A question about Magic Mike

I was asked to write a review for Magic Mike, so Jen and I went to see it last night. We arrived at 7:00 p.m., and were promptly informed that the next four showings were sold out. So we decided to come back for the 10:00 p.m. showing. We returned at 9:10.

When we got there, the lobby was packed. Hundreds of women were jostling in line, and I spoke to several who had formed a group of their friends to come see the movie as a girls-night-out. When the movie began, there were whoops and cheers. Dozens of times during the film, an audience member would catcall or shout out a suggestion that the actors "lose the pants" or "show us the goods" (both direct quotes). During scenes that didn't involve oiled beefcake cavorting to dubstep, people complained aloud that the movie needed to "get back to the good stuff". All of these yells and suggestions were viewed with general approval.

Am I wrong that this makes me slightly uncomfortable? If a group of men in an office environment were to loudly proclaim that they were organizing a Showgirls viewing party, and couldn't wait to see all that flesh on display, the reaction would be generally negative. At best, they would be accused of objectifying women, at worst, a potential HR issue. If men yell out in theaters for a girl to show her breasts, we're disgusted.

I believe in women's rights, completely and absolutely. I think behavior that marginalizes or objectifies women as sex objects is unacceptable, and while I've certainly been guilty of it at times, I don't consider it something to be proud of. So why is it okay in the other direction?

I tried to make this argument yesterday at work as there was a group of about 20 women from our department organizing a viewing. I don't know why it's considered acceptable one way and not the other.

First off, that's not an office environment. You said it yourself, it was girls-night-out. Compare those girls to the guys who head for a strip club after work.

I'll turn the question back to you, why is going to a strip club acceptable (or the guy who very audibly appreciated Scarlett Johansen in a showing of Avengers I went to), but them acting like that in a movie about male strippers not okay.

Second off, I personally don't consider it okay in either direction. But that's my personal thing.

momgamer wrote:

I'll turn the question back to you, why is going to a strip club acceptable (or the guy who very audibly appreciated Scarlett Johansen in a showing of Avengers I went to), but them acting like that in a movie about male strippers not okay.

I agree completely. But to give you an example, at an old job of mine, four salesmen were written up for discussing their plans to go to a strip club during a work meeting. They were told that behavior was unacceptable and ran the risk of offending some of their female coworkers. In my new office, there was a sign-up sheet circulated and posted in the break room that asked who wanted a night out to see Channing Tatum without a shirt. One of the signatures on there was the second-highest ranked member of our HR department.

Sexy characters seem to be a bit of a recurring topic recently.

As an alternate angle on this I was thinking about after looking at the gamasutra article about the 'male gaze' that's currently weighing in with 216 comments, I wonder while the pursuit of a perfect world, a fair world, an unbiased world is admirable, at what point do we stop wringing our hands and feeling sorry for ourselves and others and accept a certain amount of imperfection, unfairness and bias in the world?

I know that's probably a bad place to go in a discussion, avoiding the point a bit, or trying to make excuses or diversions, or whatever, but as much as I don't want to advocate it being okay for extreme violence, female/male eyecandy in media, etc, I feel uneasy about where it goes in the other extreme, presumably with perfect but imperfect characters being depicted that are some unreachable balance between sexy and not sexy, that is an unwritten prerequisite so that you can take the character seriously. The world isn't perfect, so I feel attempts trying to make it, or fictional depictions of it, perfect are misguided.

It seems easy to point at Lara Croft, Miranda Lawson or the character Channing Tatum plays and say "that's bad", but I'm not sure people have thought about the direction you would go in the other extreme. As someone not educated in art, I'd say you exclude 'colours from your palette' to your detriment, they're there to be used, some pictures you're going to paint with lots of extremes, some with no extremes, and other pictures with a mixture.

I think that's probably past the point where I should have stopped, so I'll stop now.

edit: Actually, another point.

How much of this isn't so much about the content being made, as it is about the audience reaction to that content? The gamasutra article talks about using the male gaze, intentionally or not, to get people to consume your content, whether the consumer changes their decision because of the how the characters looks intentionally or not. Should people who make media be thinking about their audience this way, and if they are is that really something to avoid, and should they avoid it in all circumstances?

trichy wrote:

Am I wrong that this makes me slightly uncomfortable? If a group of men in an office environment were to loudly proclaim that they were organizing a Showgirls viewing party, and couldn't wait to see all that flesh on display, the reaction would be generally negative. At best, they would be accused of objectifying women, at worst, a potential HR issue. If men yell out in theaters for a girl to show her breasts, we're disgusted.

