Before Magic Mike, male strippers were strictly the domain of hen parties and butlers in the buff. Ripped men gyrating in comedy fireman costumes or bow-ties and not much else wasn’t so much about turning us on as giving us a giggle, an accessory to girlie debauchery as innocent as willy straws and L-plates for the bride.
But in 2012 Channing Tatum, formerly a stripper himself, starred in the first of what would become a global film franchise and touring theatre troupe with a global following – gone were the days of baby lotion and dick-windmilling (you know exactly what we mean), replaced instead with slick, sexy choreography and athleticism that wouldn’t be out of place in an acrobatics competition.
But how did Magic Mike strike the balance between cheesy hen party fodder and the seedy sexual gratification of traditional strip clubs? Enter any strip club with female dancers and you’re likely to find a clientele comprised of men silently appraising the action on stage, nursing raging boners; with Magic Mike, the atmosphere is all together more convivial and empowering: as Elaine Lui writes on her cult gossip blog LaineyGossip, ‘it adheres to the truth that the second movie [Magic Mike XXL] unlocked: that the simple secret to female pleasure is when they feel seen and heard.’
In the time that Magic Mike has been on stage and screen, there’s been a shift in how we treat female sexuality and desire. There’s no longer this societal expectation that we should dress it up in glitter and giggles and feather boas; a huge market has emerged in mainstream media for women to enjoy their sexual identities independently of sexual partners and as viscerally as men do – just look at the waves of erotic fiction or the female lead porn we’ve seen pop up in the last decade.
We’ve finally been given license to ogle men in the same way men have been consuming female bodies for centuries, but it doesn’t feel exploitative or even much like objectification, because these male dancers are just as active participants in the experience as the audiences they came to entertain. Not to mention, either, that we never actually see any explicit cock-and-ball action; there’s nothing sexy about the male genitalia out of context, and anyway, we’ll take a strong forearm or coiffed snail-trail over a face full o'dick any day..
To say goodbye to a franchise which has arguably changed the landscape of female desire and how we satiate it for good, a final film, Magic Mike’s Last Dance and the third in the trilogy, is set for release in cinemas in February 2023, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Yes, there will be naked men dancing suggestively and steamy audience participation, but far from being just an exercise in objectification, there is, as in the other films in the franchise, a compelling storyline.
Salma Hayak plays supporting actor and love interest Nancy Carroll, which in itself is a break away from tired tropes because she’s 14 years older than Channing Tatum; but according to all sources her storyline is as big as his, which in turn is a little meta because it revolves around him heading to London to set up a huge stage production of the original strip show.
Magic Mike seems to have tapped into the fact that heterosexual women don’t experience desire as a spectator sport; a bit like foreplay, it speeds along the process if we’re emotionally or otherwise invested, and a great storyline, slick scriptwriting and, yes, hot actors, are definitely one way to get there.
Magic Mike's Last Dance release date
The film will be out just in time for Valentine's Day on the 10th of February 2023.