The Bechdel Cast - Magic Mike

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

On this live episode of the Bechdel Cast, Magic Caitlin and Magic Jamie dance very sexy while discussing Magic Mike. (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow@BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality,

cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast or wherever you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hello what's up so i'm trying to recapture our our

electric live energy oh my gosh yeah so what the episode that you're about to hear is an episode that we recorded during a live show. Our first live show back after like over two years. It was a blast. It really was. What you're I mean, something that you're missing is Caitlin gave me a lap dance. I had cramps that day. So I didn't do much dancing, but I really I tried to enjoy the lap dance as best I could. Thank you. I felt I felt I felt great about it. You were it. That's no reflection on your skill. You were incredible.

Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much. Because the movie was Magic Mike and you clicked on it. You know, you know, come on. And we did this whole funny little bit at the beginning of the show where you were you came out you were like oh my gosh where's caitlin when's the show gonna start smash cut to pony by genuine playing yeah i come out on stage i start taking my clothes off i give you a lap dance and i'm like woohoo everyone i mean i'm i'm i'm giving woohoo

with my face and my body language and yeah it was pretty i mean it was it was electric and that's why this is kind of more for for our matrons but that's that's what qualifies us i think you know that kind of energy and talent is what qualifies us to make a Roku original. This is what's going to get us on the slate. The 2023 Roku original slate. Exactly. Because normally, I mean, podcasts are an audio medium. You don't really think of any visual thing that's happening. But when you come to our live shows.

What if the podcasters are hot? We're hot and we can dance and we give a good visual performance yeah a visual performance yeah visual um it was a really fun show uh we hope you enjoy the episode uh we had we had a good time visually performing it for you yes yes but you know i think it'll come through on on audio as well and we're hoping to do more live shows uh in in the near future this was an experiment that I think was a huge success major success so here's the episode hope you enjoy thank you i think that was exciting usually i get naked right i know we're we're doing kinky switch a kinky switch i'm sorry i'm an insult i don't know what i'm talking about

yeah i'm a virgin i don't know yeah we're both virgins uh so this movie was really confusing welcome to the back door guys welcome back sorry for spilling mike's heart immediately that's how you know that we're back because i can't even uh manage my mike's heart um wow yeah okay well um here we are yeah welcome back welcome back it's a sunday afternoon yeah um how's everybody doing does everyone have a drink does everyone have peanut m&ms are we all safe are we all feeling good awesome awesome i thought someone was holding up peanut m&ms i was like all right that's about the energy we're going to be bringing to the show uh thanks for coming my name is caitlin dorante yeah my name is jamie loftus and uh this is our this is our podcast uh except this time you're looking at us and we haven't done this in a while we even what

was the last show that we did live would have been like valentine 2020. Right. I don't even remember what. It was Black Swan, New York City. Yeah. Wow. Now you know. Feels like ages ago. Nothing really has happened since then. Nothing.

We just sort of kind of fell off, got pretty lazy. I don't really know. I feel very out of practice. I'm stressed out about various articles of my clothes being scattered about the audience everyone they're not gonna steal it i yeah we were really stressing about okay so the whole thing here is that we were really stressing about the opening we changed the idea for the opening of this a million times we went to the mall last night looking for tearaway pants that did not materialize we don't exist anymore oh my god the woman at dick's sporting goods looked at me like i had

400 heads i was like and caitlin you did not come to my rescue at all i was like um so we're looking for pants that have the buttons and you can pull them off and she and she was like what and i was like you know like and she's like I know you're talking about but this isn't the right store I thought it could have been the right store so then we just went to the food court and went home and so and then we figured this out and then I had these pants but they don't they don't even work they don't work what is this for I'm wearing two pairs of underwear right now one of them is a thong i feel so uncomfortable i you were i mean caitlin you you were like maybe i'll wear the thong i was

like i i don't even want to show my arms i but i did but i did i wore my shrek bra so there's a version of this episode where we came out so confident that Caitlin was wearing a thong and I took my shirt off and was wearing it. It's 2 p.m. It wasn't going to. But, you know, I was like, everyone's gonna be fucked up. You're not fucked up. I've had three sips of my card, hardened lemonade, and I'm ready to pass away. But, you know, there's also if anyone at any point

I brought a one can for the audience so if anyone's like you know like vibing they're like wait this would be so much better if I felt like I had a migraine um that's there got that I think that's truly my hero's journey is when this podcast started i could drink mike's hard whatever i want and now it makes me feel like i died six weeks ago i'm impressed with your character arc yes thank you thank you it is the greatest story ever told um well welcome thank you for being here uh we're we're happy to be back you know and we wanted to let you know that we really were going to do something horny. And then we're cowards. I beg to differ.

You did something very horny, actually. Yes, that was beautiful. That was beautiful. Thank you. That was beautiful. And that's what you get if you don't come to our live shows. And you don't know anyone who's listening at home right now. Sorry, you missed out.

You're just going to have to imagine it. but don't send us any emails about it. Because it's wild that you have to say that, but you really do. True. Well, OK. Has anyone here ever seen the movie Magical Michael? Really? That's his Christian stripper name magical michael i was calling this movie so many things in my head i was calling it magical michael

i was calling it himbo billy elegy calling it all sorts of that's the two things yeah oh no i love it. Has anyone not seen Magic Mike? Magic Mike. Oh, wow. Wow. Everyone did their homework. Losers. Oh, I miss bullying the audience. Wow. That was fun.

This is exciting. Has anyone been to a live Bechtelcast show before? Wow. Oh, my gosh. Welcome back. Has anyone not been? Wow. So many newcomers. You get to see us in the raw.

Like those little brown sugar packets. Just so you know, I come out and do a strip tease before every live show. Yeah, she did that before our Nightmare Before Christmas episode. And I was like, it doesn't seem appropriate. She grinded on me for all of what's this. And I was like, and then I was wearing

these same pants. The context made no sense, but everyone was getting pretty fucking horny. I think that... Shifting around in their seats and so forth. In my defense,

we were all asking of that performance of mine what is this what's this and the answer was Christmas town when Caitlin grinds on me which she does all the time. It evokes Christmas morning. Sorry, where are we? I feel sick. I can't believe I spilled Mike's heart. I haven't done that since I was like 22. You made the hilarious joke backstage, Magic Mike's Heart.

I think we should just acknowledge that. Yes, Magic mike's hard movie and then an extremely magical michael's hard movie 2014 did you 2015 did you know that there's a third movie in development as we speak no what is it is it an all-girl reboot, which would make no... Magical Michaela. Magical Michelle. Let me check to see what it's called. It is called...

