Magic Mike Turns Regular Mike | Jan Lubaczewski

Right Now, Wrong Then

Magic Mike Turns Regular Mike

On the eve of the premiere of the third instalment of the Magic Mike franchise, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, I want to take a look at the first part of the trilogy, which to me seems one of the most exciting films of the last decade in popular cinema. Even though Magic Mike XXL is a dreadful sequel, and I’m not even considering seeing the third one, there is something about the first Magic Mike film that grasps the idea of modern American culture in a way comparable to one film only, namely Spring Breakers (2012) by Harmony Korine.

Released in the same year, both were made independently, and both were advertised as a pop cultural spectacle that turned out to be something else altogether. Korine’s film promised a Disney-princesses-in-bikinisbeing-naughty show, but it disappointed the audiences with a slow-paced art-house commentary on modern culture. An hourand-a-half music video that used the language of popular culture to talk about the taste of its audience did not meet the viewers’ expectations. Spring Breakers is a masterpiece designed to be rejected, so it’s no surprise that audiences worldwide felt in a way betrayed.

Magic Mike is a different story. The film was a huge success (you can probably guess why), while telling a story of solitude, desperation, and disappointment in the American lifestyle. Mike (Channing Tatum) is a construction worker by day and a male stripper at Xquisite Strip Club in Tampa, Florida by night. He dreams of having his own business one day. He meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a young man who’s about to learn the ropes of the stripping business. The story is semi-autobiographical and seems quite personal for both Tatum and Steven Soderbergh, the director. For one, Tatum worked as a stripper at the age of 19. They produced the film on their own, and Soderbergh’s lifelong fascination with his characters’ disillusion and economic struggle is visible throughout the film.

At first, it seems that the whole point of the movie is dancing. While admiring the music and casting choices, I couldn’t help but notice that there is something fundamentally wrong with how the dancing scenes are shot. Only after rewatching the film, I realized what it was. The music in these scenes is always played on the set. It’s a very deliberate choice, since it stands in opposition to all other scenes where music is added in the post-production. The stripping in Magic Mike mirrors the inner state of Mike himself. Sure, it adds to the naturalistic atmosphere and it makes the audience feel even more privy to a stripper’s life, but more importantly, it makes you realize and simply feel how artificial their job is.

It seems that Mike is lost not because of his occupation. He’s lost because he believes in the idea of his job actually improving his existence. Searching for a new way of life, Mike only succumbs to old habits, assuming that a bigger venue and equity will bring him closer to his dream. That’s why watching the end of Magic Mike is always painful. The change in Mike not only doesn’t bring him closer to his dream – it virtually makes the dream impossible. The promise of love becomes the point, but the search for Mike’s identity has only just started.

The opening sequence of Magic Mike is spectacular. Matthew McConaughey’s “What Can You Touch And Not Touch” scene makes the audience understand that we can look at the bodies of the performers, but do we dare to break the rules and touch them? The beginning invites us into the world of Magic Mike which we are merely observing and which we think we cannot touch. By the end, the lesson is learned, Mike doesn’t belong in this world, and we don’t even feel like looking anymore. Mike is a reflection of his audience: you can’t help but observe. But can you touch this?