I Went to Magic Mike

     Yes, it was her turn to pick the movie. Yes, I was aware in advance that it was about male strippers. Yes, I was aware that one of the stars is Matthew McConaughey, a guy I think should be the template for Hollywood stereotypes "standers" and "sayers," so we don't have to insult the wort "actor" by applying it to him.

     Apparently my man card is at risk for seeing this movie. See my last post for what I think of man-judgement. Anyway, thoughts on this flick that's become a phenomenon:

1. It will not make you gay. Unless you already are, or already are and don't know it. If so, I think you'll like it. 

2. I thought there would be more for the fellas. I mean, animated movies often have these bits for the adults, wouldn't it make sense to throw in some, dunno, plot or something for the dudes to enjoy, if they are dragged to it (or, like me, secure enough to agree to go)? 

3. It really is just a stripper/dance movie with a very loose/lame plot connecting it all together. Like a modern, post-50 Shades Saturday Night Fever.

4. It's really hard to believe Steven Soderbergh directed this. That must've been a really big truck full of money. 

5. You think the movie's about 2/3 done when it ends. Just kinda stops. Maybe Soderbergh sobered up and realized what he was doing.

6. Channing Tatum is the only decent actor in it and has all the best lines. Make of that what you will.

7. I'm pretty sure most of the dialogue was made up on the fly, it's that bad. Well, not bad so much as awkward. It's like watching two hours of a really nervous person trying to give a speech.

8. Channing Tatum is a hellevua dancer. (Yes, I'm aware he used to be a stripper. Is there anyone who doesn't know that?)

9. In one summer Tatum plays the object of female fantasies and Duke from G.I. Joe. There's only so much envy in the universe us 30-somethings can have for you. (And screw you for the bit where you made fun of MY name. You're names Channing, chrissakes!)

10. Cody Horn has a jaw that looks like it could bite through steel. When she kisses Tatum I'm surprised sparks don't literally fly like two edge-grinders colliding. Makes up for the fact that she is probably the worst actor in this who doesn't have matching initials. 

11. Speaking of, I believe Matthew McConaughey has no regrets about playing himself for his entire career. I thought, for like six seconds of Amistad, that he wasn't REALLY his character in Dazed and Confused permanently. In Mike, he was paid millions to be himself. Why act?

12. The last time I was at a movie where people were shouting cat-calls and hootting and hollering at the screen was in 1997 when Star Wars was re-released. I think the ladies at Mike have fewer issues.

13. People were offended by this? I mean, it's not an especially good film, but it has fit dudes dancing with minimal clothing. It's a bass drone above a gladiator movie. Any ten minutes of The Road (book or film) disturbed me more than this whole thing.

14. There were three men in the theatre, including me. We traded knowing nods. We were resigned and having fun. The whole thing was a little bit festive.

15. My wife didn't like it any more than I did. Like me, she expected it to have some more to it to be such a phenomenon, and she's hardly a panter when all those 16-packs start gyrating. 

Nothing more than what it says it is, a Showgirls for the ladies. (Incidentally, I never did see all of Showgirls, and no, I didn't shut it off for the reason you're thinking. I shut it off because it was making me stupider). 

The New Old Man

So, it appears that men are back. I guess they started to lose ground when Elton John became famous and were on the brink of extinction when “I feel” statements came into vogue. The securing (but by no means full acceptance: see below) of Women’s Lib further pushed men to the edges. Real men, that is. They were all but gone for a while in any group born later than 1970. What remained were dudes who hugged, dudes who talked about their inner pain, dudes who made sure she finished, dudes who drank white wine on hot days, dudes who cared. Y’know: sissies.

                It must have been hard for our gun-totin’, tobacco-spittin’, woman-in place puttin’, feelings-quellin’ grandfathers to stand. “We won the war for these pussies?”

                Much to my chagrin, and to the delight of our now-deceased Nazi-crushing forebears, in the past ten years, the man has come back. Well, a version of the man, anywho. It’s like a false front building. With biceps. And extremely tight t-shirts.

                These men coined the terms “hipster” and “metrosexual” because as far as they’re concerned, the only fashion statement you need is ten more bench presses and a five-gallon tub of creatine.

                The new men drive big trucks (usually with some brass balls hanging off the hitch they use to pull the trailer what hauls their garden tractor). They fight and drink and fuck and swear. They own guns. Their idea of a steady girlfriend is one who’s up for round two in the morning before she gets her skinny ass out of my pad.

                Via those social media, I’ve been watching the resurgence of men, and I’m not much for it. They are not specific to a generation, for the older men who once cried about always being picked last in T-ball are also joining the fray, taking advantage of a Brave New World like an RPG-dealer in post-Bush Iraq. However, far too many of these men with the values of my redneck paternal grandfather are half my age. I’ve been trying to figure why so many of our youth have been going backwards on the male scale of evolution, why so many of them feel that they need to buy a $50,000 compensation wagon for their twenty-minute commute, why they feel they need to treat women like masturbatory tools.  

                Now, as all great cultural shifts are, this one looks like a rebellion of sorts. We tell these kids to tell us how “that” makes them feel and look at the girl down the way as an equal in all categories (vive la similarité), and they clam up. Start using “twat” in regular conversation.

                I haven’t swung that way. Maybe it’s because I grew up on a farm, and drove a $400,000 piece of machinery before I owned my first car. I shot a gun (and killed gophers with it) before I was ten. I have been in fights that involved punching in the face. And yet, I think my mother is the most intelligent person I know, I write poetry, I wear Lululemon, and I drive a minivan. I drive the fuck outta that minivan. I have never felt the need to prove myself as a man. I mean, I think 50 Shades of Grey might be the best book I’ll never read and any dude who thinks otherwise needs to have his head looked into. I think a dude that owns a gun or an unnecessary half-ton seriously needs to know that it’s not the size that counts. Yes, I mean that.

I talk about my feelings with my wife. Feel good about doing it. Better yet, I listen to my wife talk about her feelings.

I saw a movie recently in which a typical Hollywood dude who had misplaced his shirt declared that “the battle of the sexes is over and we [men] won.” Seriously? That’s the corner he turned. I didn’t agree with this bouche-dag, with the writer who wrote that line for him, nor the inspiration of it. At least I wasn’t filled with a need to eat protein or “smack my bitch up.” I was distraught that anyone, ever, felt this sentiment needed to be expressed, that this huge backward step in human evolution needed to be declared, even lauded.

Modern man features absolutely nothing modern. Apparently, one too many viewings of (cause they ain’t reading it) Fight Club have led too many males to doubt themselves as such. Fellas, this is the wrong way to prove you’re a man, but a helluva way to prove you’re still monkeys.