Caitlin's on... Sorry, imdb.com. Scholarly Journal. Ever heard of it? Magic Mike's Last Dance. Does he die? Holy shit. That would actually be so amazing

if they killed Magic Mike. They do a season one throne game situation where they're like, we all love Magic Mike, but what if he just dropped dead on stage? I have dreams like that sometimes. Oh my. Where you're having a heart attack on stage

and everyone's like, this is such an abstract bit. And then you die and everyone's like, oh, well, I guess I got my $11 worth. Well, I doubt he's gonna die, but we don't know. Should we tell the audience what the show is? Yeah. Has anyone here ever not listened to the Bechtelcast before?

I have a harpoon gun with me, but feel free to let us know if you haven't listened to our little podcast before. Wow! Listeners? No one raised their hands wow that's exciting we are so popular so do we have to tell them i mean i guess we do well the listeners at home again the losers who couldn't be bothered to jackasses who didn't have the time to take a first class flight to watch me spill Mike's heart lemonade while Caitlin grinds on me at 2

p.m. So the show is an examination of movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. Jamie, tell me what it is. Well, the Bechdel test is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. Lots of versions of this test. Our version of the Bechdel test requires that there be two characters of a marginalized gender with names who speak to each other

about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue. This movie is complicated in that regard it's not a perfect metric no um but you know imagine if i could have had a second female character you know but you know you know what you know what when we do the live shows we want to like choose fun movies that we don't have a ton of criticisms of. And then backstage, I was like, but what if we talked about semiotics? Anyways, it's complicated. That's what the show is.

Is that okay? Thank you. This is a hostage situation. So, Caitlin. Yes. To get us started, what is your experience with the film Magical Michael 2012? My history with Magical Michael is that it came out the year that I started graduate school, where I did go to earn a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University,

which I absolutely hate to mention. I didn't know that you didn't because i never talk about it yeah but i didn't see movies that entire two year period in the theaters because i just didn't have time so busy getting a master's degree god what were you you were doing what homework and classes yeah and a job and job and stand-up comedy yeah that's how we met romantic love you should i hump your leg again yeah are you a cocker spaniel go nuts uh so i didn't see the movie in theaters which is what all this prelude was is that the right word anyway um so i didn't see the movie in theaters but i saw it like a year after and i saw

the sequel as well but i had confused the two and i thought the scene where channing tatum has sex with a workbench was in the first movie. I was wrong. That was just a callback to the first movie. It takes place in the second movie. So I'm all out of sorts. But the point is, I've... Your humping canon is all fucked up.

Truly. Truly. But I've seen both movies, but they weren't really in my rotation. I don't know why, because Magic Michael, Magical Michael, is a good movie. It's a really good movie. I do understand why it may not be in anyone's regular rotation.

If it is, that's great. But if it isn't, it's like more of a bummer than you are thinking it's going to be. Right. Like, I wonder, because I was like, this is going to be horny fun. And I was like, wow, this is actually a deep interrogation of the 2008 financial crisis. You know, like I get why it's like not a movie that I would, it's interesting.

Cause I feel like it looks like a movie you would want to watch every single day. Right. But it's actually like maybe a once a year kind of like, wow. Yeah. That was a rough point in history. It's too bad that they don't know.

It gets so much worse. Right, so that, and I already had a movie about male strippers in my rotation, the full Monty, so I was like, there can only be one, there can be only one, and that slot had been filled. That's prejudice against men. Yes, which there should be more of. We've been criticized for that before in some really carefully worded iTunes reviews.

Jamie, what is your relationship with Magical Michael? I did not have a relationship with magical michael this movie came out at some point when i was in college i didn't see it and then i continued to not see it i feel like there is uh i was aware of like there's like a faction of women comics who regularly go to see magic mike in vegas Has anyone ever seen Magic Mike in Vegas? It's like there's a live male strip show based on this movie, which is kind of fucking incredible. It's supposed to be really, really fun.

I know that it's a very popular pilgrimage, I guess, to make. But no, I had never seen the movie before. I was very excited to see it. I thought it was going to really lift my spirits and make me horny. And it did. But then immediately after, it reminded me that all the glitters is not gold and that Channing Tatum did not get that bank loan. And right.

So it's I mean, I ended up like really loving and appreciating the movie when i was getting ready for this episode in like ways i was not expecting to i thought i was going to be like uplifted by horny fun which i was but then i was immediately taken back down by serious problems and like i just i really liked this movie i'm very excited to talk about it yeah the end i haven't seen the sequel. Sorry. Okay. Well, I didn't even rewatch it for this

because I know that we're just going to do a separate episode on it. Okay. Do they get... Okay. No spoilers, but do they get hornier or less horny in the second one? I truly don't remember.

What's the hump to come ratio? In the two. Who's come? Are you like audience? Do you say hump to come? Oh, I just meant strictly on screen. I feel like we can't know. Off screen, anyone can be coming.

I don't know. It's not my business. People come to kind of fucking whatever you know i misunderstood the question um you're doing like i'm sitting with like a beaker like measuring people's cum when they watch magic mike xxl i'm a scientist um no i just i just meant on screen come i again i only remember the scene where Channing Tatum, the titular Magical Michael, Magical Michael, yes. Has sex with a workbench.

Does the workbench come? The workbench obviously comes. Okay. But that scene pales in comparison to the awesome dance I did earlier today wow and then for all of your listeners that's the thing it's like for the listeners they could be coming right now and we wouldn't know true and again i feel the need to say if you are coming please don't tell us okay so so yeah i don't know who's coming off screen i don't want to know who's coming off screen and that is a universally applicable law i will okay last thing

i'll say before we get into the recap yeah is okay there's a lot of men in this movie, which normally sounds like an accusation. But there is. But the two main Mikes are Magical Michael. Magical Michael Jr. Yes, yes. Magical Michael Jr., a.k.a. Adam, which every time someone,

people can't name characters Adam anymore because I'm like, it was taken by I I Frankenstein and the Bible but mostly I Frankenstein the Bible was actually adapted from my Frankenstein oh god that part in I Frankenstein where the the what is it like the goblin queen is talking to Aaron Eckhart playing horny Frankenstein. No one knows what I'm talking about. Okay.

What I was saying is I wasn't expecting Magical Michael Jr. to be, in my head, the guy from Beastly. Right. Which, if you... Okay, and I have to unpack that now. Beastly was a 2011 adaptation of Beauty and the Beast starring vanessa hudgens

and this guy in which vanessa hudgens plays a 14 year old at age 50 and uh this guy who's also 500 uh plays the beast but he's just like hot topic. Like, right. I feel like he just has some like facial scarring and they're like, he's hideous. It's again, I party facial scarring. And he's like, don't look at me. And Vanessa's like, okay.

Like, I don't. Okay, I have to return to something from earlier. The hump to come ratio are you serious i was confused by the question because to my knowledge who even comes in the movie well the hump to come ratio can be zero to a hundred i don't think i don't know if we see anyone I see okay the other thing is in movies I feel like uh equals cum right I don't think we actually I mean and I don't think I mean this is like what a pg-13 movie I'm not expecting to see fucking ejaculate well uh like that's cut but who even goes oh i don't think that even michael jr he goes

that's that's male there's and then there's like you know there's a whole spectrum of sounds you can make i'm familiar and there's toot all right we just we have to move on should i do the recap yeah all right everyone give it up for caitlin's famous recap yeah Thank you. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price.

Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do one session 24 hours bpm 110 120 she's terrified should we wake her up

absolutely not what was that you didn't figure it? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy sex talk. This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're covering everything from body image to representation in film and television. We even interview iconic Latinas like Puerto Rican actress Ana Ortiz. I felt in control of my own physical body and my own self. I was on birth control. I had sort of had my first sexual experience. If you're in your señora era or know someone who is,

then this is the show for you. We're your hosts, Diosa and Mala, and you might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Locatora Radio radio we're so excited for you to hear our brand new podcast senora sex ed listen to senora sex ed on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast oh we've already gone way off the rails what if i was like i don't even remember what happens in this movie because i was too busy watching Channing Tatum's arms oh my god then we would be like

there's a funny parallel universe where this is like this same podcast but it's really girl boss vibes where we're like

I don't know I couldn't pay attention due to the pecs you know and it's like to be fair I am paying attention to them

but academically. Yeah, we have to talk about the female gaze. In a scholarly way, I'm looking at his pecs for my job. All right, so here we go. We meet Dallas, played by Matthew McConaughey, who I'll just interrupt myself right now I hate him so much this movie would be like 23 percent better without Dallas aka Matthew McConaughey okay so he is the owner of a male strip club in Tampa Florida ever heard of it uh we don't is a character in the movie it is yes do we ever learn the name of the

strip club i don't think so they keep like panning up to the oh someone's nodding wait what's the name of the club oh yes exquisite yes exquisite sorry we were hitting the emphasis wrong thank you so much would you like some mike's heart i love it someone's helping me out and I'm punishing them um if anyone does that does anyone want a small glass of Mike's heart I have a mango wait I have okay go ahead Caitlin you keep recapping I'm gonna I just have to do something okay so he's going over the ground rules of the club. Then we meet Magical Michael. That's Channing Tatum. He has just had a threesome with Joanna,

played by Olivia Munn, and some other lady whose name they don't remember. So this movie was deliberately like, we're not even going to try to pass the Bechdel test because we hate giving women names. And just in case you had any shred of doubt about whether a Channing Tatum character fucks, he fucks. The movie wants you to know that right away. We learned that Magical Michael makes artisanal furniture that looks like shit, honestly. It's so ugly.

But, you know, good for his artistic vision or whatever. His dream is to sell his pieces for money and for that to be his full-time job. Until then, he has several other jobs, such as a roofing job where he meets adam played by alex adam frankenstein aka magical michael jr aka alex pedifer aka the kid from beastly yes he is 19 years old he's kind of a mess he does not have his shit together he's kind of a fun like combination of florida man tropes with angry teenager tropes

yeah where they're like he beat up his football coach you're like okay yeah I think I understand who this character is. Yes. He lives with his sister Brooke, played by Cody Horn, and she is trying to help him get some steady work. That night, Adam Frankenstein bumps into Mike, who's outside of a dance club. Mike brings him into a strip club where Adam is surprised to learn that Mike is a male stripper. But not just a male stripper,

the king of the male strippers. He's the male stripper. It's kind of an exciting reveal where he's like, I'm Jesus. He's like,'m jesus like he's like i'm not batman i'm the batman 2022 starring robert pattinson i was like i haven't seen it yet does he say that in the movie he points at a picture of christian bale and he's like i'm not batman he's like michael keaton no no no no I'm not those Batmans. I'm the Batman. I'm the Batman. Anyway, so Adam learns that Mike is a male stripper.

Dallas gives Adam, who everyone starts calling the kid. So he gives the kid, a.k.a. Adam, a job doing props for the night at the club. Adam meets the other male strippers, whose names are Big Dick Richie, Ken, Tito, and Tarzan. I feel like that is, first of all, in every friend group, there is one Big Dick Richie, one Ken, one T one ken one tito one tarzan and which one are well which which are you of that oh my gosh um round of applause if you think i'm the big dick richie all right well that's that that settles it so i'm big dick Dick Richie. All right. What am I?

I'm Adam Frankenstein. Jamie is obviously Tarzan. I'll be Tarzan. Wow. We're kind of like fucking hunks. We're kind of like big hulking hunky kind of. Okay. Well, it's nice to know every once in a while. This show's been on for a long time it's just nice to know like how we're perceived

by our audience and so big dick richie tarzan cool sounds good yes yeah there's also tobias the dj who i guess is our like aristotle don't put him in the corner that's not fair yeah i'm kidding obviously um we but there is a tobias the dj played by gabriel iglesias yes and they're all goofing with adam uh mike shows him the ropes then it's time for the show okay so it's pretty exciting. It's exciting. They dance. They hump. There's a little bit of uh, and then there's a little bit of uh. I kept thinking about the chairs in that club.

And how they would just like, probably have to like, wipe the foam off the chairs every night. Is that how cum works? i'm a virgin yes understandably someone from the audience said foam and they you were right um i'm okay we're gonna sidebar after this. Is that not healthy? No, you're fine, Jamie. Yeah, no, it's fine. Okay.

So the whole thing is a sight to behold, which is what I wrote in my notes. Very boomer mom of you. That's a boomer mom at any strip club. What a sight to behold. What a sight to behold. What a sight to behold. Mike is usually front and center in all of this, although we do see different dancers' individual acts. And then when it's time for Tarzan's act, Jamie's act,

he turns out to be passed out backstage. Oh. Well, now that feels like targeted and aggressive. So Mike throws Adam on stage to fill the spot. And Adam sucks at dancing. But Dallas and Mike see his potential. So they decide to bring him into the group. The next morning, Mike drives Adam home and Mike meets Adam's sister, Brooke,

and we're like, uh oh, love interest alert. She's doing this thing, and I really liked her performance and I liked this actor, but she's doing this thing where it's very 2012 of like, I'm awkward and you're like i know like but she's kind of she keeps being like um i you know you're like okay i get i get it yeah but she's in like a bikini she's the most gorgeous woman i've ever seen in my life but she's like i'm awkward like okay hey we exist i'm kidding in defense of my community okay so mike has met brooke and mike reassures brooke that he will take care of adam

so then mike takes adam shopping for some stripper apparel which is also a very boomer mom way to... Stripper apparel? Identify that, yes. Wow, okay. I was hoping that we would get a shopping montage from men because we always get so many shopping montages from the gals, but we never get... I would have loved to see the kid from Beastly

try on a bunch of outfits that looked not good and then Channing Tatum's there with thumbs up or down. Right? Meanwhile, girls just want to have fun. It's funny. It's like Lizzie McGuire-esque is what I was hoping for. Similarly, I thought he was going to get a haircut type makeover too

because he has a scruffy scruff he has like a haircut that's like a little unkempt i thought they were gonna like clean him up but they're like no you're you look perfect actually and they're in they're in tampa so you know but yeah i was expecting the same thing by the way um but you can have you know facial hair is not an issue in that region uh okay so adam now has all this stripper apparel and brooke discovers it and she's like what the hell is this brother and he's like it's for work um we cut to brooke at the club where she is watching her brother do a sexy dance. Looking so contemplative. She's looking at him like, do I like this?

