Channing Tatum will forever be known as the dancing icon, from his humble beginnings as the hip hop criminal turned ballet student, Tyler Gage, in Step Up, to his strip-tease days in Magic Mike, playing the newbie, Mike. The first of a franchise, Magic Mike tackles so much more than just being a fun film filled with jacked dancers. It spotlights the abuse of drugs in the adult entertainment industry, the exploitation of youth, and the lust for money, all squished between scenes of Tatum and Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey showing off their abs.
While that was a bit of a tonal surprise in itself, the bigger shift was when the second film, Magic Mike XXL, was just an all-out fun time with a dash of something extra. Indeed, the second installment of the Magic Mike series manages to take these men who are the modern idea of masculinity, and use the characters to break down gender norms, while maintaining a theme of feminism throughout. Turning the genre on its head, here are the ways Magic Mike XXL breaks stereotypes of the content, and of the characters.
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Subversive Character Goals
Warner Bros.
The premise of Magic Mike XXL is that Mike and the remaining Kings of Tampa strippers are going on one last tour to get to a convention. They want to end their careers on a high note. So, after some persuasion, Mike agrees to go with them as one last hurrah. Throughout the journey, though, the characters are trying to discover what they really want out of life. For Mike, it’s a relationship and success in his business. Despite the draw of dancing, with the ladies and the drugs and the fame, Mike is getting over his ex leaving after he proposed. He wants to find one woman, steering clear of that bachelor lifestyle. He also wants his furniture business to flourish and wants to make something of his life. Both of these break the gender construct that the media forces on men to chase women and money, and lots of it. Another character, Richie — who also struggles with having a large extremity, which is highly sought after in the community of male dancers — just wants to find a woman to love. His struggle breaks gender norms about what is thought to be perfect, and what is an actuality for the character.
The Rejuvenation
While on the road to the stripping convention in Magic Mike XXL, they make a stop, and Mike tries to prove to the rest of the guys that he’s still got his moves. They go to an old bar they use to frequent called Mad Mary’s, which turns out to be a drag bar. After watching a performance, the MC calls anyone onto the stage to show their moves to win $400. Mike and the crew vogue and strut onto the stage, trying something new to add to the show. While trying something not in the mainstream, a group of very masculine-presenting men dancing with traditional drag moves at a show breaks the societal gendered norms while not making it into a joke. Their drag show is shown as just a genuinely good time, and they learn that they can do other things than just what they were taught by their old boss, Dallas, and find all of their strengths and weaknesses to create an epic show.
The Women Characters
It would be easy to make the women in the Magic Mike movies obsessed with these “ideal” men, but in both movies, they are shown to be strong and independent, and often are adverse to the male characters at first. In Magic Mike XXL, Mike meets Zoe, who does not want anything to do with him or his lifestyle. They reunite later in the movie and hit it off a bit more, but she is a thoroughly-rounded character who has dreams and goals, and is not just a one-dimensional character whose only purpose is to be with a man as women characters are often portrayed in male-centric stories. Another theme in the film is enjoyment for women. Often in media, men’s enjoyment is focused on, but the characters are deliberate in saying that the women customers, or the women in their life have precedence.
On their journey to the convention, the crew stop at Rome’s place, a woman who owns a strip club in Savannah. She is portrayed as powerful and ethereal without falling into the traps of stereotypes. Her place is shown as an empire, a place for women and a place for dancing and making money. Both Zoe and Rome are strong, three-dimensional characters even if they have limited screen time. They break the stereotype of the “sexy woman” trope or the girlfriend trope, and break their own gender expectation. The acknowledgment of women’s enjoyment and focusing on the women patrons at both Rome’s place, and at the convention makes this movie an unlikely feminist anthem, prioritizing women and straying away from harmful stereotypes. It will be interesting to see what the third installment of the Magic Mike franchise focuses on, and what topics it chooses to tackle when it comes out in February 2023.
