Let’s talk about gender roles in this ~steamy~ film
Movies always have a message. Actors and actresses can be examples that reflect either flat or rounded characters, referring to their personality traits in a film. Culture has a recurring male dominance in cinema that molds social norms. In several films, female characters are objects and male characters are well-rounded protagonists who control situations and treat the female as a spectacle. Gross. Even today there are films that play on this objectification and change the way male characters control situations while maintaining a patriarchal theme. In a scene from the 2015 film Magic Mike XXL, a man performs a strip tease for a gas station saleswoman in Myrtle Beach that pushes male dominance.
This movie is a great example of sexual connotation in film that stresses male dominance. In this scene from Magic Mike XXL, the characters stop at a convenience store on the way to perform at a stripper convention in Myrtle Beach. Mike, played by actor Channing Tatum convinces Richie, actor Joe Manganiello, to dance for a female employee inside with the intention of getting her to smile. The film utilizes several camera angles and sporadic transitions during Richie’s strip tease to encourage viewers’ attention and excitement. There are several close up shots of Richie as he slowly removes his pants and pours water on his body. In one instance, the camera views him head on as he sprays a soft drink from his groin area. The shots transition between Richie and his friends watching from the other side of the glass windows, laughing and cheering him on. Several instances during the scene, there are close-up shots of the female sales clerk, expressionless, until the end of the scene when she physically exudes excitement from Richie’s performance with a smile. The editing of shots and the string of small events in the scene leads to a triumphant success for Richie as his strip tease achieves female satisfaction.
Richie’s dance routine has literal and deeper meaning. Semiotics, or the interpretation of signs and symbols, plays a vital role. Richie’s sexual objectification of himself ultimately gives him power over the female sales clerk. There are two meanings to symbols and images in films like this one. The denotative, or literal and explicit meaning of Richie’s performance in this scene is his sexual prowess and ability to arouse the sales clerk with a strip tease. It is alluring and meant to be burlesque. The connotative meaning is deeper. It is the implication that the scene promotes male dominance. There is an ideology that Richie has a hold on the female character. The scene makes the male character an object, but also leaves him in control of the situation.
Richie’s objectification of his body additionally promotes his dominance as the lead role in the scene, different from female objectification we see in other films. In Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey discusses scopophilia, the pleasure in looking at someone as an object. She says: “The split between spectacle and narrative supports the man’s role as the active one of forwarding the story…as the bearer of the look of the spectator”. She discusses the common trend that women are viewed as objects in film and male stars are rounded characters of a film who possess leadership in the plot. Although, in Magic Mike XXL, this scene clearly demonstrates scopophilia towards the male role. Mulvey also states: “The man controls the film fantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense.” The sales clerk watches as Richie pines for her attention by stripping his clothes and utilizing his physical self for attention. However, this scene displays objectification and alternatively places the objectified character in control of the situation, because Richie gets what he wants from the sales clerk as she visually enjoys his strip tease. The movie utilizes the male role in not only objectifying his character but producing plot dominance by maintaining power in the scene.
The movie displays an alternative patriarchal dominance in film. In Stuart Hall’s “The Spectacle of the ‘Other,’” Hall explains fetishism and its power in controlling the person that is looking at the object. He writes: “The sexual energy, desire and danger, all of which are emotions powerfully associated with the phallus, are transferred to another part of the body or another object, which substitutes for it.” In Magic Mike XXL, Richie utilizes his sexual prowess and physical self to entice the sales clerk and exaggerates his masculinity to induce desire. Viewers do not blatantly see Richie’s explicit body parts, but they watch a sexual scene that ultimately works in Richie’s favor. This differs from other films where scopophilia of a woman ultimately benefits the male counterpart or the film exaggerates the objectification of the woman to benefit the male.
In the scene from the film Magic Mike XXL, Richie’s strip tease promotes scopophilia while maintaining patriarchy in his character dominance. He performs an ego-centric strip tease for a gas station saleswoman in Myrtle Beach that displays fragmentation, but also counteractively results in male power over the sales clerk when she reacts in the way Richie intends her to. The clip is argued to be male objectification and cruel towards men, similar to a feminist’s negative outlook on patriarchal film’s female scopophilia. However, the string of events to tell a story of Richie getting what he wants from the sales clerk using his sexual prowess ultimately maintains male dominance. The film construes scopophilia to benefit Richie in a way many people denounce films that do the same to female characters. It is important to use media literacy when watching films such as Magic Mike XXL in order to form critical opinions of the construed messages it sends to viewers, which in this case is male dominance and female inferiority.