I'm like, right. It's complicated. She is watching very attentively and we're like, I guess. I feel like there are so many ways to support your brother horny dancing and staring at him really hard just like doesn't feel like the best way no you can like be present without staring at him really hard right and also so at this point adam has gotten much better at dancing then Then she sticks around for Mike's act. To be fair, Mike is always popping up around Brooke

and being like, you should stick around. Like that's kind of his thing. He's like, breakfast food! At one point he tells her to stick around her own home. I'm like, I think she will. She lives here. I think she will stick around. But when they're at the club he specifically says

you should stick around because he knows he's about to do the sexy worm which is how i refer to all of channing tatum's dancing right so she watches him dance to pony by genuine again that performance pales in comparison to the one i did just a half hour ago yeah but you know let round of applause for for channing tatum's effort is is what you're applauding but again it sucks compared to mine that was garbage yeah yeah. Zoe Kravitz should be dating you. Are they dating? Yes. I read newsletters.

And Brooke sees this, and she's like, wow, not as good as Caitlin, but I'm pretty impressed still. Then we see Mike try to get a loan from a bank to start his furniture business. And even though he has cash for a down payment he has bad credit so they won't give him the loan then mike adam and brooke all go to a fourth of july party they're becoming such good friends i also wrote that in my notes that's also mike bursts into their home at sunrise and is like we're

going to a party and then you know she's like it's 7 a.m. and he's like do you want to stick around like you just climbed through her fucking window dude like yeah but then she's like okay maybe there's something here. You know? Buscemi tells that. Right. Steve Buscemi burst into your house. I mean, also, if Steve Buscemi broke into my home, I would let him do anything to me.

But I mean, in general. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, fair. So they go to this Fourth of July party, and mike and brooke are kind of vibing but mike is still he's still fucking joanna here and there but she's kind of aloof so that doesn't really seem like it's going anywhere i and she also like she's working on her masters and i was like wow it's caitlin it is me caitlin's fucking channing tatum and she could have it either way that's where you learn tarzan

yes okay dallas then announces that he has bought a club in miami and he's moving the whole operation there from tampa uh he says that mike will make seven and a half percent of the profits from this new venture although dallas originally had promised 10 so mike is like what the fuck yeah mike is very sheryl sandberging on his own behalf for much of this movie where he is and i and and usually when i say sheryl sandberg i mean it as a pejorative but in this case like he's repeatedly trying to be like no i i want the correct amount of money and no one ever gives mike the correct amount of money and no one ever gives mike the correct amount of money which is true partially why this is kind of a tragic move

anyways yeah well we're getting to the part where it gets even sadder right so things from this point on start to go downhill for pretty much all the characters starting with adam because he starts doing drugs which drugs i don't know the ones that come in party packs they're no it's he's doing ecstasy he's doing ecstasy but then they're also like oh i don't know he was probably on g and i was like what's g oh you don't know what g is everyone play along caitlin doesn't't know what G is? Everyone play along. Caitlin doesn't even know what G is. Loser. We're all fucked up on G right now.

I can't wake up without a cup full of steaming hot G. Yeah, they have various units of G lying around. G units? Yeah. Wow, wow, wow. Feeling like it's 2006. Okay, so he starts doing drugs. He also starts selling drugs with Tobias.

Meanwhile, Mike and Brooke continue to vibe. Every time you say Tobias, I think it's Arrested Development. Tobias Funke. Tobias Funke. He's selling G. Yeah. So Mike and Brooke are vibing still more. And he asks if she wants to go get some food sometime and she's like oh like on a

date and he's like no i don't know well you should she's also dating tall paul yes um who sucks and we get i thought it was a very fun effective use of dialogue how you find out tall paul sucks in a single line of dialogue like he's just sounding like a fucking dork what does he say like he's like he's he's talking about like a fucking dork. What does he say? Like, he's like, he's talking about whatever the 2012 equivalent of crypto is, and you're just like, all right, I'm asleep.

Like, break up with Tall Paul. Right, yeah. He gets dumped. I don't even, you know, poor Tall Paul. Maybe he's a great guy. No, he's not. He is not.

So Mike and Adam then do a gig at a sorority adam gives one of the girls an ecstasy pill or maybe it's like a unit of g you know and all of the bros at the sorority are like oh my god did you give my girl ecstasy and they're like no and then there's like this huge fight it escalates quickly and mike and adam have to like get the fuck out of there and adam leaves behind his backpack which is full of the units of drugs that he has been selling with tobias nothing gets between a 19 year old boy and his backpack that's just a fact anything that's in the backpack if it's a 19 19-year-old boy, is not good. It's not good. True.

Yeah. Things continue to spiral out of control. Mike gets in an argument with Dallas. Mike learns that Joanna is engaged. Then one night, Mike and Adam get all fucked up. And then the next morning, Adam is passed out in his own vomit. Brooke comes in and freaks out. And she's like,

what did you do to my brother? You were supposed to take care of him. And we're like, wow, she's being so shrill. That's certainly how Mike treats her. That's how everyone handled it. They're like,

why is she's, she's being so ridiculous. I'm like, her brother is like almost dead. Maybe dead. And he's like, chill, chill.

I'm like, I'm maybe not advocating for Magical Michael as much as the movie wants me to right yes if my little brother was i just oh god i i kept connecting really hard with brooke in this movie because i have a little brother and i was like if my brother was passed out in a pile of his own vomit and some himbo told me to chill i would murder him right like i was like that's my brother like there's uh okay so then some dudes come in and trash mike's place because they're looking for adam who turns out to have lost way more units of drugs than he had said he units of what drugs g could you be more specific okay units of g yeah what is g don't tell her it's grapes it's wine

i'll figure it out by the end okay so adam owes tobias like 10 grand so mike yes mike pays off adam's debt with the money he had been saving for his furniture business so we're like oh no we can't have those ugly ass tables made out of bottles washed up on the shore of the fucking ocean but good for him good for him mike goes to talk to adam and he runs into brooke they have a very tense conversation and she's like you know what miami is just going to be a bigger badder version of this and i don't really believe in you so nothing gets resolved here yet then adam and mike kind of reconcile adam tells mike that he'll pay him back for all of those 10 g's that

scene is i mean we'll get back to that scene that scene was so frustrating to me because that was like adam is such a i feel i feel for adam but he's such a fucking mess in that scene where he is like talking to Mike. He's like, yeah, it's all good. We're going to go to Miami and everything's going to be great. And you're like, it's not going to be great. You're so fucked my man. But, but like hang on to this moment, I guess. Right.