I believe in women's rights, completely and absolutely. I think behavior that marginalizes or objectifies women as sex objects is unacceptable, and while I've certainly been guilty of it at times, I don't consider it something to be proud of. So why is it okay in the other direction?

You're not wrong that it makes you slightly uncomfortable, but realize that's all it makes you: slightly uncomfortable. It's okay in the other direction because it doesn't really go all that far in the other direction.

Also, HR isn't worried about Magic Mike the way they are worried about talk of a strip club because the chances of a guy suing for workplace discrimination that would involve talk of Channing Tatum without a shirt as evidence of that discrimination is basically zilch.

momgamer wrote:

I'll turn the question back to you, why is going to a strip club acceptable (or the guy who very audibly appreciated Scarlett Johansen in a showing of Avengers I went to), but them acting like that in a movie about male strippers not okay.

Because I paid ten damn dollars and don't need people hollering over the dialogue so I can follow the horrid plot? Not really germane to the sexism thing, but still. C'mon.

Movies like Magic Mike are fine. People who self-identify as cat-calling morons who want to make a show of how ignorantly they wish to lean into the whole "whooo look at me I'm obnoxious and that means I'm empowered!" bit make it easier for me to pick out who to ignore.

On the serious tip - are we comparing strip clubs to movie theaters? Doesn't that sound a little weird? Not a loaded question, it just tripped me a little. The comparison with the "guy who very audibly appreciated Scarlett Johansen" is actually somewhat telling, too. This is a whole theater of women losing their damned minds not because of much more than they want to be seen losing their minds unabashedly over this, cuz you can't tell them what to do! And it's a weird phenomenon. A theater full of men doing this would be considered freakish and disgusting.

I mean, there's very definitely a double standard, but that's not news.

momgamer wrote:

First off, that's not an office environment. You said it yourself, it was girls-night-out. Compare those girls to the guys who head for a strip club after work..

It was a cinema, though. Leaving aside the issues of strip clubs or performances aimed at either sex, that's completely inappropriate behaviour for anyone seeing a film. If a group of men were shouting comments like that when I was trying to watch a film, I'd go and get the manager.

spider_j wrote:
momgamer wrote:

First off, that's not an office environment. You said it yourself, it was girls-night-out. Compare those girls to the guys who head for a strip club after work..

It was a cinema, though. Leaving aside the issues of strip clubs or performances aimed at either sex, that's completely inappropriate behaviour for anyone seeing a film. If a group of men were shouting comments like that when I was trying to watch a film, I'd go and get the manager.

Although another issue, that reminds me of the "Twilight Moms" picture that was doing the rounds on the internet a while back, with the caption that if the genders were reversed everyone would find it creepy and they'd be arrested. I think I'm being pragmatic and not cynical by saying it's one thing to recognise that "it's wrong", but it's quite another to effect change and have perfect gender equality (which then bleeds into the issues of whether it's good to see the two sexes as the same when they're not, and gender blindness, etc.).

The problem of people being assholes will be ever present though. If you want to talk during a film then watch it at home, cinema doesn't need audience participation.

momgamer wrote:

First off, that's not an office environment. You said it yourself, it was girls-night-out. Compare those girls to the guys who head for a strip club after work.

I'll turn the question back to you, why is going to a strip club acceptable (or the guy who very audibly appreciated Scarlett Johansen in a showing of Avengers I went to), but them acting like that in a movie about male strippers not okay.

Second off, I personally don't consider it okay in either direction. But that's my personal thing.

I'll just go ahead and say I've never been to a strip club as I find it pretty sleazy.

All the training I've ever had about this sort of thing says that if you or anyone feels that this presents a hostile work environment, it IS unacceptable and constitutes an HR violation. That would absolutely NOT be allowed in my current workplace.

As someone who has never had a perfect six pack, I just want to say that this is another example of society's continued bigotry against guys without perfect abs. I demand a boycott and a six-figure settlement against Channing Tatutm.

