"Magic Mike XXL": Examining Its Powerful Social Consciousness and Why It May Be 2015's

"This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation seemed adequate."

–Simone de Beauvoir, from her book, "The Second Sex"

"Magic Mike XXL" has no business being any good. It would seem to be a frivolous cash grab sequel to an original that marginally worked, 2012's "Magic Mike". After seeing it, most critics rightfully called it a 'familiar, messy road trip comedy'. These critics are exactly right. This is, in fact, the necessary backbone to what should also be called 'the most subversive, sincere, beautiful, smart, daring, honest, cinematic, uplifting, and entertaining wide-appeal movie in years'. Maybe ever.

It may sound like Hyperbole ate his Wheaties this morning, but what other large audience crowd-pleaser has done the array of things "Magic Mike XXL" has done? Or: Has there ever been a film of any kind that has shown this much respect for its audience?

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep. The more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite"

–Juliet, from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (Act 2, Scene 2), respecting and romancing its audience

The original "Magic Mike" had several moments of fun, most of them coming courtesy of Matthew McConaughey who is absent from the sequel, but ultimately the dramedy was more concerned with presenting its darker, more common themes concerning maturation and drugs. It's a supremely tight film and it zeros in on Mike as its central, sometimes tragic character through which we see his world.

​"Magic Mike XXL" on the other hand is all-consuming fun, dropping the first film's tired themes in favor of such never–explored–in–a–positive–way themes as the healthy celebration of human sexuality and diversity. These themes, while still presented from Mike's point-of-view, are experienced as a large ensemble in which the audience is invited in as well and, as such, it meanders from scene to scene choosing humor and humanity (the film is dripping with pathos and encouragement) over efficiency. "XXL" isn't just 'not tragic', it's 'anti-tragic'.

"Magic Mike XXL" Sincerily Loves Its Bros

"What if bros were safe? What if they weren’t dangerous, sexist homophobes, but instead tender and kind—both to each other and to the women in their midst? What if packs of jovial, tank-topped 'manly men' weren’t something to steer clear of after dark? What if they were polite, considerate and believed God to be a woman? Would they be bros at all? In giving us the answers, 'Magic Mike XXL' conjures a very specific—and rare—kind of film fantasy, one where hard-bodied heterosexual males enjoy a genuine intimacy with each other, admire women for their feelings and intellect and have a nice time at a raucous drag bar without breaking into a brawl."

–Stacey May Fowles, from her review of "Magic Mike XXL"

The most immediately striking thing about "Magic Mike XXL" is its unrelenting sincerity. They don't make films like this anymore. "XXL's" determined sincerity keeps its humor lively and its thematic punch resonant, and it keeps the audience engaged in an odd third way demanding us to take it on its own terms. This earnest atmosphere sets the stage for some of the most subversive storytelling in movie history. It's a celebration of male camaraderie that is well aware of what people may think yet feels no fear of being judged homo-erotic, and it's a full-bodied episodic takedown of societal body judgements.

In a Hollywood that treats men as posturing fools always trying be sexier than the next with a female prize waiting in the wings, "Magic Mike XXL" makes the strange argument that men might actually love and care for one another without sacrificing their 'manliness'. In a world that judges females against the impossible standards of a Barbie doll, "Magic Mike XXL" makes an emphatic statement that all women are beautiful—that all women are sexually empowered.

"One of the film’s story lines involves each dancer’s struggle to free himself from the clichés of exotic dancing and find a more personal style of choreography. Ken is a New Age healer. Tarzan is an aspiring painter. Tito and Richie are shy, romantic souls in turbocharged bodies."

–A.O. Scott, from his review of "Magic Mike XXL"

The world of "XXL" is one in which men are freed from self-imposed restrictions and one in which women are freed from any number of obstacles in the way of self-confidence. Men and women imprisoned by society's gender definitions and standards have a place of solace and encouragement in "Magic Mike XXL".

"Magic Mike XXL" Positively Loves the Women That Love It

One by one, the film affirms every demographic of socially put-down women. Are you a black woman? You will never feel more affirmed. Divorced? You will never feel more affirmed. Plus-sized? You will never feel more affirmed. An older woman? You will never feel more affirmed. Perhaps even 'affirmed' isn't strong enough; these women will feel 'admired'. "XXL" emphatically tells women they don't have to take a backseat to any Barbie doll. All women are admired, sexually and otherwise. They are literally called 'queens'. This is storytelling that is radical and subversive and freeing, and while this mode of storytelling might seem to be absent from modern Hollywood because of the industry's refusal to move into modern social sensibilities, it's actually a timeless evocation of sexual sincerity, reaching even into Biblical times, that "XXL" displays.

"My lover is mine, and I am his.

He browses among the lilies.

Before the dawn breezes blow

and the night shadows flee,

return to me, my love, like a gazelle

or a young stag on the rugged mountains."

–unnamed female, from The Bible's "Song of Songs" (2:16-17), dated in the 10th century B.C.E.

Most films generally lumped in with "Magic Mike" (it's no accident that "XXL's" plot is almost identical to "Bring It On") treat sexuality as a frivolous truth and end up mocking these non-Barbies (either explicitly through jokes or complicity through an absence of 'less attractive' ladies being treated as 'more attractive'). The frivolity of sex in these films is dominantly passed off as 'positive', but it certainly isn't an honest or healthy 'positive'.

