Comments on: Why I Hate You, ‘Magic Mike’

By: Simon Jadis

Simon Jadis — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:25:40 +0000

Honestly, you make a lot of generalizations here. I do not know any girls who have problems with their boyfriends watching porn (I do not know of anyone under the age of 60 or above the age of 12 who gets excited by Playboy magazines). And I do not just mean that my wild, party-girl female friends don’t mind watching porn with their boyfriends. I think that they expect for their boyfriends to watch porn alone, too. And I have female friends who are very “clingy” with their boyfriends, but they *never* take issue with their boyfriend having or viewing porn. Are there some young women who object to men liking scantily clad ladies? Certainly, though I do not know any personally.

And Magic Mike isn’t porn. It’s just hot guys whom we’ve already seen on television and in films. There is a tremendous difference between seeing a film like Magic Mike and going to a strip club. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a strip club (of men or women), but I *do* like to set my screensaver to be a slideshow of unreasonably hot guys from the internet (and a few whom I know in person). I’m a grown-up, and can differentiate between admiring someone’s physical body and how I value that actual person. Sometimes, it’s nice to look at beautiful people.

Porn, softcore films like Magic Mike, and strip clubs don’t have anything on “pick-up artists” for denigrating other human beings.

By: SUSter

SUSter — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 17:04:15 +0000

Hypocritical broads for wanting to be looked in the face in normal day-to-day conversation but also buying entertainment that caters a little bit to the female gaze?

I can’t say it sounds like a great movie or even one I’ve leave on if I were home sick watching TV, but it’s ridiculous to suggest that your issue with friends who engage in slut shaming can be described by evoking the “eyes up here” chestnut. Wanting to be treated professionally in professional environments has nothing to do with not/supporting sex workers in general or strippers specifically.
There’s a big fucking gap between objectifying people who aren’t there in any sort of sexual context and massmedia entertainment that is about sex and, in the course of all it’s other tackiness, sells men’s bodies in the same way as they always sell women’s. Even with a decidedly non-intersectional lens that’s pre-101 stuff.

By: Kezmoo

Kezmoo — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 16:37:54 +0000

In complete agreement with you here, and as for me, if I want to see a film about male strippers, I’ll go and rewatch ‘The Full Monty’ again!

By: HellionHeroine

HellionHeroine — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:18:19 +0000

I have no interest in seeing Magic Mike. It’s not because I don’t want to see Channing Tatum shirtless- I do and I’m not afraid to admit it- but because the story’s been done before.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong though with saying that sometimes abs and pop-and-lock are all I want. Not everything has to be about equal partners and trust, and respect, and depth of feeling. I have enough of that in my relationship. Don’t start judging people on their fantasies- even the ones getting their panties in a twist from ’50 Shades of Grey’ (Just judge them on their enjoyment of poorly written literature).

So I’ll be skipping Magic Mike until someone cuts all the shirtless stripping scenes together and posts it on YouTube. Until then, I’ll be oogling all the shirtless men, women, and genderqueer people I can with my respectful, non-objectifying/non-objectified partner.

By: Katie Loud

Katie Loud — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:31:20 +0000

I like the pics for “Magic Mike” because of the abs and such, and I’m the first to admit it … but I’d never give my boyfriend crap for looking at 98% naked women either (unless it involved the movie “Showgirls”, which would of course be a different problem … ;-))

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 13:54:55 +0000

Something like this seems rather rare. That is for a woman to accept and complain about the double standards. I’ve seen plenty of examples of it really and I’m getting tired of making an argument no one is going to listen to. The “It’s only sexist when men do it” argument. Those are people who think women are superior, not equal, and we will never get equality with people like that, be they men or women. All we’ll get is a little role reversal and every so often the roles will change.