And then it's the last show in Tampa before the big move to miami and mike ends up bailing on this show and he goes to brooke and she's like wow i heard what you did for my brother and he's like yeah i'm not gonna go to miami after all he's like and she's like uh well first she like, let's smooch. And then we'll get breakfast together. And then he's like, uh. Right, and then they go. And then they go.

And then. Sorry, we're reversing. And that's the end of the movie. Yeah. So there you go. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia.

I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy sex talk. This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're covering everything from body image to representation in film and television.

We even interview iconic Latinas like Puerto Rican actress Ana Ortiz. I felt in control of my own physical body and my own self. I was on birth control. I had sort of had my first sexual experience. If you're in your señora era or know someone who is, then this is the show for you we're your host diosa and mala and you might recognize us from our flagship podcast locatora radio we're so excited for you to hear our brand new podcast senora sex ed listen to senora sex ed on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast oh Oh boy. Where do we want to start with this movie?

Do you want to start by, should we palate cleanse? Should you grind on me again? For we kind of get into it. Yeah, we should do like a little intermission and then everyone can, how's everyone doing with their mics? Is everyone good?

Is everyone good? The people they're the people who i gave mics are have passed out they're like i feel sick no everyone's good for all for all the listeners everyone i gave mics hard lemonade to is alive and where should we start with the discussion of this movie i feel like there's there's so much more going on in this movie than i mean this is i feel like it's an interesting case of, because I went back, because I didn't see this movie when it came out. I was very curious about how this movie was marketed

because I vaguely remembered how it was marketed. And it is marketed not for what the movie is. It is not marketed as like a movie that is like 80% about the interpersonal struggles of male strippers. It's marketed as 90 minutes of male strippers dancing. Which is kind of, I feel like, been the legacy of the movie because there's the Vegas show, there's all this stuff,

and that's neither a good nor a bad thing, but I just think it's an interesting case of it was very much marketed as hor horny horny horny fun fun fun where the movie's like doing doing horny fun but also doing all this other stuff that wasn't present in the trailer or the marketing or like the magazine covers or anything like that like you think you're getting 90 minutes of himbos but you're getting himbos and pathos right which is the formula for any good movie yeah so i mean yeah i appreciate the the movie for what it is i think if it was just like himbos you're saying you wouldn't like it if it was just himbos get a grip i mean

it would have been fun if it was just himbos but i You're saying you wouldn't like it if it was just himbo's? Get a grip. I mean, it would have been fun if it was just himbo's, but I liked that it wasn't. Right. I mean, well, what would the plot have been? I mean,

you can just go to a male strip show if you just want to see 90 minutes of himbo's. Which I have. Right. And it costs a lot more than it does to see Magic Mike, and that's a good thing

because if you're going to a strip show and you're not tipping, Mike and that's a good thing because you if you're going to a strip show you're not tipping well that's not good yeah okay so what were we talking about yeah the marketing I will say I think there's something to be said for so I know a lot of men have seen this movie brave of you but I think there is something to be said for a movie that has almost an entirely like i guess straight women fan base because don't leave bisexual women out of that equation because we're also you're absolutely right for it i'm so sorry no no that was by erasure on my part and i apologize um i guess any gender who likes

channing tatum which it actually really broadens the scale right and now we're back to a circle any gender and any sexuality who likes channing tatum this is the target demo for yeah this movie so um but you know in kind of a narrower scope it's like a lot of horny women who are into this movie and uh i think that's cool the end of my awesome thought awesome thoughts with caitlin um no i i think i agree i feel like there's not a lot of movies that are catered to horny women who want dick like that right that's great i i i love that and i uh include myself there um brave thank thank you so much you know not a lot of no i'm kidding uh uh i i but i i really liked, I mean, Magical Michael himself. Yes.

A complex character. True. I feel like there's so much going on with him where even before you see him strip, I sort of expected him to be stripping right away and then just to be a 90-minute MP4 of Channing Tatum stripping but the context for this movie is it's Channing Stan Channing Statum I was Jason Statham Channing Tatum I was making him bows into one person sure um no Channing Tatum was a stripper in Florida

and was trying to make a movie about that experience and was looking for a director to shape that with him. He originally wanted the director from drive Nicholas Winding Revin, which would have been like a very different movie with way more bisexual lighting. Yeah. But ended up like he happened to be working with steven soderbergh at the time steven soderbergh was like i could make a movie about himbos and channing tatum who seems like a very

affable person like was like yeah make a movie about himbos like and um sort of like built out this world that it is not like directly autobiographical because it sounds like the men who are in this movie got like a lot of say in who their characters were and like building out their individual routines and like i guess that the guys who play the strippers in the movie got to figure out like what their individual act was which gives me a lot of questions about who chose to be the Ken doll sure I mean I have a lot of questions about Tarzan Tarzan I mean ask me but I I like that in that but most of the movie is about kind of like magical Michael's struggle outside of sex work um which is interesting. Right. I think this movie does, because we've talked,

we've had a number of conversations about sex work and specifically stripping on the show with various movies. We've covered like Hustlers, Zola, even like Coyote Ugly. And Full Monty. And the Full Monty. Right. So a lot of these movies focus on women who are doing sex work and stripping and i feel like i mean the issues and the scrutiny that sex workers face

i feel like disproportionately affect women and non-binary uh sex workers especially those of color and male sex workers often get left out of the conversation. But, you know, they deserve to have their lives be represented on screen too.

Wow. Wow, okay, MRA. I would like to distance myself from Caitlin at this time as she bravely defends men. But I will say, though, that this movie, unlike others that we've covered on the podcast that focus on women in sex work,

presents the sex work as far more glitzy and glamorous in the way that women don't have that same luxury of being presented their work, that makes sense yeah no i mean i i i i mean we can't speak on behalf of men even though we have many times uh but i i do think that the way that sex work is presented in this movie it's it's complicated right because it's not presented as like fully, this is the answer, and this is an extremely empowering, it's presented as a means to an end,

which I feel like has a lot to do with the time period that this movie was made in and takes place in, which introduces this bizarre sub-genre that we now have, which is like recession sex work. But this and and hustlers very much belong in that like expanded universe of like late 2000s recession um sex work like because

that's when magic mike was developed and that's i mean by the time hustlers came out it was a period piece and in that which uh hope everyone feels elderly hearing that um but in any case i mean i think it's really interesting the way that male sex workers are presented in this movie versus women sex workers strictly because it's like it's not presented as like it's the exact opposite but it's just like a separate set of issues right because it's like they are performing masculinity for an audience that is foaming at the loins for it and that's great foaming yes they're not there's a lot of issues that are shared where it's like the uh financial issues and like i mean you can almost argue like a gig economy style issue of like they're dependent on tips um and other outside of that fucking mcconaughey has given them 50 bucks a

night which is ridiculous um in any year right uh for someone supporting your in like making your entire business is 50 plus tips is is just bullshit right and so there's there are some shared issues and then there's also issues that kind of separate performers where it doesn't seem like you don't really get the feeling that the the the magical michaels this world like they are not made to feel unsafe in the way that we see women sex workers and marginalized sex workers in general are generally made to feel they have problems that are independent of that they're like performing masculinity to this wild extent and i always thought it was like i don't know i like watch this movie three times to get ready because i i like to be horny and i like to think about class issues so this movie is like uniquely tuned to my interests.

