By the time this has posted, I will have accompanied seven other women to see the sequel to the docudrama by acclaimed filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, “Magic Mike XXL.” The male stripper movie. We are a group of women of varied backgrounds, diverse ethnicities, and ranging from ages twenty-four to very senior seniors. What we have in common is the desire to see a bunch of extremely attractive, waxed, not entirely intelligent, carb-deprived actors dance very well for our enjoyment.
Due to the seemingly endless amount of promotion being conducted by the cast, there have been numerous recent articles concerning “man-jectification” and “the new Female-Gaze.” Phooey. This is not a revolution, this is not a trend, this is one movie out of dozens that bucks the trend and astounding features extremely good-looking men - instead of women - in minimal clothing. Michael Bay continues to churn out films that focus on women leaning over motorcycles/cars/ her dignity, and the highest grossing movie ever displayed a stereotypically frigid businesswoman running from dinosaurs without ever giving up her four-inch heels.
For me, this film and the one before it are all about female bonding. We know the movie will be mostly cheesy, have ridiculous dialogue, and probably no plot, but it doesn’t matter as long as we go as a group and share the experience. I’m generalizing for myself, not all women, but my ability to spend time and just bond with other women has become limited
- I do not go out after work to have drinks (I’m tired and my DVR is calling).
- I don’t treat shopping as a group sport (we vary too much in economic status, tastes, ability to meander for four hours in crowds without screaming or strangling a salesgirl).
- I don’t have regular girls’ dinners out (again, I’m tired, people have families).
- I don’t do group sports (I am competitive and it tends to damage friendships when I knock them down to make a goal).
As a result, quiet coffees and lunch dates are pretty much it, and these are in small groups. Most movie trips require that we all remain quiet throughout, so it’s not like there’s a lot of quality time together.
Unless it’s a Magic Mike movie, where group participation is encouraged. The first movie was admittedly a little too much of a downer to fully enjoy, but this one apparently is tossing that entire pretense out the window for the sheer gratification of women. They are encouraging the same behavior that seems to occur at strip clubs for bridal parties, where women act as though they’ve been imprisoned for a decade and have never seen a man. Not that I’ve ever been to a club. Nope.
Without opening a whole new dialogue, male strippers and female strippers are entirely different entities.Women who go to see male strippers see it as a comedic event, with a lot of giggles and laughter. Again, I'm generalizing but it is not predatory nor exploitative.
So what I’m saying is that this movie is not really about the men, it’s not about some new sociological trend that is transforming the power dynamic. It’s simply a movie that allows women to behave like teenagers, women who are having the opportunity to behave as we once did with the very safe, idealized crushes of our youth.
Jeff Cohen will have a decidedly different opinion on all this, as he should. He is not this movie's target audience. Within the first two minutes we see a shot of Joe Werewolf''s naked butt, "but" the first film literally opened with Olivia Munn's bare boobs. So it's a very conscious decision, and you won't see another butt until the last ten minutes.
Here's the thing. This is a stupid movie. We were mostly bored during it, and it really needed a lot more good dancing. NPR liked the film a lot more than we did. What is surprising is that there are only a few seconds of thongs and butts, and just mostly chests. They keep their pants on.
While knowing that the actors are in on the joke doesn't justify it, but they at least acknowledge it and are not putting up a pretense that it's all about the art (hello, Lady Gaga, Iggy Azaela, JLo, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, ets.)
On a final note, this is a completely benign movie about very good-looking men who actually appreciate women. It is not misogynistic, the strippers do not use their bodies to exploit women. A very skinny Donald Glover does a long and boring rap about the inner and outer beauty of every woman. This is not a great movie, it is very, very cheesy, but it actually has good intentions.
And it is one movie in an ocean of exploitative films. It's not revolution.
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