Magic Mike, or, How A Stripper Got His Groove Back

Note: This review would be nothing without images. If you object to HOTNESS, read no further.

Like most Americans, I like to see movies. On a rainy day, I can even sit through two in a row. Unlike many Americans, I tend to seek out movies that have a strong statement to make. Even if I don’t agree with that statement, I still enjoy thinking about what the filmmaker was trying to accomplish and to what degree he or she succeeded. However, that doesn’t mean I ignore all silly blockbusters.

Enter Magic Mike. Or, as everyone under the age of 30 knows it, The Channing Tatum Stripper Movie.

I was pretty excited to see this movie. Channing Tatum’s abs finally got their own screenplay! So I got together a group of my lady friends, and we planned a girl’s night out, complete with cosmos. When the time came, we trooped over to the theatre along with 200+ other women and one distressed-looking husband. From the clinks of bottles hitting the ground, it sounded like several people had brought their cocktails with them. The air was rife with anticipation for the upcoming swoon fest.

Finally the movie began. There was an audible cheer when Tatum’s tush was bared in all its glory. But after that, it was silent.

The thing is, we had all come to the theatre wanting one thing: a stripper movie. Give us some hot guys dancing absurdly well-choreographed dance routines. Stephen Soderbergh however tried to give us something else: a good movie which happened to feature strippers. We wanted an hour and a half of fantasy. He gave us a drama with plot and character development.

Ordinarily, I would celebrate this. But that’s just not what I wanted right then. I had seen Woody Allen’s new movie, the indie favorite Beasts of the Southern Wild and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, and now I wanted my guilty pleasure, damnit!

Ironically, Soderbergh did exactly what the big studios DON’T do. He made the movie he wanted to make rather than the movie the audience wanted to see. So not only did he make a movie that stubbornly refused to be a mindless indulgence; he also made a movie made from the male perspective rather than the female perspective.

A key scene which illustrates this gender divide takes place after Channing and the baby stripper he is mentoring take a pair of hot young things out for the night. There is a montage of them dancing, making out, snuggling and (inexplicably) diving off a bridge. So far, so good. I would not mind snuggling with either of these men. But then comes this line from Tatum: “Dude, how pregnant did you get that girl’s mouth?”

Well. Well, well, well.

Women have no pleasure receivers in their mouth. It is not possible for a woman to receive physical sexual pleasure from performing oral sex. A woman who says she enjoys giving blow jobs is one of three types: a) someone who genuinely enjoys giving sexual pleasure to others, b) someone who believes in the give and take of pleasure (i.e. the exchange of oral sex between partners), or c) a ho with poor self esteem and daddy issues. Yet many men seem to have this idea in their head that the world is full of women who just can’t wait to have a dick in their mouth. Living as I do across the street from an afterhours bar, I have been privy to many late-night drunken conversations which support this claim.

I think a lot of women were disappointed in this movie. If I’m going to watch a “realistic” movie about male stripping, I want some consideration of the fact that sleeping with a stripper (male or female) is asking for a STD. Instead, Soderburgh tried to straddle this awkward line between sexy fantasy and hard-core realism. Other than those lovely choreographed dance scenes, this movie did not work.

Does this mean then that sometimes audience satisfaction is more important than an artist’s vision? I think yes—particularly as concerns mainstream movie releases. Movies are the prime expression of the American experience. Sometimes you can get more out of them when the director pays attention to what his audience wants.

Another note: I own nothing. But god I wish I did. And as always, comment away! Channing Tatum wants to know what you think (because he is a sensitive man. . . and a stripper.)