You know that look a straight guy gets on his face when he’s sitting on a department store couch waiting for his girlfriend to finish up whatever the hell it is she’s doing? I saw that look on four miserable faces tonight. If I’d borrowed my fiancée’s make-up mirror, I would have seen it on a fifth too. Surrounded by seventy-five or eighty women, we five straight dudes occasionally glanced at each other with expressions of annoyed solidarity and waited for the awkwardness of Magic Mike to begin.
It got even worse when I was standing in line to get Bunch A Crunch-- two couples behind me began talking about how the guys were going to see Ted and the girls Magic Mike. Naturally, I was fucking pissed. These women didn’t even seem miffed at all. Their boyfriend were shirking their duty, and here I was, about to watch Matthew McConaughey show me his ass.
Little did I know it was those shirking boyfriends who got the short end of the stick. It turns out Magic Mike is awesome. It doesn’t even need a qualifier saying it’s awesome for a movie about male strippers. It’s just flat out awesome. I may not have enjoyed it in the same way as the screaming women alongside me in the packed theater, but I found dozens of moments to laugh and smile. If you’re a straight guy and you don’t go see this film, you’re not a clever bastard who successfully bartered with his girlfriend, you’re a dumbass who made the wrong decision.
Here’s five reasons why every straight man will love Magic Mike…
It’s Told From A Male Perspective
The majority of theatergoers who see Magic Mike will undoubtedly be women, but the film isn’t told from the perspective of those lusting ladies. It’s seen through the eyes of Magic Mike, and Magic Mike is a dude’s dude. He sees the world through a masculine lens, and his viewpoint is very relatable to men. His interests include meeting the right woman, making as much money as possible and having the occasional threesome. He wants what most straight guys want. He just happens to have a weird job that requires him to buy thongs and pick up screaming women while they’re sitting in chairs. Sure, you’re going to have to watch him dance and gyrate a few times, but most guys will likely be more impressed by his ability to captivate chicks than weirded out by his lack of clothing.
Wrestling Legend Kevin Nash Has A Big Role
If you didn’t watch wrestling as a ten-year-old, first of all, you missed out and second of all, you can skip on to the next paragraph. It’s about to get real nerdy up in here. For those of us who did watch classic WWF/ WCW, Diesel/ Kevin Nash is now an actor. He’s appeared in films like Grandma’s Boy and Rock Of Ages over the past few years, but in Magic Mike, he’s finally given a chance to shine. He might not be the best dancer, but he still plays effortlessly cool as well as he did when he left Wrestlemania XI with Pam Anderson and Jenny McCarthy on his arms and later, when he founded the nWo. It’s great to see he’s still kicking ass and in far better shape, mentally and physically, than most of his fellow wrestlers.
The Humor Is Raunchy
“How pregnant did you get that girl’s mouth last night?” That’s a pretty good example of how the guys in Magic Mike interact with each other. They sell the idea of sex for a living, and in their personal lives, they take as much of it as they can for free. As humor goes, Magic Mike has far more in common with The Hangover than a standard romantic comedy. The stars are well aware of how ridiculous their lives are, and they don’t pull any punches in ripping on each other or audience members. Jokes are made about the perils of picking up chubby women, the danger of herpes and the awkwardness of not knowing the names of ladies they just bedded. There’s also an incredible amount of shot-pounding and plenty of what-the-hell-happened-last-night mornings.
There Is Less Male Nudity And More Female Nudity Than You’d Expect
Plenty of dudes I know have been dissuaded from seeing this movie because they don’t want to watch naked men prance around for two hours. Spoiler alert: you’re going to see some naked dudes if you watch Magic Mike, but it’s not as if there’s junk swinging in and out of every frame. Most of the stripping scenes are relatively short, and they don’t feature many gratuitous zoom-in-shots. What the movie actually does feature is plenty of disrobed ladies. There’s boobs in the opening scene, and they definitely aren’t the only ones found throughout the film. Magic Mike is more a movie about the stripping lifestyle than it is about men stripping, and while that lifestyle involves some thongs, it’s not as rampant or gender-biased as you might expect.
It’s A Really Good Movie
I’m not going to lie and say Magic Mike is the best film you’ll see this year, but it’s pretty damn good. Soderbergh’s direction is wonderful. The almost two hour runtime doesn’t drag in the least, and the acting convinces you to emotionally invest in the characters’ lives. If you’re the type of person who likes seeing the better movies that come out each year, you should want to see Magic Mike. You shouldn’t care about whether you’ll have to sit through a few stripping scenes. You should care about whether you’re missing out, and if you ignore this one to maintain some dude cred, you’ll wind up being the one who regrets it. Trust me. I wanted no part of this yesterday, and now, I’m elated I followed my fiancee’s advice. You should do the same.