But stuff where it's like Channing Tatum cannot, I can't get it out of the Dangerfield zone here. He can't get no respect. But like in certain settings where he's like performing manual labor, which is like when he's roofing, when he's doing construction work, when he's doing all these other side gigs that he's doing, which also very much puts him in,

you know, like this age and in the recession specifically, he is not compensated correctly. He's always having to advocate for himself to be compensated well. But when he performs those tasks on stage, when he performs as a construction worker, like he gets a ton of money and it's just I don't I mean I don't have a finishing thought but you're just like maybe we should just all strip our jobs instead of doing them yeah let's strip podcasting no no no

podcasting should be um eradicated eradicated should be illegal we do have the most embarrassing job um wow hello show to a screeching halt um i well that and he's unable to get that bank loan so like the man or like you know the the banks and that whole those like financial institutions don't respect him or and that's like true for i think sex workers across the gender spectrum where um he has a stack of so much money and they're just like well um your credit score sucks because we rely like what even is credit i don't know but uh he can't get any respect because of that because he says like his businesses deal exclusively in cash and yeah right and then it's like he's immediately judged on the hearing of that because that has like an implication that

the bank loan person is like well you're not going to get a loan right which i feel like the movie plays that off very very well like that scene with the bank employee i really i had to watch it back a couple of times because it's this combination of like he is being actively discriminated against for you know even implying like that he is a sex worker and then on the other end he also kind of gets like injured by the rejection where where the bank loan person is like well there's a program that we can like help you out with and then i feel like it was like a kind of a very masculine response to be like i don't need help no it's fine i'm gonna go and you're like no he calls her sweetheart what about your ugly furniture i like to think that he like gives

her his business plan or whatever and she was like maybe considering giving him a loan but then when she sees his furniture she's like i'm sorry i cannot give you this loan it has nothing to do with big banks it's just i don't want to support whatever this is. I also, I was like, imagine someone who, not to keep dunking on Channing Tatum's fictional furniture, but imagine someone who makes furniture that looks like that coming into your house and being like, is this chair from Ikea? And it's like, go fuck yourself, man.

You're making a fucking table out of a pane of glass and five of these. Five Mike's Hardcans. I'm i'm sorry yes it's an audio medium yeah yeah so um anyways an impactful scene yeah she is so horny for him at the beginning of that scene though she's like but that's another i feel like that was another thing though it's like that is like what magical michael uh kind of reverts to is like i'm very charming like i can pull people into my gravitational channing tatum field very easily but even that isn't enough to get past the discrimination of giving bank loans to someone who is giving you all the money that is necessary, but because it's all the money that's necessary

as a sex worker, it's a problem. Right. Yeah. It's also not enough to reel in Brooke right away either. A little bit of pride and prejudice energy going on here. She's got some pride and she's got some pride she doesn't do we want to transition to talking about brooke let's do it okay here's my first thought okay ready yeah should i get in the receiving position i'm gonna straddle you again are you gonna straddle me again

okay so i feel like a lot of movies do this where there are a number of female characters there's one main one and then there are a few secondary or tertiary characters and most of the female characters in the movie are presented in a way that's not especially empathetic. So take this movie, for example, the Olivia Munn character is, you know, aloof, she's standoffish, she's unavailable. And then she turns out to be deceitful because she didn't let him know that she was engaged. You have your kind of like, quote unquote, ditzy women, like the two 21 year olds who like go to the club at the beginning.

You have various women, but none of them are presented as being like viable options for our hero, except for one. So I feel like that's like a very like screenwriter-y, like show don't tell kind of way of just like flat out saying, she's not like the other girls she's better because all these other girls kind of suck right and and that is like i mean that fits very cleanly into like the steven soderbergh uh expanded universe also it's i it is kind of like a writing shortcut for a male screenwriter. That's like, I don't know why this woman is a character.

They're like, Oh, what if she like negs him a little bit at the beginning? And instead of that playing out as it would in the real world, which is him not talking to her anymore, it ends up being a romantic. I, that said,

I like Brooke as a character. I do. I do like her, but there are moments in the movie where i wasn't totally sure how we were supposed to feel about her right and especially because like mike mistreats her for different chunks breaking into her home i will say he's like almost every time they meet he's like kicking the door down fucking Kool-Aid man style being like, we're going to a party like there, which I know. Like I think that in the in the world of the movie, it's like she needs to get out of her shell a little bit. She is like seems like she really isolates herself.

He calls her uptight. He's like, she's up. She can't hang. She's so freaking uptight it's it's weird to me because it's like i feel like this movie is like a a weird situation where it's like halfway there where like i i like brooke and i feel like i understand why she's doing the things she's doing where she's kind of in this bizarre care like middling caretaker position for a young adult sibling who she can't technically say no to but who is still not mature enough to do fucking anything the beastly kid can't do shit you know and like so

she has to be his mom but she can't be his mom because he can legally do whatever he wants and she has to support both of them because she has to we don't really know what the situation is with their parents but like it seems like she is kind of his primary caretaker and that he certainly can't take care of himself and so you understand like why it's like yeah she doesn't have time to go out a lot like but it seems it seems like the movie understands that in some scenes and then in other scenes that kind of like paints her as like a character who is uptight where it's like well when is she gonna find the fucking time to be a horny little slut you know right there's only so many hours in the day if there were more hours in the day

maybe more of us would be hornier littler sluts i don't know profound Profound. Wow. Thank you. March forthcoming. So yeah, Mike's flirtation tactic is just to be very pushy. I don't hate all of their interactions, but he is not being very cool to her a lot of the time, especially in that scene where we already referenced this, but Adam is like passed out face first in his own vomit a pig is eating it so gross i was like wow uh a woman with a little pig before ariana grande i didn't know it happened i thought ariana grande

invented having a little pig as a personality oh wow but there was this character in magic mike yes uh nora is that her name doesn't seem like the name of a young character but yes right anyway so yeah and she's another female character who we're like oh no she's almost like a femme fatale for a adam because she's giving him g units every day i can't hear you say g units it's so funny so anyway um there's a scene where brooke comes in she's very reasonably upset especially after mike had promised to take care of her brother especially after he had like kind of roped him into this job that she and there's a whole other conversation to be had about her views on sex work but um point is adam is like maybe od'd and dead and she's upset about it and he's like why are you so upset why why don't you he tells her to he literally says calm

down you need to relax and then he says you're acting crazy right now and then he's also kind of like manhandling her throughout this scene because she's trying to like help her brother and he keeps pulling her off of him and then there's the her being like disapproving of his lifestyle aka she's not very tolerant of the sex work that he's doing to the movie's credit he does you know try to explain like there are other facets of my person uh boomer mom they're yeah no no i know what you're saying like i mean this this all feels done for me it was done pretty self like in a self-aware way by the movie of like this is a care like because there are i'm sure especially you know

