Magic Mike

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by Micjones

I'm not sure anyone characterized it as "creepy". I think rather what you read were men saying "no thanks". Then it became a pissing match about how Soderbergh's work is such that we ought to overlook a bunch of men disrobing and gyrating.

I just don't understand why being okay with staring into Matthew McConaughey's bare chest is some measure of your being sexually enlightened.

I'm not saying I am sexually enlightened. You're projecting. All I'm saying is that I'm not made so uncomfortable by male bodies that I won't take a chance to see what this film has to say about the human experience.

My original post was in response to a post from Laz that said "doesn't matter what it is or who made it, it's still about men getting nekkid


why in hell would any straight guy want to see guys getting nekkid?"

I perceived a possible creep-out factor, so I posted about it. Laz said he wasn't weirded-out by it. I dropped it...until you started replying to me with various projections.

[Micjones]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

I'm not saying I am sexually enlightened. You're projecting. All I'm saying is that I'm not made so uncomfortable by male bodies that I won't take a chance to see what this film has to say about the human experience.

Reaper you're one of the few posters I respect here at ChiefsPlanet, but you're being intellectually dishonest.

The words "uninterested" and "uncomfortable" are not synonymous.

But to your point, let's suppose I am "uncomfortable"...
What, exactly, is the problem with a straight man being uncomfortable watching another man take his clothes off for the sole purpose of titillating?
We're not talking about the Michelangelo statue of David here. We're talking about men, in leather, grinding the air to turn someone on. Those are two entirely different things.

I perceived a possible creep-out factor, so I posted about it. Laz said he wasn't weirded-out by it. I dropped it...until you started replying to me with various projections.

I didn't intend to single you out. In fairness to you, other people expressed a similar idea. I just despise this notion that straight men ought to be comfortable in these hetero-questionable situations, where it concerns other men, as a measure of their being comfortable in their sexuality.

With respect, that's bullshit.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by Micjones

Reaper you're one of the few posters I respect here at ChiefsPlanet, but you're being intellectually dishonest.

The words "uninterested" and "uncomfortable" are not synonymous.

But to your point, let's suppose I am "uncomfortable"...
What, exactly, is the problem with a straight man being uncomfortable watching another man take his clothes off for the sole purpose of titillating?
We're not talking about the Michelangelo statue of David here. We're talking about men, in leather, grinding the air to turn someone on. Those are two entirely different things.



I didn't intend to single you out. In fairness to you, other people expressed a similar idea. I just despise this notion that straight men ought to be comfortable in these hetero-questionable situations, where it concerns other men, as a measure of their being comfortable in their sexuality.

With respect, that's bullshit.

I agree with the bolded sentence. I have all along in this thread, actually.

Note that my initial response to Laz was mostly about why there might be an angle of interest for straight men to see the film. My line about being weirded-out was not even the focus of that post. Later, I posted about how I object to guys feeling creeped out by the subject matter, but how I don't object to guys meeting the film with a lack of interest.

If this movie were just strip routines then I'd have no interest in it either. To repeat, I'm not challenging the sexuality of people who don't feel like they'd be entertained by this movie. I do really think, though, that uncomfortability is a strange reaction to a male character in a film doing a gyration. Boredom seems like the more reasonable response.

My posting history on this board with respect to LGBTQ issues is well-known; people who have anti-gay politics, even because of their faith, piss me off. I do get upset when men express discomfort with anything that could possibly shaded as queer, so I like to call out irrational uncomfortability with such situations. I do sincerely think that any straight men should be able to watch this film without mental discomfort, just as I think that any reasonable person should be able to entertain and consider an idea that they don't agree with.

But by no means is this movie some kind of required test to prove one's straightness. I have never insinuated that.

[luv]

Originally Posted by Micjones

What, exactly, is the problem with a straight man being uncomfortable watching another man take his clothes off for the sole purpose of titillating?
We're not talking about the Michelangelo statue of David here. We're talking about men, in leather, grinding the air to turn someone on. Those are two entirely different things.

He's saying that there's more to the movie than that, and that, just because there are men stripping in it, doesn't mean a guy shouldn't go see it. I'm not sure how on earth you keep complicating this.

[luv]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

I'm not saying that you need to watch male strippers to prove you aren't gay. I'm not saying that you should find anything enjoyable about scantily-clad men.

I'm saying that the presence of scantily-clad men in a film shouldn't give you the willies. That's it. There's nothing creepy about it. There's nothing gross. Boring? Sure. But a reaction of "ewwwww, men" is childish and insecure.

Shit, if women acted towards every other mainstream film (which are loaded with scantily-clad women) like you guys act towards Magic Mike then no women would watch movies.

Exactly.

[phisherman]

Knowing Soderbergh's films, a lot of the women just looking to ogle manflesh are probably going to get a little different film than they envisioned Magic Mike to be.

