Call it a “cultural reset” or a “vibe shift,” but there’s no denying that there is before “Magic Mike” and there’s after “Magic Mike.” One can even point to a specific inflection point in Steven Soderbergh’s 2012 male stripper drama that was lightly culled from star Channing Tatum’s own experiences in an “all-male revue”: the scene in which Tatum, as the aforementioned Mike, performs a solo number to Ginuwine’s “Pony” as Cody Horn’s Brooke looks on from the crowd. It’s not just the hypnotic fluidity of Tatum’s hips and torso, but the way that Soderbergh cuts back to Brooke, our gaze becoming her gaze, her frown offering dramatic irony to the visual splendor that is Tatum’s body in motion.
The scene is directly referenced in the sequel, “Magic Mike XXL,” in which Joe Manganiello dances in a gas station while trying to inspire the stone-faced clerk to crack. These two scenes offer a unifying theory of what these films are trying to achieve: making women smile. With “Magic Mike,” Soderbergh allowed the female gaze to take center stage, and with his indie auteur brand name, he also made it cool for the straight film bros to get in on the fun too.
“Magic Mike” is a movie about male strippers, but it’s also a post-recession financial drama about sex and nihilism and how labor and identity are inextricably linked. 2015’s ‘XXL,’ also written by “Magic Mike” writer Reid Carolin, but directed by Gregory Jacobs, jettisoned the socioeconomic themes for feminism, putting female pleasure front and center as the boys went on the road on a tour of private shows featuring a bombastic bonanza of bods.