In all seriousness, I think there are two different issues going on here. If your female coworkers are being overtly sexual and making you uncomfortable, you have every right to tell them to stop. As far as people behaving badly at movie theaters, unfortunately that comes with the territory nowadays. I used to go to the movies every few weeks and saw all kinds of rude behavior, from the three rows of teens constantly yakking and throwing popcorn at each other throughout the movie to the dad who brought his 4-year-old to frigging Hostel 2 and then tried to calm her down as she proceeded to wig out. In both these cases I alerted an usher who just shrugged and told me there was nothing he could do. It was obvious in the case of the teens that the theater would rather lose the one 30-something's business than risk making a whole group of teens (their bread and butter) mad.

momgamer wrote:

First off, that's not an office environment. You said it yourself, it was girls-night-out. Compare those girls to the guys who head for a strip club after work.

I'll turn the question back to you, why is going to a strip club acceptable (or the guy who very audibly appreciated Scarlett Johansen in a showing of Avengers I went to), but them acting like that in a movie about male strippers not okay.

Second off, I personally don't consider it okay in either direction. But that's my personal thing.

Men don't tend to talk about being objectified the same way women do, i think that's a big difference.

personally, i don't think going to a strip club is acceptable, i don't think porn is acceptable but i'm kind of a fuddy duddy.

jdzappa wrote:

As far as people behaving badly at movie theaters, unfortunately that comes with the territory nowadays. I used to go to the movies every few weeks and saw all kinds of rude behavior, from the three rows of teens constantly yakking and throwing popcorn at each other throughout the movie to the dad who brought his 4-year-old to frigging Hostel 2 and then tried to calm her down as she proceeded to wig out. In both these cases I alerted an usher who just shrugged and told me there was nothing he could do. It was obvious in the case of the teens that the theater would rather lose the one 30-something's business than risk making a whole group of teens (their bread and butter) mad.

I feel like this is off-topic for this thread, but this kind of behavior is why I tend to prefer theaters I can trust to police their own spaces, like Studio Movie Grill (and Alamo Drafthouse, once those are built). That said, I've been to other theaters and haven't seen it. There's enough people complaining about it that I believe that it happens, but I've never experienced it personally. (Not that I go to movies that often.)

Gremlin wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

As far as people behaving badly at movie theaters, unfortunately that comes with the territory nowadays. I used to go to the movies every few weeks and saw all kinds of rude behavior, from the three rows of teens constantly yakking and throwing popcorn at each other throughout the movie to the dad who brought his 4-year-old to frigging Hostel 2 and then tried to calm her down as she proceeded to wig out. In both these cases I alerted an usher who just shrugged and told me there was nothing he could do. It was obvious in the case of the teens that the theater would rather lose the one 30-something's business than risk making a whole group of teens (their bread and butter) mad.

I feel like this is off-topic for this thread, but this kind of behavior is why I tend to prefer theaters I can trust to police their own spaces, like Studio Movie Grill (and Alamo Drafthouse, once those are built). That said, I've been to other theaters and haven't seen it. There's enough people complaining about it that I believe that it happens, but I've never experienced it personally. (Not that I go to movies that often.)

Yeah I've never had a problem at some of the nicer arthouse theaters, but the big box ones don't seem to care unless you're being outrageous. I wasn't a dad at the time of the Hostel event, but if I were I would have gotten in that guy's face for being an idiot.

Long story short, maybe I'm just getting older but it does feel like people are willing to be far more rude in public spaces like movie theaters.

Just a note of agreement that I also don't see "go to strip club" and "go see a movie at a theater" as even loosely equivalent, no matter how much skin is showing in the movie.

trichy wrote:

I was asked to write a review for Magic Mike, so Jen and I went to see it last night. We arrived at 7:00 p.m., and were promptly informed that the next four showings were sold out. So we decided to come back for the 10:00 p.m. showing. We returned at 9:10.

When we got there, the lobby was packed. Hundreds of women were jostling in line, and I spoke to several who had formed a group of their friends to come see the movie as a girls-night-out. When the movie began, there were whoops and cheers. Dozens of times during the film, an audience member would catcall or shout out a suggestion that the actors "lose the pants" or "show us the goods" (both direct quotes). During scenes that didn't involve oiled beefcake cavorting to dubstep, people complained aloud that the movie needed to "get back to the good stuff". All of these yells and suggestions were viewed with general approval.

