Channing Tatum is undoubtedly gorgeous. With his almost “Classical Hollywood” good looks mixed with a modern no holds barred exhibition of sexuality, it is no wonder the 32 year-old actor has ladies (and gents) across the nation screaming over his true-to-life role as a stripper in Magic Mike. It is confounding, then, that the steamy summer flick (inherently marketed as the perfect movie for every woman’s “little dirty girls’ night out”) is thrusting at its alleged target audience a taste of blatant misogyny alongside Tatum’s crotch.
Magic Mike did start on a (very) impressive note, one that seemed perfectly en route to working up the libidinous lady film-goers, with a naked Mike (Tatum) rolling out of bed the morning after a ménage-à-trois with two girls. One of the women is still asleep, while the other, Joanna, talks to Mike about how much she enjoyed the other babe the night before. Female bisexuality (especially that of tall, slender, and feminine women, as featured in Magic Mike) is hardly taboo or revolutionary in Hollywood motion pictures, but it still serves as an indicator of the female character’s power and confidence as a sexual being and woman. It does in Magic Mike. Joanna (Olivia Munn) is not only efficacious in her sexual prowess, but is also portrayed as a bright and independent near-college graduate. But as it turns out, Joanna is a liar and a heartbreaker. And she is not a deeply flawed exception, but is rather fleshed out in the same unbecoming (and not human) ways as the film’s other ladies. The second choice object of Mike’s affection, Brooke (Cody Horn), is your typical clinched-jawed harridan in need of “taming” by a cajoling and ample-muscled man. Another (barely) secondary female character is accused of getting Mike’s protege into hard drugs.
Granting all this, female movie-goers are enduringly familiar with the cardboard cut out shrews, cheats, and hot messes of on-screen ladies. Though not intended as an excuse, this leaves the unflattering formulaic portrayal of women in Magic Mike a mere second on the grating scale when placed against the social irresponsibility of the script. Screenplay writer Reid Carolin made some regrettable errors when including classic chauvinist lines like, “Whose got the cock? You do, they don’t.” In Carolin’s defense, some of these quips are congruent with the mostly unlikable characters saying them (namely Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas). However, there is no defense for an assertion made by Tatum’s character near the film’s start. After Mike gets the fresh-faced Adam (an adorable Alex Pettyfer) into a particularly exclusive nightclub, he encourages the introverted 19 year-old to go talk to a woman at the bar. Adam tells Mike that he doesn’t think the girl wants attention, to which Mike responds, “Do you see what’s she’s wearing? She wants to be bothered.” Various incarnations of that very phrase, as harmless as it may have been intended within the context of the scene, are used every day to belittle victims of sexual assault and harassment. Further, that very thinking, the “asking for it” theory, creates a justification for the sexual aggression that makes bars (and streets, gas stations, grocery stores, college campuses, etc.) an unsafe environment for women.
Director Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike is a real head scratcher. If not women, because it clearly wasn’t, to whom was this feature supposed to appeal? The all-male answer to Showgirls boasts wild success with gay audiences; however, men lusting after “The Cock Rockers of Tampa” must not have been the intended viewers either, as Soderbergh managed to completely straight-wash the pretty queer world of male stripping. Could Magic Mike, then, have actually been a flick for the straight boy, one who dreams of nonstop partying and endless supplies of doting women?
The target audience question might forever remain elusive, but not so secret is the absolutely glorious beauty of Channing Tatum. The man has the very charming grin, thick thighs, and firm booty to send even Adonis himself into a suicidal depression. Enjoy him and the other strippers (like the smoking hot Matt Bomer), dirty birds (and boys), with a good set of noise canceling headphones.
No comments:
Post a Comment