Why Men Need to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love 'Magic Mike'

Let’s get the blatantly obvious out of the way from jump: the Magic Mike movies are beefcake bacchanalia. They're male full-frontal flesh fêtes. Man Candy Musicals. They're full of gyrating junk, glistening traps/lats/abs, and assless chaps on McConaughey clappas.

There I said it. No “pause” needed. No “no homo” (a violent idiom which should probably be extinct by now) required. Magic Mike shouldn’t make you macho men uncomfortable in principle or presentation. Sure, there is plenty of voyeuristic fun for the women and gay men in the audience, and quite frankly, it’s long overdue, all things considered. But this movie is as much about male strippers as Boogie Nights was about porn. And yet I don’t recall a chorus of dudebros’s protesting the latter’s existence because of Dirk’s visible foot long. Mike is a movie of stripping, not about stripping.

At its washboard core, Magic Mike is a dark character study about the perversity of ambition, the push-pull between pursuing your dreams while living a fantasy, and the decisions we make that force us to about-face when arriving at the existential crossroads. Any manly man should relate to these real-life, honest dilemmas. If a few minutes of dancing dudes cause you to feel as if your hyper-masculinity is in jeopardy while missing the broader scope and themes of the film, you need to be more like Channing Tatum’s titular Mike, who eventually learns to stop running from his insecurities!

With Magic Mike XXL thrusting its way into theaters this week, here is my case for why #AllMen should go savor the original first, then, fully liberated, join in on the fun of the sequel (which drops tomorrow).

While XXL isn’t directed by the master auteur himself (he has passed the torch to longtime collaborator and trusted first AD Gregory Jacobs), Soderbergh’s signature stylistic choices are what elevate the original from farce to art. The drama is authoritative and there’s a destabilizing undercurrent of tension. Soderbergh takes the world of dancing and it makes it feel high stakes—at any moment it feels as if a central character’s world could crumble or, even worse, end. His portrayal of Tampa feels macabre even when the sun is shining. Magic Mike plays like a sexual thriller, one that you and your girlfriend (see point 4) can enjoy.

Magic Mike contains a potent mix of the most important trio of ingredients in any fast life, fast money epic. Substitute the rock n’ roll for some remixed Ginuwine and other Dubstep drops and the stage is set. Tatum and Co. get their fair share of play from the ladies they entertain, and significant quantities of blow and X fuel their fantastical sex adventures. When the drugs become intertwined with the business, danger and violence spill over. Also, if you must know, the women of Magic Mike still reveal more nudity than their male counterparts, including a scene with a topless Olivia Munn. There’s your boobie fix. Infantile creep-boys win again smh.

I’m gonna go out on a leg press-sculpted limb and guess that many dudes who are reading this now are big fans of WWE. Just apply that pro-wrestling mentality to a bunch of less bellicose bros performing for women looking for an episode of sexual stimulation. See how easy that was? Cognitive dissonance be damned!

“The cock-rockin’ kings of Tampa” put as much effort into their costumes, characters and craft as The Rock and John Cena do in the ring. So come on, we can show the boys of Magic Mike the same respect.

Allow me to reiterate the sentiment of the opening paragraph—if seeing dudes (who are separated by the fourth wall) dance disturbs you… you’re a weirdo. However, if you happen to have a girlfriend and feel the need to prove how comfortable you are with your sexuality, watch Magic Mike with her. Who knows, maybe she will reward your sorry ass with a private dance of your own. That'd be totally not gay, right?