Magic Mike Spawns Mama-Melting Mania

 Matt Bomer and Channing Tatum

"Your body is ... not that I've studied this picture at all, so smooth and shiny," Kelly Ripa fawned.

"It's not braille, stop rubbing your hand all over it," co-host Seth Meyers interjected.

From there, Ripa started talking to the picture, telling it, "I love you! I love you Matt Bomer!" 

 Finally, holding the photo against her breast, Ripa jokingly continued, "And I will nurse you...”

Kelly Ripa speaking of Matt Bomer on “Live! With Kelly”

What is the #1 task topping most women’s summer to-do list? It is a simple pleasure of watching a movie, perhaps for many gals, watching a particularly pleasing movie over and over... and over.

Is it a beautiful love story that has caused this feminine commotion? Is it a true life story based on strong family values and unfailing love? Wrong. Perhaps it's a movie exploring the recent 50 Shades of Grey interest in love, submission and BDSM? Nope, but you're on the right track with considering the subject of female erotica.

Ladies say they can't wait to see the scorching “hot” flick Magic Mike.

Magic Mike is a drama that follows an upstart male stripper (Alex Pettyfer) who is mentored by a veteran dancer, played by Channing Tatum. And all the girlish frenzy is about the sexy bodies and suggestive moves of the movie's male strippers.

Here is the official trailer that has caused all the commotion.




Well, now that Magic Mike is finally in town and females of all ages are stampeding to the local cimema, the countdown is over and ecstasy is in full swing. Matthew McConaughey, Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Joe Manganiello and Matt Bomer play firemen, cops and other exaggerated versions of hyper-masculine characters in this Steven Soderbergh film.

Reportedly, Channing Tatum leaves little to the imagination in this stripper movie, which features the actor taking it off and busting out some sexy dance moves.

Matthew McConaughey

Rated "F" For "Fun"

Soderbergh says the film is rated “just F for fun,” but he and his cast found making it "illuminating." For one, they discovered that “the role of fantasy for men and women is different,” the director said.

“If men have a fantasy, they spend more time thinking about how to make it happen than women do,” Soderbergh said. “Women come to the (strip) club, they do their two-hour thing and then they drop it. Men are not like that. There’s something behind it for them that they have to keep thinking about.”

"Women go with their friends, where men often go alone. Men dream of having some kind of relationship with the stripper," Soderbergh said, “but I don’t think any of (the women at clubs) look at these guys and go, ‘I’ll throw it all away for this person.’” (“Playing Male Strippers in ‘Magic Mike’ Illuminated Female Fantasy for Cast of Hollywood Hunks,” Associated Press, The Washington Post, June 28 2012)

An "Objectifying Lens For Men"?

Soderbergh claims he was drawn to the male-stripper story because it explored a world he hadn’t seen before, and its music and dancing made it “a good movie idea.” Channing Tatum, who really was a stripper when he was 18 and inspired the film’s concept, said he and screenwriter Reid Carolin wanted to put a cinematic spin on the weird world he had worked in and point an "objectifying lens at men, for once."

“In movies, generally if there’s a female role in it... a large part of the time, her power comes from her sexuality, and that has done something weird in society where women think their power is their sex, that their sexuality that is empowering them to be strong women, and that a complete falsity,”  Tatum said.

“For this (film), the women are the ones that are smart and have careers and are making good decisions for themselves, and the guys are the ones that are objectified and deriving power from sexuality,” Carolin said. “That makes them behave very flamboyantly and confidently, but they don’t have any real fulfillment out of that, and there’s this struggle to feel like they’re worth something outside of that.” (“Playing Male Strippers in ‘Magic Mike’ Illuminated Female Fantasy for Cast of Hollywood Hunks,” Associated Press, The Washington Post, June 28 2012)

My Bottom Line

In the case of Magic Mike, intellectualizing the themes of sexual empowerment and its falsities seems rather senseless. The real themes here are the exotic dance routines. The mass of man skin pushes the rating to the highest "R," and the gals are loving the bare content.

