On February 10, the Magic Mike trilogy was completed with the release of its final chapterMagic Mike’s Last Dance. What started as a box office and critical hit over a decade ago transformed into cultural phenomenon that expanded into memes, popular culture, and even onto the stage as a musical. Its obvious allure, of course, is stripping. The subject could easily be made into a superfluous and shallow film, butunder Soderbergh’s delicate eyeand Reid Carolin’s bright screenplay, based on Channing Tatum’s experiences as a male stripper in Tampa as an 18-year-old, it’s much, much more.
The first installment proved to transcend its sensual choreography and abs. Throughout its intelligent and seamless combination of comedy and drama, the film dealt with issues ranging from drug abuse, greed, and existential dilemmas. Its follow-up,Magic Mike XXL, is one of the best examples of what a sequel should be.
The film from Gregory Jacobs (Soderbergh’s long-time collaborator and assistant director on the firstMagic Mikefilm), never intends to reproduce its predecessor, as it expands on the world already created and explores new themes and ideas once again written by the brilliant pen of Carolin with Tatum’s ideas in mind. By the end of the sequel, it’s clear theMagic Mikefranchise is about much more than sculptural bodies and striptease.
Men Looking for Meaning in the World
A common underlying theme to the franchise is the search for one’s place in the world. InMagic Mike, Tatum’s titular character has a deep desire to open his own custom furniture business, which is extremely hard for him as detailed in a scene where he tries to get a loan but is denied because of his credit score (the perks of earning mostly in cash). InMagic Mike XXL, this wish to go beyond the short-lived stripper life is shared by Mike’s colleagues who also have dreams of their own.
Related:Magic Mike’s Last Dance Review: A Hip-Thrusting Threequel That Somehow Works Thanks to Channing Tatum
The first film sheds light on this through the contrast of Mike’s life and the one of his protégé Adam (Alex Pettyfer). Mike is 30 and has been in the business for six years, and through it all, he has a deep yearning for something more meaningful to happen in his life, while Adam is 19, just dropped out of college and is heading nowhere fast. The former’s life as a stripper appears to be fading, and so is its meaning, while the latter’s is one that finds a road ahead through becoming a stripper.
The second film is fundamentally about a group of aging strippers going for one last show, and hoping to become someone new by the end of it all. The sequel is not only about the individual’s search for meaning, as it portrays collective identities and ultimating the fact that no man is an island.
Magic Mike Is About Capitalism and the Passing of Time
Though stripping proves to be lucrative, it’s not enough for the characters of the film to live on. Whenever they are not at their night job or partying, they have to find different ways to sustain themselves. Mike and his friends are a reflection of the average American worker, who must have more than one money outlet to survive in a ruthlessly economic society. InMagic Mike, the body itself is a mechanism of capital. Additionally, the films represent the entrepreneurial dream that in most occasions ends up in failure.
Related:Magic Mike XXL: How the Movie Breaks Gender Norms and is a Feminist Anthem
For all of them, time is sacred, it doesn’t stop, and the clock of their lives ticks ever faster. This is one of theMagic Mikefranchise’s most profound statements, the fact that aging will affect the economic stability of these men due to their profession, that the superficial demands and standards of society are ones they will not be able to fit in soon enough, and if they don’t find another way to live, this world will spit them out and leave them to die, seen through Mathew McConaughey’s aging character, Dallas.
In the first film, Dallas is a clearrepresentative of how capitalismand greed shapes the lives of people. In one scene, he says whenever he has children, he is not sending them to school, he will have them all day watching the stock market and learning about how to run a business. The disregard for education in favor of money-making runs through the heart and soul of these movies, as a reflection of American society’s obsession with money. Despite the fact these strippers have dreams, structurally speaking what they desire more than being their own bosses or financial freedom, is to continue to exist and to do so they need equity.
Male Vulnerability
Whilebeauty standards and the glorification of youthare things that are enforced way more violently in society towards women, men who depend on these standards for their daily lives, are not an exception to society’s contempt towards aging. InMagic Mike XXL, this idea is explored in a very tender and progressive way, portraying this band of adult entertainers in their last run as sensible and vulnerable beings.
Several scenes break gender norms and stereotypes, mostly by placing them outside the strip club in environments where their relationship towards others shows how much depth there is to them. First, in a stop along their journey to their final presentation, Mike and company stop at a bar they used to frequent that is now a drag bar. When the MC calls to the stage anyone willing to show their moves and earn $400, the gang vogues their way up and display moments that are comical, tender, and overall genuine. For the first time, we can see them having fun outside an environment where their bodies are merely merchandise and their existence is sexualized.
The other scene where their characters’ sensibility is explored at its fullest, and probably the most tender of the franchise so far, is when they stop by the house of a girl one of the guys meets at a beach bonfire. To their surprise, she is not there, but her mother and her group of elderly friends are there. Though initially just interested in the physical beauty of the men arriving at the house, the conversation grows to be one where both women and men share their vulnerabilities, regrets, longing for youth, dreams and hopes, and much more.
For the men, it’s a moment where they interact with women without being perceived as objects and seen for who they are, and for the women is a moment where they realize that despite their regrets towards aging and waste of their youth, they are valuable and beautiful beings who deserve love and affection. These moments are at the core of theMagic Mikemovies, moments of earnest humanity and basically people facing theinevitable process of agingwhile finding beauty in the unavoidable advancement of life.
