Punk Cinderella

Archaeological discoveries have shown that body painting and embellishing preceded the oldest known forms of wall painting by thousands of years, making the body itself the first "canvas" of primitive man. Although we know little of the original motivations of these practices, they have been handed down, generation by generation, up to present days, transforming, changing and evolving in the different cultures. For thousands of years, men and women, all over the world underwent more or less extreme changes in their bodies in order to feel more attractive, draw attention, conform to the prevailing culture of their society or, more modernly, detach from it. The reasons behind body alterations vary from religion to search for sexual partners, from the desire to show a social status or well-being to the need to feel unique as an individual with respect to the mass. Therefore, while some changes are well accepted or even required by society, others may transform those who make them into freaks and outcasts; the question is who is to decide what can be done about the body and what cannot, as this may change from culture to culture, from moment to moment in history and it is deeply linked to the theme of freedom of the individual. The motivations behind the bodily modifications are therefore the most varied; however, any person who modifies his body, consciously or unconsciously, modifies his relationship with himself and the world around him. The purpose of this work is to explore these changes. The way I intend to proceed is to tell a series of small, meaningful stories about people who have or are changing their bodies. This chapter of research entitled “Punk Cinderella” focuses on a group of young people from Mexico City who live together in a common home and are part of the large group of punk and modifications culture in Mexico. Punk Cinderella People modify their body from the beginning of times, anyone have his own motivation. Manzana start tattoo her body when she was 18 because her father deny her to have a tattoo so she leaved home, got her first tattoo and never stopped doing that. Soon later she started tattoo other people. She worked for long time in tattoo studios but everytime, being a female, was forced to do cleaning. She so decide to start working in her home where she lives with her lover and other modified artist guys. All of them work in body modifications, all of them are heavily modified and are happy being so.