[Bowser]

Originally Posted by phisherman

Knowing Soderbergh's films, a lot of the women just looking to ogle manflesh are probably going to get a little different film than they envisioned Magic Mike to be.

Yep, just like when he had that film with Sasha Grey a couple of years ago. Guys everywhere were like SASHA GREY **** YEA, then were treated to a boyfriend/girlfriend breakup movie.

[phisherman]

Originally Posted by Bowser

Yep, just like when he had that film with Sasha Grey a couple of years ago. Guys everywhere were like SASHA GREY **** YEA, then were treated to a boyfriend/girlfriend breakup movie.

Exactly. That's just Soderbergh's sense of humor too, love it.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by Bowser

Yep, just like when he had that film with Sasha Grey a couple of years ago. Guys everywhere were like SASHA GREY **** YEA, then were treated to a boyfriend/girlfriend breakup movie.

That movie ****ING SUCKED!!!!

[JD10367]

Originally Posted by phisherman

Knowing Soderbergh's films, a lot of the women just looking to ogle manflesh are probably going to get a little different film than they envisioned Magic Mike to be.

Actually, I think women will love this movie because it's part man-ogling, part rom-com, part chick-flick-drama. And compared to the recent similar outings ("The Lucky One", "The Vow"), I bet this one does better business. Girls, gays, and guys hoping to get sex from their wives/GFs after... decent market segment.

[phisherman]

Originally Posted by JD10367

Actually, I think women will love this movie because it's part man-ogling, part rom-com, part chick-flick-drama. And compared to the recent similar outings ("The Lucky One", "The Vow"), I bet this one does better business. Girls, gays, and guys hoping to get sex from their wives/GFs after... decent market segment.

You're giving far too much credit to the average movie-goer for this flick.

I do find it interesting though that women are jumping on the bandwagon to see a flick that objectifies men in the same way that most media objectifies women. If men were lined up to see a movie celebrating female strippers, women would all consider us pigs.

[underEJ]

Originally Posted by phisherman

You're giving far too much credit to the average movie-goer for this flick.

I do find it interesting though that women are jumping on the bandwagon to see a flick that objectifies men in the same way that most media objectifies women. If men were lined up to see a movie celebrating female strippers, women would all consider us pigs.

This is an interesting point. I think men began getting the same treatment in the media along about the time Brad Pitt first took his shirt off in Thelma & Louise. The difference is that most men hadn't been raised with that in their face as an expectation at the time. As the pressure increases on men, and more boys grow up looking at a more objectified male in the media, who knows if they won't have similar issues to women.

[JD10367]

You're not gay just for going to see this movie. You're gay if you go to see this movie and put your hand in your pants. There's a difference.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by JD10367

You're not gay just for going to see this movie. You're gay if you go to see this movie and put your hand in your pants. There's a difference.

True. But it doesn't help.

[Deberg_1990]

I guess stealing dance moves is a really huge no no in the stripping community and really bad form?




Channing Tatum Denies He Stole 'Magic Mike' Stripper Moves


http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/168...stripper.jhtml

Channing Tatum is reacting to a group of male dancers who allege that the actor quite literally stole their moves for his new movie, "Magic Mike," which takes place in the shirtless world of male strippers.

Two male dancers, Thomas "Awesome" Austin and London Steele, who danced with Tatum while he was a stripper in Florida, told TMZ last week that the experiences in the film, and even Tatum's character's name (Magic Mike), are all their own. Austin told the website, "He only danced for four months. How many events could have happened to him?" He added that even Tatum's move in the film, the Hot Seat, is all his own

Director Steven Soderbergh has said that the film is loosely based on Tatum's experiences as a male dancer. And in a new interview, Tatum is opening up about the claims against him.

"Those guys have been trying to make money off of me since I got into this business," Tatum told reporters, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "Look, there's nothing that's factual in this whole movie other than that I was an 18-year-old kid and went into this world and I dropped out of college from playing football and was living on my sister's couch. There's not one character that I took from my real life; this is just a world that I went into, and I had a perspective on. And we created everything from a fictional place."

"Magic Mike" opens Friday, and Tatum is going into opening week with no ill will for his former co-workers. "I don't want to say anything bad about them because they're part of the reason why I think this world is so interesting," he said. "They're very interesting, intriguing and bizarre characters, and I'm thankful for weird people out there. They're some of the most creative people."

The June 29 film release also stars "True Blood" actor Joe Manganiello, "White Collar" star Matt Bomer and Matthew McConaughey.

In an interview with MTV News, Tatum recalled how the film came out of a conversation he had with Soderbergh. "I was having a beer with Soderbergh — we were doing a movie together — and I told him about [my past stripping]," he said. "I'd been doing it for eight months of my life when I was, like, 18 or 19, and he said, 'We gotta make a movie out of that.' And I was like, 'Why? Why do we need to do that?' And he said, 'I've never seen that world on film before.' And then we really started talking about that, and we thought it would be really hilarious but still grounded in reality."