The gang from “Magic Mike XXL†is helping redefine masculinity on-screen. (Claudette Barius/Warner Bros. Pictures)
According to my records, this essay â€" a midway temperature-taking of this year’s summer movies â€" should have been about women and Hollywood. This was the season, after all, when an impressive number of films would be released with women at their center, from “Testament of Youth†to “Trainwreck.†And while those films have been hits, with “Pitch Perfect 2†and “Spy†becoming legitimate blockbusters, leave it to Channing Tatum to teach us the summer’s most valuable lesson so far .
It’s Tatum who leads the spray-tanned, manscaped and otherwise terribly fine troupe of male dancers in “Magic Mike XXL,†this week’s deliriously decadent followup to the 2012 surprise summer hit “Magic Mike.†As storytelling, the sequel hews to the hackneyed contours of road-picture-meets-let’s-put-on-a-show musical. But as a depiction of male identity and relationships, it’s a fascinating, forward-thinking reflection of its moment.
Tatum and his pals make their livings taking off their clothes while female audience members throw sweaty dollar bills, a cut-and-dried transaction that “Magic Mike XXL†portrays as something more political and profound: As the ab-tastic band makes its way across the American South, it’s clear that they see themselves less as strippers than as mendicant priests, carefully listening to what women want and then obliging with pumping, thrusting, laser-like attention.
But the most revolutionary scene in †œMagic Mike XXL†has less to do with its feminist attitude toward women â€" which has a tendency to feel patronizing and condescending â€" than its flip side: the widening of men’s emotional lexicon. It’s when Joe Manganiello performs a salacious solo in a gas station mini-mart for the benefit of a bored store clerk. She barely looks up from her phone, but outside Manganiello’s fellow Kings of Tampa look on admiringly, cheering on his lascivious moves with delighted solidarity. Whether they’re plucking their eyebrows, admiring one another’s ample physiques or, as Tatum does at one point, discussing their inner drag queens, the boys of “Magic Mike XXL†are securely and unapologetically in touch with their feminine sides, which they clearly perceive as necessary for a well-rounded emotional life.
James Marsden, left, and Jack Black in “The D Train.†(Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/IFC Films)
Adam Scott, left, and Taylor Schilling in “The Overnight.†(John Guleserian/AP)
In “Magic Mike XXL,†behavior that might once have been parodied as a homophobic burlesque is forthrightly portrayed as a force for honesty and deep relationships. Similarly, in such indie comedies as “The D Train,†starring Jack Black and James Marsden, and “The Overnight,†with Adam Scott and Jason Schwartzman, scenarios that might once have been played for cheap, gay-panic laughs are presented as opportunities for growth, discovery and genuine intimacy. This could mark a trend, as the Hollywood Reporter recently wrote, of the new “stromo†career path â€" that is, straight actors who embrace LGBT roles and audiences on-screen and off. Heterosexual, it seems, does not have to mean heteronormative.
Whether that expansive attitude toward male sexuality and friendship is a matter of novelty, strategy or simple artistic instinct, it feels far more of the moment than how men fare in the summer’s more prominent misfires. Both “Entourage†and “Ted 2†failed to meet expectations at the box office, perhaps because they felt so creakily reactionary: In one, a spoiled actor and his pals party and pout their way through Los Angeles in a bubble of testosterone and entitlement; in the other, a foul-mouth teddy bear voiced by Seth MacFarlane asks for the audience’s sympathy as he fights a civil rights case to be considered a person, and to marry whomever he wants. All the while, he’s casually dropping facile one-liners about black men’s sexuality and whether it’s better to use the term “gays†or “homos.â€
In a case of can’t-make-this-up timing, just as “Ted 2†was opening, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision granting marriage equality for same-sex couples. That means that while Tatum takes his inner drag queen out for a strut, his co-star Matt Bomer and his husband, Simon Halls, can find newfound ease in the knowledge that their union is legally recognized in every state where “Magic Mike XXL†is playing. With luck, it won’t just be the electrifying dance moves making it rain this weekend, but the cheering sight of Tatum and his bros’ exploding notions of masculinity that have long been in need of a reboot.
Rating: 100% based on 975 ratings. 91 user reviews.
0 Comments
