In the decade since the first film was released, Magic Mike became an unexpected entertainment franchise. The original entry spawned a sequel, Magic Mike XXLlive stage show, Magic Mike Livereality Show HBO Max, Looking for Magic Mike, and an upcoming third film. In each of the entries following the first film, two common elements are repeated: Channing Tatummegawatt star power and light-hearted antics featuring male strippers. Although Tatum’s brilliance is built into the first film, lightheartedness doesn’t actually appear in the series until the original film’s release.
Original Magic Mike received an instant cultural response as a “male striptease movie”. Starring a slew of traditionally handsome male stars shedding their clothes on screen (including Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, Joe ManganielloAnd Matthew McConaughey), the film appears to have been made for women and gay men to enjoy the cinematic spectacle. However, dance scenes make up a surprisingly small percentage of the film’s screen time. Many dance sequences are shortened or obscured by cutting out before the action actually unfolds, or by combining multiple dances together. Due to its cinematic construction, the film repeatedly defends itself against being a “male striptease film”.
“Magic Mike’s Gender Discourse”
Since the film focuses on a group of stripper brothers, it’s not surprising that the film repeatedly deviates from gender discourse. What is confusing is how this discourse constantly resembles a common, problematic rhetorical strategy that men use to defend themselves: the language of toxic masculinity. Magic Mike uses this language both at the level of storytelling and at the level of cinematic composition. Instead of agreeing that audiences can unequivocally enjoy the looks of its handsome stars, the film projects its insecurities onto its female characters. Thus, the jargon of toxic masculinity is most visible through the film’s objectification of women.
In the narrative, women are predominantly objectified as objects of monetary or sexual value. The objectifying value attributed to female characters is closely related to the space they occupy. Women who are part of the club scene where male strippers perform are objects of monetary value. In an early scene in the film, Mike (Tatum) recruits Adam (Pettifer) to help him recruit women for their upcoming performance. Instead of just handing out tickets to any woman at random, Mike specifically rates certain types of women he finds most valuable. When Mike tells Adam to go talk to the woman wearing the tiara, Adam tells Mike, “She doesn’t look like she wants to be bothered.” In a particularly blunt response, Mike says, “Look what she’s wearing! She came here today to disturb her! This line indicates that Mike values women in terms of money based on their appearance, and that women’s looks are deliberately designed to attract the attention of men.
Women, mostly outside the club scene, are objectified as objects of sexual value. This form of objectification works to separate the relationship of the male ensemble from any possible connotations of homosexuality. There are a lot of scenes that could allow their relationship to be viewed as potentially homosexual, especially during the dressing room scenes. For obvious reasons, the men spend a lot of time together behind the scenes, almost, and sometimes completely naked. When Adam is first brought to the club, he struggles to look away when Big Dick Richie (Manganiello) pumps up his penis to increase its length. The characters can be construed as gay due to their proximity to other naked men and their lingering gazes.
hurricane party
However, as in the real world, these men affirm their heterosexuality by treating women as sexual objects. Nowhere in the film does this come out more clearly than in the party scene during the hurricane. In the bedroom, Adam looks longingly at Ken’s (Bomer’s) wife, Mercedes (Mircea Monroe), breasts while she sits topless on the edge of the bed. When he notices Adam’s intense attention, Ken says, “My wife’s boobs are amazing, aren’t they?” After Adam agrees, Ken says, “Look at them, man.” Mercedes gestures for Adam to come over and he touches her. Adam then turns to Ken and asks “Is everything all right?” to which Ken replies, “I’m fine, man. She loves it.” The two men then repeatedly exchange “I fucking love you” comments while Adam continues to touch her. Although she offers Adam consent to touch her, this only happens after Ken has already consented on her behalf. Ken hands over the Mercedes for other men’s sexual gratification. Because the two men then talk to each other and Adam barely acknowledges her existence even though he has her breasts in his hands, Mercedes is seen as a sexual object rather than a living person.
The party scene during the hurricane also explains how the composition of the film is involved in the objectification of women. Throughout the film, women are presented as elements of mise-en-scène rather than as characters. With the exception of a couple of female characters positioned as Mike’s love interests, most of the women on screen spend most of their screen time simply filling the frame as unnamed decor, sometimes depicting them actively listening to one of the male characters, and sometimes flirtatiously touching each other. their. The women on screen exist to demonstrate how women are filled with these men’s lives, and through their flirtations, how sexually accessible they are to a male ensemble.
Toxic male behavior is aimed at aggressively asserting one’s masculinity. Thus, it includes a process of repetitive behavior that asserts male dominance, such as the objectification of women. Since Western masculinity is associated with its opposition to femininity, Magic Mike invokes toxic masculinity to protect itself from the “female film” label.
Fortunately, later versions Magic Mike redeem the shortcomings of the first film. The sequel offers a scene where the main characters dance in a gay bar, showing the change in distancing effects from the original. Magic Mike XXL there are also less interrupted sweep sequences, inviting rather than breaking stares. Magic Mike Live begins by parodying the first film’s club aesthetic, making fun of sexist language and limited views of masculinity. While the surprise franchise didn’t start with a welcome movie, ten years later it’s clear that Magic Mike continues to develop.
Source: Collider
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