Joe Manganiello, cast as Big Dick Richie, has a firemen-themed strip routine in the movie.
"Everybody kinda does their own thing," he told the Los Angeles Times. "Big sexy Kevin Nash has his Tarzan thing, I've got my fireman thing, Matt Bomer's got a doctor thing going on, Adam Rodriguez does a Latino lover bit." (Kyle Buchanan, www.vulture.com, October 19 2011)

So, I think the girls are flocking to the cinema for the thrill of the porn and the fulfillment of personal fantasies. "Mommy porn" is making gigantic waves these days, and I expect to see much more of it before it becomes passe. The new openness of discovering the truth about female desire is catching fire. Women of all ages want to hold that edge of having a sexy appearance in a competitive world.

Male strippers certainly aren't new. For example, the popular Chippendales Male Dance Troupe has been around since 1979. In a world where "sexy" has become synonymous with "beautiful" and "handsome," we are used to things like nakedness and openly suggestive dance moves. Many people today consider the once racy as "hot" and appealingly attractive. Brawny, ripped "studs" and "hunks" certainly conjure pretty steamy sexual fantasies in 21st century women.

Magic Mike has huge appeal. Is it the stars or their bodies responsible for the great attraction? Perhaps part of the reason is that no longer will ladies get a "bad girl" reputation by liking and doing some of the shady things that most men have known as rites of passage or casual entertainment.

Many guys routinely venture to "titty" bars and watch pornographic movies without guilt. In fact, some males question the manhood of other men who lack the desire to delve into a little taste of ornery sexual content. In the past, women have largely viewed such behavior as exploitation of the gender and consider males who like pornography as lewd.


Maybe modern women see themselves as knocking down a double standard as they boldly open new doors blocking their complete sexual freedom. And, surely some are just curious. Whatever the reason, the gals feel its time to "look at" men exactly as men have long "looked at" them -- they feel comfortable viewing attractive men as sexual objects.

Rarely does a movie come out with the sole intent of getting every woman in the audience to cross their legs multiple times throughout the film. After all, women seldom get treated to movie scenes that appeal to their carnal side, let alone entire films that titillate their deepest female fantacies.
 
So, I believe Magic Mike is stirring the spicy pot of reality, and, by doing so, the film is allowing normal hot-blooded women to express openly some pretty steamy reactions. We men joke about girlfriends and wives intent on seeing the naked frames of actors like Matthew McConaughey and Channing Tatum, but we comfortably hold fond memories of oggling sex goddesses like Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot. I think the scales of what's acceptable "gentleman" and "lady" behaviors are becoming balanced: "You've come a long way, baby," still applies.


Yet, what scares me a little is that perhaps women want men to entertain them by making fools of themselves. You know - the "get back." So, guys, you're on your own if your girl wants you to learn the Magic Mike moves for her own private viewing. I am quite sure my wife will see the movie, but she would absolutely die laughing if I tried to imitate the strip dancing moves of the Hollywood hunks.

Here is what one female journalist, Lela Davidson, said about a single woman who eagerly anticipated her Magic Mike movie fantasy:

"Maybe my Facebook friend honestly swoons for McConaughey and the rest of this ensemble, with their pelvic propulsion, outlandish musculature and over-dependence on spray tans. However, I suspect she is just as misguided as the men who brought you Magic Mike as to what heterosexual women really find seductive. Either way, the cops and cowboys don't excite me. As a married mother of two, I really just want my husband to do what he knows I like, and then shut up so I can fantasize that he is somebody else.

"I promise it's not Magic Mike."

(Lela Davidson, "Why Magic Mike Doesn't Do It For Me," Huffington Post, June 28 2012)

The greatest lesson in all this hysteria over whataver makes Mike so magical can be summed up in one sentence. And, I believe it to be true. The greatest sex organ for either gender is the "B spot" -- the human brain. And even if you have a gigantic cerebral cortex, the "magic" is in how you use it.