Conversely, most films that take sexuality seriously are serious downers (or at least feature a prominent nod to gender cynicism) and no one is truly sexually affirmed, male or female. These films treat sexuality with darkness and despair, depicting sexuality as the source of trouble for a character or as the driving force for negative plot points to impact people. These films are generally more artful than the former and can often be quite good. "Mad Max: Fury Road", "Spotlight", "Ex Machina", "It Follows", and "Tangerine" are just some examples of outstanding films from this year that wrestle with the seriousness of the negative potential of a wrecked view of sexuality.

Even the socially brilliant and hilarious "Chi-Raq" (notably adapted from a timeless tale: Aristophanes' "Lysistrata"), which uses sexuality as the impetus for good, does so by way of negation. It is the absence of sexuality that brings everyone together. "XXL", though, finds a new means of cinematic engagement with sexuality. Here, it is a beautiful thing with the power to uplift and preserve. It is neither frivolous (a pseudo-neutral state) nor dark (negative), but instead it's positive. Sexuality is never neutral and should not exclusively be negative. This is the unique, fresh, and even nuanced perspective that "XXL" offers.

"'Magic Mike XXL' boldly flouts pop-cultural conventional wisdom. It’s often said that an explanation of a joke can’t be funny, and that the analysis of pornography is never sexy. But here is a coherent and rigorous theory of pleasure that is also an absolute blast."

–A.O Scott, from his review of "Magic Mike XXL"

If it wasn't so much fun it might feel like a post-structuralism feminism manifesto. Really, it's a more post-modern feminism on display because its view of gender is performative and inclusive, and while most mainstream feminism has been dismissed as narrow academia excusing itself from overlapping and intertwined issues such as race and socio-economic class, "XXL" brashly avoids this dismissal by its very nature, and then by following through on its intentions. This is not narrow academia.

"Magic Mike XXL" Creates a Whole New Image of Social Justice

However, it's not just a script that affirms and admires people alien to affirmation and admiration. "XXL" is a complete cinematic engagement. Although cinema developed from a white world, the last century has brought essentially no change to the images themselves, which have been designed to make white people look as good as possible. There's no way around it, celluloid was developed to favor lighter skin tones.

"In the history of photography and film, getting the right image meant getting ones that conformed to the prevalent ideas of humanity. This included whiteness, of what colour—what range of hue—white people wanted white people to be....Movie lighting assume, privilege, and construct whiteness"

–Richard Dyer, from his book, "Lighting For Whiteness"

It's into this world that the world's most respected digital film photographer Steven Soderbergh boldly steps out of the white-washing historical narrative of cinema. There are many sequences in "XXL" that very intentionally turn this on its head in order to highlight the beauty of a darker toned body and accentuate the themes of balance and inclusion. These sequences are exciting and stylish and beautiful, but mostly they're odd. We've never really seen anything like it and that's what first hits us. The colors pop in striking ways and the images have a distinct, crisp beauty about them. The white man is shoved from the foreground for an expression of black beauty, and it is gorgeous.

The scenes play like ballet. The choreography and the editing meet up perfectly to give visual description to the script's gracefulness. The white–skinned–favoring yellows, which are traditionally prominent in shots like these, are completely absent. Instead we get blasts of reds and blues creating a purple flourishing that electrifies the screen and enlivens the black figures on it. Digital photography has rightfully been hailed for its night filming acumen, but here Soderbergh uses that strength to undo a century old injustice and create a platform for people of all color to be enriched and to be placed alongside of each other as equally beautiful, affirming and admiring everyone on screen no matter their skin tone. Very, very rarely does ingenuity in cinematic form match ambition in written function as occurs in "XXL".

"When Technicolor came along, its three hues were designed to capture white actors who had makeup to create 'exotic' depictions of race rather than those with naturally darker pigmentation. When Lena Horne appeared in her first film, MGM developed a special 'Light Egyptian' makeup to push her toward whiteness, and thus 'beauty' as cinema's own materials had determined. As Genevieve Yue's work on the 'China Girl' phenomenon has shown, whiteness is in the DNA of 35mm."

–Peter Labuza, from his review of "Magic Mike XXL"

"Magic Mike" XXL" is Everything Its Audience Wants AND Everything It Deserves

Yes, "Magic Mike XXL" is a funny movie and yes, its surface entertainment value is as big as any summer blockbuster, but it's also a daring and unabashedly positive movie that uses the tools of cinema itself to uplift its audience. That audience, an unheard of 96% females, get everything they want (shirtless dudes in sexy dance numbers) and everything they deserve (respect and affirmation) in one beautiful, broad stroke. This isn't just a messy road trip comedy that serves as some kind of cinematic pornography; this is a careful, delicate cinematic encouragement for 96% of its audience.

And for the 4% of males who watched this in the theater, it remains thoroughly entertaining and an encouragement to be more comfortable with (as a false social-gender construct) femininity among the bros. Plus it's an encouragement to be an encouragement to the ladies—not in a labored, academic way, but neither in a passive, relenting way. Plus there is so much this mini-essay never hits on such as the film's gentle (and, yes, uplifting!) treatment of a—probably—LGBT character. Or what about the fact that there is upwards of 20 characters more textured and developed than the average film's third-billed character.

"Magic Mike XXL" is a masterpiece and not merely because it's entertaining in a big way. It's a unique, ambitious project with a lot on its mind and with a lot of ingenuity in its execution. It has a powerful social-consciousness about it and it may be 2015's best film.

"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion."

–Simone de Beauvoir, from her book, "The Coming of Age", possibly inspired by "Magic Mike XXL"

*Cole is a straight, divorced, male Christian committed to chastity and acknowledges that—while attempting to be objective—he brings this perspective into his writing.

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