10 years ago in 2012 like there i'm sure were a lot of people in the audience who would connect with like i don't understand sex work or sex workers and i am like passing this judgment it is not necessary and to see a character go from point a to point z on that subject may have been helpful because i feel like the movie at least going in is aware of that and i i like i caught this movie a lot of slack in that it was conceived and made as a way of helping people who do not understand sex work or respect it for the work that it very much is and should be respected as to recognize that and i feel like that is like it feels like kind of the mission of the movie to humanize sex workers while also like making it clear that like this is fucking work you know yes um but

the thing with brooke is that she doesn't agree to be with him and smooch him until he's like i'm actually not gonna go to miami after all and that's true she's like so it's not totally clear the extent of her disapproval, like the extent to which that affects Mike's decision to not go. But it seems like he really wants to be with her, especially after she's like, oh, you're such a loser because you're a 30-year-old stripper. And then he's like, oh, my God, I don't want to be a 30-year-old stripper. Oh, no, I want to impress Mike 30 year old stripper oh no i want

to impress my strippers are like cool the coolest so it feels as though that affects his decision to not go to miami and basically not pursue stripping anymore because she's like well what are you going to do then and he's like i don't know i'll just go eat some breakfast or something and well i think that that is though that is like complicated by the other stuff going on and she's like i don't know i'll just go eat some breakfast or something and well i think that is though that is like complicated by the other stuff going on in mike's life which is like why this movie is like it's tricky you don't know exactly it's a combination of factors because i agree with what you're saying of i i don't think that the trajectory of her understanding and respecting sex work gets where it needs to be.

And it feels like dated in that aspect. And then you also see this, like it feels like this very like recession-based issue of another, like there are a couple of different reasons why Mike leaves the club. And I'm not even convinced. And if I'm, I don't know what happens in the second Magic Mike. I wasn't even convinced that he was I'm, I don't know what happens in the second magic Mike.

I wasn't even convinced that he was going to leave sex work entirely. My understanding was like, he's leaving this club because Matthew McConaughey is a fucking asshole who won't pay him what he's worth. And like, there's this whole whatever, like mirror aspect where he's looking at the kid from beastly and the kid from beastly is a younger version of himself

that's kind of like self-destructing and in spite of the fact that i think brooke naively said like this one guy is going to that i don't really know is going to protect my brother from all of this shit all the units of g yeah every single G unit in the world. You can't just be like, oh, I met a hot guy, so my brother is safe forever. That's kind of on her for assuming that that would be true. But there's a number of factors that gets Mike out of this club specifically. And I guess I didn't view it as like he was leaving sex work forever.

I viewed it as like he's leaving this toxic situation because Matthew McCconaughey and his ridiculous fucking hat won't give him 10 right and like he's never going to get the equity he's been promised in the situation that he's in and even like his protege is kind of turning his back on him and so it's kind of like fuck it. I thought it was like empowering that Mike left that toxic situation, but also that can be read as he's leaving sex work because he wants to be with this girl.

So it's like, it's a, I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of ways to look at it. It's too ambiguous on something that needs to be pretty explicitly clear. Especially because like he even says during one of the scenes at the end he's like yeah you're right i don't want to be a 40 year old stripper in miami as if like being a 40 year old stripper would be pathetic for him so i think that we're supposed to believe that he's

like in the process of coming around on sex work and he's going to really, uh, go all in. Ugly ass furniture. And that's what Brooke would approve of. So, and I, um, bravely did some research and found some accounts from real life male strippers who did criticize the end of this movie because they interpret it as Mike giving up stripping

because his new girlfriend didn't approve of it. And they were like, a lot of male strippers have families and they do it well into their 40s and later and it's not shameful for me or it's not embarrassing. They said that they do it because they love entertaining and they love dancing so they were not pleased with how this the end of this movie pans out because it does seem to kind of come down on the side of like sex work is something that you can do for a little while

while you're young but it's just sort of a stepping stone to quote-unquote more serious work and that kind of like gets into another thing that i think we need to talk about for this movie which is that i feel like that issue could have been more clearly addressed outside of mike's character if we knew the other dancers a little better because right I I thought it was kind of bizarre where I I don't know where I got this notion from but I sort of came in with the notion that we were going to get the entire cast story kind of kind of like in the full Monty right like it was it was just like I thought we were going to kind of get to know everybody which the movie kind of vaguely tries to do but in a very unsatisfactory

way where sometimes you'll learn like you learn one or two things about every stripper that isn't mike or adam but it's mostly in passing lines of dialogue the strippers are majority white the strippers who aren't white it's repeatedly pointed out that they aren't white and and it's repeatedly pointed out that they aren't white. And it's like, you don't get like, I feel like there is an opportunity to represent a wider spectrum of male strippers through the six or seven or eight guys that are on the, the poster of the movie, but you really only get to know two of them and they fall into this very narrow,

like I only want to be a stripper for a certain amount of time, which is okay but it's like there is such like you're saying like there is such a wide variety of experience in stripping and in sex work in general that it's like well you need to show more if you're trying to make the male stripper movie which was already done in the full monty so but the right right but but i mean i i i was kind of frustrated with how the rest of the cast was like kind of neglected in the process of how this movie went because you found out certain things about them but they're all very vague it's like oh this guy's a little spiritual this guy likes sewing and it all feels like oh this is like sure like that's that's fun

character stuff but like do i remember what their name is do i really know anything about them like no you don't uh i think you only the only thing you learn about ken is that his wife's breasts his wife's his wife's breasts his wife's his wife's breasts are really cool. Which is a fine fact but maybe not the first and only one

to know. Yes, correct. I feel like there was a missed opportunity to represent a wider spectrum of experience in the cast of the movie that's already there and like played by like very popular like well-regarded when i saw some of the actors that were cast as the other male strippers i was like oh everyone's gonna get a story these are all pretty famous actors and like it was just magical michael yeah if you if you thought you were gonna get any information about joe mangiolillo what is his name joe mangiolillo oh my god i don't know who that is matt bomer uh someone isn't watching procedurals or soap operas 15 years ago it's true uh tito is played by adam rodriguez tarzan is played by

kevin nash yeah we really learned nothing about any of those characters, but it would have been a nice opportunity to, for a movie that seems to want to characterize and humanize sex workers, especially because there's such a problem with sex workers in media not being humanized, that this would have been a nice opportunity to give us information about more than Magical Michael and Magical Michael Jr. But the movie opts not to do that.