Am I wrong that this makes me slightly uncomfortable? If a group of men in an office environment were to loudly proclaim that they were organizing a Showgirls viewing party, and couldn't wait to see all that flesh on display, the reaction would be generally negative. At best, they would be accused of objectifying women, at worst, a potential HR issue. If men yell out in theaters for a girl to show her breasts, we're disgusted.

I believe in women's rights, completely and absolutely. I think behavior that marginalizes or objectifies women as sex objects is unacceptable, and while I've certainly been guilty of it at times, I don't consider it something to be proud of. So why is it okay in the other direction?

Mrs. 93_Confirmed has a question: "So...was it good?"

She LOVES Channing Tatum ans has been dying to see this.

trichy wrote:
momgamer wrote:

I'll turn the question back to you, why is going to a strip club acceptable (or the guy who very audibly appreciated Scarlett Johansen in a showing of Avengers I went to), but them acting like that in a movie about male strippers not okay.

I agree completely. But to give you an example, at an old job of mine, four salesmen were written up for discussing their plans to go to a strip club during a work meeting. They were told that behavior was unacceptable and ran the risk of offending some of their female coworkers. In my new office, there was a sign-up sheet circulated and posted in the break room that asked who wanted a night out to see Channing Tatum without a shirt. One of the signatures on there was the second-highest ranked member of our HR department.

I missed that part and I understand your first post as you comparing the behavior of these girls gone out on the town to your regular office. That's where my post came from (and I KNEW I shouldn't have posted when I was in a hurry). :blush:

And for what it's worth, I agree that the signup sheet is awkward at best. And if you wanted to discuss it with someone you would be well within your rights. But just as it was for me when I was confronted with the writhing groaner a few seats down in Avengers, you have to decide if you want to be the guy who brought it up. Especially since it sounds like you'd have to go straight to the top of HR to get someone who wasn't involved in it.

I'd like to voice a contrarian opinion. Disclaimer: not an American.

It seems to me that the direction of all these uncomfortable feelings is to cover up both sexes and to deny sexual attraction both ways. I feel that the ultimate direction of this would eventually be Victorian/formal Japanese. While I have been sexually harassed in the past, I don't feel uncomfortable or have any animosity towards women displaying sexuality by appreciating a sexy male body, in film or otherwise. It doesn't make me uncomfortable. Of course, tit for tat.

A certain amount of animal sexual objectification is unavoidable, in both directions. I'd argue that it's simply normal sexual response in a certain fraction of the population, and to ask them to suppress it would ultimately lead to more unhealthy or objectionable expressions. Let's have the animal sexual energy where we can keep an eye on it, I'd prefer.

There's a point where that sort of thing gets out of control, and it has to be fair to expect it to occur both ways. As a man, I have to be indulgent when the womenfolk go ape over Tatum in the same way that some of the menfolk like to see Spears (or whoever).

I confess that this is fundamentally emotional. I simply can't be bothered to care about this sort of thing since it's a rather far cry from unwanted fondling and caressing - I'd like to cast these latter behaviors as starkly unacceptable and intolerable as possible.

It is what it is. They have the right to do it. You have the right to be offended by it. Part of me wants to say, "welcome to their world."

trichy wrote:

I believe in women's rights, completely and absolutely. I think behavior that marginalizes or objectifies women as sex objects is unacceptable, and while I've certainly been guilty of it at times, I don't consider it something to be proud of. So why is it okay in the other direction?

It's not. People will act like sexist idiots from time to time, that's what people do. Doesn't mean it's sanctioned. Don't mistake people being people for a political movement being hypocritical.

Well, to be fair, though, Lobster, the message has been for a long time, to men, "you're not supposed to do that". And many men ignored that message, and did it anyway, causing much consternation and scorn from women's groups.

But then, lo and behold, here women are grabbing with both hands at the chance to do the same thing, which rather undercuts the message that the original behavior was bad.

Malor wrote:

Well, to be fair, though, Lobster, the message has been for a long time, to men, "you're not supposed to do that". And many men ignored that message, and did it anyway, causing much consternation and scorn from women's groups.

But then, lo and behold, here women are grabbing with both hands at the chance to do the same thing, which rather undercuts the message that the original behavior was bad.

It's not like all women are in a group with regular meetings and agree on all things.

