Magic Mike
Comedy/Drama
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Written by Reid Carolin
Starring: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Olivia Munn
My Rating: 6.4/10
Plot: A male stripper teaches a younger performer how to party, pick up women, and make easy money.
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
TOPIC: MAGIC MIKE AND THE MALE/FEMALE GAZE?
“The Gaze can be motivated by the subject’s desire to control the object it sees, and an object that can likewise capture and hold the subject’s eye… The gaze in this case is a relationship and not something that can be performed. A person who determines a sense of themselves as an individual element in the world makes up the idea of the gaze.” – Wikipedia
Feminist film theory basically posits that females in films are seen as objects of sexual desire, and are thus subject to male perspectives on women. That is, women are not responsible for how they are portrayed and perceived in film – thus they are not represented realistically.
Last week, I went to watch the film Magic Mike. If you’re not sure what film that is – it’s that one that all the women in your life have been talking about – you know, the one with all the male strippers, including Channing ‘grate-cheese-on-my-abs’ Tatum.
Thinking about feminist theory, I wondered – how does a feminist read Magic Mike? The basic concept of the entire film is women, looking at men, and sexually objectifying them. None of the film’s (majority female) audience fooled themselves into thinking that they were watching this film for the story line, and it’s deep and meaningful conclusions about life (although the film did try to do that).
Several minutes in, the audience was expecting some serious skin to be shown, when the scene was suddenly cut – whereupon one female audience member loudly ‘awwww’ed in disappointment, to which everyone in the cinema laughed.
So, this blog post will look at the general over-arching ideas presented by Laura Mulvey, one of the most well known feminist theory academics in film, and her concept of ‘the male gaze’.
Laura Mulvey: women are the “bearer of meaning, not [the] maker of meaning.”
Although there are only two women in the entire film that appear several times, this idea of woman as “bearer of meaning” is evident in Magic Mike. Firstly, is the fact that I actually had to IMDb their character’s names – it’s Brooke (Cody Horn) and Joanna (Olivia Munn). During the film, I basically just knew them as Adam’s (Alex Pettyfer) sister, and Mike’s (Channing Tatum) hook-up buddy. They weren’t characters in themselves; they were just ‘meaning bearers’, I knew them according to their relationships with the male characters. Brooke represented the kind of woman you settle down with (as Mike eventually does in the end)– responsible, witty, quiet, smart, etc. Whilst Joanna is the opposite, she represents the part of the story where Mike is caught up in his stripper lifestyle of drinks, parties, women, and sex. And there Joanna is, the meaningless, dependable booty call. I didn’t see them as Brooke and Joanna. I saw them as their meanings. They weren’t characters in themselves, but rather, they were phases in the male protagonists’ lives.
Laura Mulvey: “the cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking.”
Mulvey’s idea of “pleasurable looking” applies in everything in this movie really. I mean, the movie is about male strippers, played by actors who already have world-wide fame as desirable men by women all around the globe. And the majority of audiences are really only going to see the film because they are A) they are female and B) It’s Channing Tatum. Shirtless. And a stripper.
Laura Mulvey: 3 looks that objectify women
1) male character on screen/how he perceives female characters
2) how the spectator sees the female character on screen
3) combination of 1 and 2 – male audience member’s perspective of male character in film – can objectify woman b/c identifies with male
Mulvey’s three categories of “looks” or “gazes” is what particularly interests me in terms of Magic Mike. Mulvey’s first idea is the male character and how he sees his fellow female characters. Joanna – the go-to-girl for non-committal sex late at night, who was studying at university, doing something academic, like Psychology (Mike never really remembered). Mike saw Brooke as the smart, shy, and well-behaved sister of Adam, who was cute in a bikini, but obviously the kind of girl you take on dates.
The second “look” is how the spectators see the characters. Well, the men are seen as entertaining and lively characters that are active in their own lives. The women meanwhile are side characters who are just along for the ride. They are invited to come along to functions, they move according to the men’s wishes, they look after them, etc.
This characterization (or lack-thereof) leads to Mulvey’s third point – that is, because they audiences identify with male protagonists much easier, they see the female characters from the viewpoint of the male characters. Thus objectifying women. This applies to female audience members too, unfortunately.
Are there any other females here feeling a little bit cheated by Hollywood, and the fact that we are so easily manipulated to objectify our fellow woman?
On a side note – we did sit next to a row of five guys… In a movie… About male strippers… So interpret that how you will.
REFERENCES/RELATED SOURCES/FURTHER READING
i screen, you screen. we all screen! 
Magic Mike isn’t the cream of the crop, but the typically male misogynist Hollywood producer likes it. Alec Baldwin is apparently making a doco on the impoverished state of movies. HBO TV is better
Do you happen to know what this doco is going to be called and when it’ll be released? I’d like to check it out.
And yes, HBO TV is amazing.