'Magic Mike' Recalls My Nudity in Films
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I was chained naked to a bed in my test for the "Fan Club." I was in an orgy in "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," tummy down on the bed. I was told to take my shirt off and to show a breast for editing purposes by the director of "Steel."
And this is the reason I cheer the movie Magic Mike which is about a man being treated like an object.
And don’t blame me. I was a top model in New York and had filmed "Stepford Wives" with nary a button unbuttoned.
And don’t say I didn’t have to do the nudity. Being sexy was business to me. The parts required nudity, and I was an actress.
When I watched the terrific, unabashedly, candid "Magic Mike," I cheered.
Compassion for a sex symbol. A male sex symbol. Steve Soderbergh delivers this to "Magic Mike," which is partially the true story of Channing Tatum.
Yes, it is predictable and yes, it is enjoyable. How refreshing to see men disrobe in a movie instead of women. Oh, there are a few semi-naked women, but "Magic Mike" celebrates the male anatomy.
It's a good story and a true story. It addresses the feelings of a male stripper with a body that rivals Adonis. Matthew McConaughey plays Dallas, the owner and lead stripper of the Club Xquisite, but this film belongs to Channing Tatum.
Who listens to sex symbols? People love to look at them, and then dismiss them for being empty vessels, vacuous, shallow -- all qualities attributed to beautiful supermodels. Rarely is compassion given to movie-star-handsome men.
How lonely it is to be looked at and not listened to.
After Mike has had sex with an intelligent psychology student, Joanna (Olivia Munn), she tells him, "You ask a lot of questions. You don't need to talk. Just look pretty." After a pause she says, "Look, I'm going to go. I'll give you a call." While her words are patronizing, her acting is so genuine, it seems to be the natural way to relate to Mike.
On a subsequent chance meeting, she is with another man at a bar whom she introduces to Mike as her fiancé. Mike subtly shows his feelings of being dismissed as an object, rather than a lover with intense feelings for her.
Written by Reid Carolin and produced by Nick Weschler, Gregory Jacobs, Reid Carolin and Channing Tatum, "Magic Mike's" plot is thin and revolves around Dallas' strip club where Magic Mike is the lead dancer. He discovers Adam (Alex Pettyfer) and takes him under his wing. Adam has a sister, Brooke (Cody Horn) who does not give Mike the attention he craves.
While stripping he is idolized by his female audience, but when he tries to talk to Brooke, the conversation is awkward. (This review is continued in the previous review of Magic Mike)
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Description
Carole Mallory is an actress, journalist, professor, film critic. Her film credits include “Stepford Wives” and “Looking for Mr. Goodbar.” As a supermodel she graced the covers of Cosmopolitan, New York, Newsweek. Besides her novel “Flash,” Mallory has written a memoir of her time with Norman Mailer, “Loving Mailer.” After the writer's death, she sold her archive of his papers to Harvard. Her journalistic pieces on Vonnegut, Jong, Vidal, Baryshinikov, Heller have been published in Parade, Esquire, Playboy, Los Angeles Magazine, the Huffington Post. Her review of Charles Shields' biography of Kurt Vonnegut, "And So It Goes," was published in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer. She is teaching creative writing at Temple University and Rosemont College and blogs at malloryhollywoodeast@blogspot.com.
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