Yellek wrote:

It's not like all women are in a group with regular meetings and agree on all things.

Although in high school, I was fairly certain they had met and agreed to not go out with me as a whole.

trichy wrote:
Yellek wrote:

It's not like all women are in a group with regular meetings and agree on all things.

Although in high school, I was fairly certain they had met and agreed to not go out with me as a whole.

You too? I just lucked out that the local chapter in Taiwan missed that meeting.

Malor wrote:

Well, to be fair, though, Lobster, the message has been for a long time, to men, "you're not supposed to do that". And many men ignored that message, and did it anyway, causing much consternation and scorn from women's groups.

But then, lo and behold, here women are grabbing with both hands at the chance to do the same thing, which rather undercuts the message that the original behavior was bad.

You know the old saying, "only the wronged can forgive?" I haven't been wronged. When we're dealing with individuals, I guess I don't really feel right saying, "we've had our turn, now you can't have yours." And like Yellek says, these are individual women. They are not avatars of the entire feminist movement. Their actions represent those of individuals, and the perils of true individual freedom and equality include being able to use those things in a way that others find distasteful.

I'm all for equality and mutual respect but I don't feel I have the authority, moral or otherwise, to demand it.

#1 - Magic Mike is an entertaining movie that's actually a little more interesting than you might think. So the women squealing in the theater are kind of missing the point.

#2 - I get the impression from this and other similar observed behaviors that there's a bit of the "it's the ladies turn" attitude with stuff like this. When I was leaving the movie on Saturday the theater owner asked "Did you ladies have fun?" with a creepy / pandering tone in his voice. I think that society has become so rife with examples of women being exploited that it's only natural that *some* women (not all, some) might get giddy at the opportunity to turn the tables.

In summary, this is definitely not okay in an office, but I get why there might be a double-standard in public. In a way it's kind of sad. The movie is ok. It's interesting and once again Soderbergh does a good job dealing with the interesting relationship between people who earn their money the "right" way and people who earn their money the "wrong" way. I've always thought he explored this turf well in previous movies and this is no different.

I'm not sure exactly how to phrase this without getting jumped on, but when did it become wrong to gaze at someone you find attractive?

There seems to be this uneasy balance between us being sexual animals looking for a mate (again, for want of a better way to phrase it), and that we're supposed to rise above it and suppress that. It seems like it's getting lost in the details, a 'professional' work environment where apparently everyone turns off a few sections of their brain 9-5, history, and some idea of balance and fairness. What's the officially sanctioned way and premitted locations to express attraction?

Scratched wrote:

I'm not sure exactly how to phrase this without getting jumped on, but when did it become wrong to gaze at someone you find attractive?

There seems to be this uneasy balance between us being sexual animals looking for a mate (again, for want of a better way to phrase it), and that we're supposed to rise above it and suppress that. It seems like it's getting lost in the details, a 'professional' work environment where apparently everyone turns off a few sections of their brain 9-5, history, and some idea of balance and fairness. What's the officially sanctioned way and premitted locations to express attraction?

I'm with you by and large. I know "Brave New World" is supposed to be a nightmare dystopia and the part where romance and "love" disappear from the world is really poignant and sad. But I really liked the concept of society getting to a point where we "got over" our hangups and accepted the biology and let it seep into society as a natural thing.

I don't think its the gazing. I think its the office "planning" involved in seeing the show.

If a male second in command of HR at a company posted a list for a guys night out to see Demi Moore take her top off in Striptease, that would be a HR violation.

I think the double standard exists because the majority of men don't feel threatened by this objectification of men and it is not as prolific as when men do it to women.

I think it is a case of what comes after or how far does the thought process continue?

Scratched wrote:

I'm not sure exactly how to phrase this without getting jumped on, but when did it become wrong to gaze at someone you find attractive?

I don't think it is. I wanted to react to some of the things that came up in that article you posted earlier, but I didn't think this thread was the right place and the conversation had moved on, but I do think...gah, I've rewritten this sentence several times now. Cutting to the point: it's not wrong, and there's a growing group reacting to games who show misogyny from the other end of the spectrum. Like I said, that may need a whole separate thread.

For this thread, I do think any R rated movie you care to name doesn't compare to a strip club. The wider issue, yeah, there's a double standard that's deep and complex.