Is Magic Mike homophobic?

...or just heteronormative?

This question seemed to take up space like a big pink elephant in the room as I watched Magic Mike (Soderbergh, 2012) this weekend. For a film about oversexed male bodies, where are the gay men?

The film features Channing "no neck" Tatum as stripper/entrepreneur extraordinaire named Mike who has a love/hate relationship with his profession. He's 30, wants equity in the Xquisite Dance Revue where he's legendary, is saving up to start his own furniture business, and tries not to be seen as his "lifestyle" (all the while booty-calling a girl who will only see him as such). But when down-and-out Adam comes along looking for a job, Magic Mike works his magic and finds him a place in the house as a dancer. And a bromance is born. Mike portrays himself as benevolent older brother figure, but his benevolence, he worries, may be letting him slide through life with money, girls, and a good time, instead of helping him make something of himself (offstage).

With the narrative told simply, the movie leaves plenty of room for the spectacle of the male body in motion. Tatum's dance moves are mind boggling, as are Matthew McConaughey's abs. But these bodies are all straight--there are no gay characters in the film. Furthermore, who in the movie are the recipients of this spectacle? The Xquisite Dance Revue's patrons are all female. I do not think I even spotted one man in the venue on screen that wasn't working there. Now, I'm sure the film's gay audiences appreciate the strippers as much as the women on screen do, but why can't they be represented there? Instead, it's women who get hoisted onstage and receive the lap dances.  This points to the film's heteronormativity, as would a film about a female strip club with its male clientele.

What may tip Magic Mike to the homophobic scale, however, is that it shies away from acknowledging its own hints at homosexuality and homoeroticism. In one scene, Adam's sister finds his go-go outfits and wants to have a serious talk with him about his "preferences"--while Adam is shaving his legs. Funny, yes, because Adam panics, but his panic as he repeats "it's for work, it's for work" also reveals that he wants to avoid coming across as gay.

Similarly, in a particular dance rehearsal scene, McConaughey's Dallas teaches Adam how to seduce the mirror like it's a woman. He says, "you're not just stripping. You are fulfilling every woman's wildest fantasies. Who's got the cock? You do, they don't." Wait, so women are the only ones admiring the phallus in this situation? It looks more like the two of you are gyrating for each other.

Isn't everyone allowed to celebrate chiseled male bodies? 

Now, the scene is actually quite funny, because 1) Adam really can't dance and 2) Dallas is just completely over the top. But we may also laugh because neither the characters nor the filmmaker seem to realize how homoerotic the scene is. In fact, certain audiences may find the entire film funny precisely because it's more homoerotic than it wants to let on (there are penis enlargers, comments like "let's be best friends," and bear hugs). But I also think Soderbergh & co could have benefited from a bit of self-reflection. Ultimately, the film is not a satire of an over-the-top industry but a character portrait of a man being a man in an over-the-top industry...and a straight man, at that.

...Or perhaps, Soderbergh is actually really progressive and just didn't want to reinforce gay stereotypes so he consciously removed them by making everyone straight? Hmmm, not sure I can give him that much credit.

Finally, the only other film I've seen or heard about that centers on male strippers is The Full Monty (Cattaneo, 1997), which only peeked at homosexuality and turned men's bodies into comedy. So, where are the gay Chippendales? Is this purely a matter of mainstream vs. niche? I thought gay was trendy!

Holy Motors

Holy Motors. Holy shit!

Léos Carax's new film is virtually unexplainable, bordering on the divine and the absurd, but I'll do my best. Here's the trailer, which gives us little other than an eerie tone:

The film opens with a shot of a sold-out dark movie theater. The spectators are in their seats, but while we watch them, they don't watch us -- they're sleeping. Then, we watch a middle-aged man (Carax himself) rise out of bed, break a hole in his wall, and emerge onto a balcony overlooking this theater, in which a huge black dog slinks down the aisle. Fade to black, and with this prologue we know that we are in the realm of the surreal.

But quickly we latch onto a narrative. Oscar (Denis Lavant) goes off to work in a limo one morning (with echoes of his kids' words "travaille bien, papa!" trailing him). We assume that the meetings detailed in the folder next to him are the kinds typical of businessmen in suits and ties, but they're not. When Oscar emerges from the limo for his first "meeting" on a Paris bridge, he has transformed into a hunchbacked beggar shaking a can for cash. A joke? We think. A social commentary? But no. His next meeting finds him in a black motion-capture suit, dotted with white pins. Ahhh, we get it. He's a film stunt man.

But in the nine "meetings" that make up the film, this stuntman performs for no cameras, at least no cameras the audience can see. We watch Oscar contort his body and physique with makeup, costume, and sheer talent, but throughout the nine "scenes" in the film, each is autonomous. We feel we know less and less about our protagonist, and the question "who is Oscar, really?" is never answered.  The only continuity in the film is the limo where Oscar returns after each impersonation (or should we say identity? Each feels as authentic as the last), and its driver, Céline. Furthermore, as Oscar absorbs completely into each role, the scenes feel incredibly rich in themselves, albeit frustrating as we know they'll be gone soon. Among others, he is (or performs as?) an abrasive father to a teenage daughter, a madman in a cemetery who kidnaps Eva Mendes and brings her into Paris's underground tunnels, Kylie Minogue's lost lover, a violent assassin, and a dying uncle. But are the others in his "scenes" also actors? Sometimes we get hints that they are, sometimes we think he may have been living these lives simultaneously. Most importantly, though, it doesn't matter. This is a hard feeling to shake for mainstream filmgoers like me. I crave narrative continuity, perhaps because Hollywood has conditioned me.

What Holy Motors strives to propose, rather, is that a film is for watching -- that it's all a spectacle. We must be reminded of the movie-theater opening in order to remember this, otherwise we will spend too much time trying to figure out who Oscar is (like I did, until I gave up and was much happier as a result). But the beauty of the film is that itself: its beauty.

There were two points during Holy Motors where I was enveloped by giddy amazement. As a movie lover, moments like these are the reason for my addiction. First, Oscar on the black motion-capture stage as a mirage of white dots was mesmerizing. Here, a slight slow-motion effect made the difference between an ordinary body performing martial arts and a dazzling, almost inhuman array of agility, grace and speed. Images like this are achieved only in cinema; even when you see them, you almost don't believe them.

Second, as a literal "entracte," Oscar steps into a candlelit church with accordion in hand. He starts playing, and suddenly he is flanked by dozens of accordion, guitar, and percussion players. With perfect acoustics in both the church and the theater in Copenhagen where I sat, I felt actually pretty close to crying. Cinema, for me, provides that sensory blend of overwhelming sound and visual beauty. I was grinning uncontrollably, with powerful goosebumps and a near weightlessness. While it hardly does the theater experience justice, here's the scene:

So, please see Holy Motors. You may be frustrated, confused, and melancholy when watching, but I guarantee you will also be exhilarated and in awe.