Yeah, which sucks. And it is like you were saying earlier, centering this very, I feel like, more marketable view of stripping in general, but male strippers in specific of like well this is temporary and i actually want to do something else like there's no character that's presented as like this is my chosen career and i'm very happy doing it yeah which should be a perspective that is presented because it like like you're saying like it is very much something that exists and isn't represented and oh yes pee pee poo Pee pee poo poo. Pee pee poo poo.

Speaking of, uh, one of my main complaints about the movie is that there's not enough nudity. Anyone else agree? You got to see butt and titties right away. Yes. However, the first scene.

Okay. But I'm an insult insult i feel like we see more female nudity in this movie about male strippers which is confusing you basically see a few bare asses of men and you see a silhouette oh no you do see big Dick Richie's penis in a penis enlarging device. What are those called? I would say that's pretty nude. That's pretty nude. It's kind of like a disembodied penis, you know?

This is a very specific complaint. But I was just, I was kind of curious about this and it turns out that the shows that you see in this movie are closer to male reviews than male strip shows like a chip and dale situation right i for one did not really know about this distinction until i was researching this for this episode i just outed myself as very much knowing the distinction. But for anyone else who didn't know, so basically male review shows or male reviews have the more kind of like choreographed dancing

than a male strip show. There's a lot more like costume changes like we see in this movie. There's also like a show that starts at a specific time and then ends 90 minutes later, much like a live episode of the Bechdel cast. We're running out of time. We actually are.

We do need to wrap up soon. But there's all these. And then also the big thing is that the lack of nudity. Right. There's a noticeable lack of bare penises. Okay, but that opens a whole Pandora's box of like, I don't think we can pin this on the movie in particular because that is the rating system that is like,

and that's why I feel like the only way you can see bare dick is if you've got an hbo max subscription uh-huh and you're watching the kids at euphoria high why are there so many penises that's your problem there's plenty of places to see dicks in this world but i wouldn't say in a movie aspect i i don't think we can like put that on magic mike specifically i would hope that they would have showed us dick if they could have but because that like you can only that's like a general issue with movie ratings it's like you can show way more of a woman's body than you can it's just a problem that's existed for a very long time. Right. And so that's, I feel like why TV has sort of taken, uh,

taken the lead on showing dick. Um, and that's my, that's my S in this essay. I will tell you why there's so much more dick on it in, at euphoria high school than there is in magic Mike, because you would think, and it should be the opposite.

Uh, but, but yeah, I mean, would think and it should be the opposite. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think that it's like even if a major movie wanted to show Dick, there's like not a lot of ways to do it because of how that very antiquated structure is made. For sure, yes. So I withdraw my complaint. But wouldn't it be great to see like the

the dick cut kind of like the butthole cut sorry sorry there had to have been a better way someone's gonna pull that out of context and my life's gonna be fucking over there's so many ways to interpret it too it's like are we talking about circumcision that out of context and my life's going to be fucking over.

There's so many ways to interpret it too. It's like are we talking about circumcision? Yes and that is what we're talking about. Correct. That's what I was saying. No but like the butthole cut of Cats. The dick cut of Magical Michael.

You wouldn't have been able to release the throbbing butthole cut of cats in theaters to general audiences yeah the same way that you wouldn't have been able to but but then there there is a lot of like gendered implications there because there are i mean and we've like had this talk on the show before of how the rating system is generally like you can show brutalization towards women the entire fucking movie and get a pg-13 rating but dare we show just the tip and and we cannot release it oh no yeah so it is like a a big systemic movie problem yes Yes, indeed. Yeah. The things that I actually have complaints about are these. So there are some very like 2012 things that are said or done in the movie

that go completely unchallenged by the movie. I think one of the most egregious ones is a few moments of like, quote unquote, no homo where there's a scene where dallas is teaching adam how to dance and he makes a like no homo comment using a slur yeah and he's like yeah i'm not trying to fuck you or anything this is just i'm teaching you how to dance so you can make money um i think which your boss should never have to say to you for anyone listening who's like my boss says stuff like that to me is that okay no probably not right um the thing is that like i i believe that character of dallas would have said

something like that but again the movie nor any of the other characters, challenges that attitude. There's another scene where Brooke finds all of Adam's thongs and she very abrasively is like, what the fuck is going on? Get out here, I need to talk to you. He's in the bathroom, he might be taking a poo, but she's like, get out here right now. I have to talk to you about your thongs.

And then she's like, stop taking, stop that shit right now. You better cut that log, boy. Because I hate that I said that. But you can do that with your ass, though. She's like, I don't care what your your preferences are but also get the fuck out here because it's gross that you i think you might be gay and then he's like no it's just for work and she's like what never followed up like that's the thing where it's like that it's frustrating

because it's like i don't think it's like the worst thing in the world to present that someone in his life would feel that way but you have to come full circle on that narrative of like she was explicitly wrong to have made that judgment and bear that out but instead it's like she makes the judgment it's kind of played for laughs and then it's like not really referenced explicitly again there's no apology there's no like there's no you know it's right it all becomes this kind of murky mess and then at the end of the movie she still does not approve of the work they're doing and then mike michael magic michael comma michael comma magical uh quits his job basically because of it and again like i imagine that that is like common

for like the scrutiny that male strippers and sex workers and sex workers of all genders face but again the movie doesn't actually really comment on it um there's a quick conversation between mike and adam where they're in the club early on they clock these two young women one of them has just turned 21 and mike is like go talk to that girl and adam says she doesn't look like she wants to be bothered and then mike is like look at what she's wearing she came here tonight to be bothered mike does shit like that like there I know that we're supposed to be like, Michael, he's so magical, but like he does do some misogynist shit. He's bursting into your house.

Like the Kool-Aid man. He's, he's saying like, well, she's wearing a dress. She probably wants to be harassed. And then, and then the way that the script plays out is like,

it endorses magical. Michael's POV of like the women. That was always kind of frustrating where it seemed like in some areas of the script, Mike's perspective was kind of challenged and moved forward. But whenever he's like judging a woman based on what he thinks he's observing from a distance in the script it always bears out that he was right with the exception of brooke which falls into the not like the other girls thing you were talking about earlier right where it's like with this girl who's turning 21 he's like oh no she wants to be harassed she came here to be harassed and then when the kid from beastly goes over and is like who's in beastly like whatever he says to her she's like wow oh my god like you know like in a way that it's like if someone came up to me when i was

21 and said i was in beastly yeah i would be like i haven't seen that cool yeah i'm not like other girls. I didn't see Beasley in theaters. The last thing here is that there's an instance of body shaming where there's a part of the movie where Big Dick Richie, me, is that who we decided I was? I can't remember. Yes, we did. Okay, okay. But this behavior does not exemplify anything i would ever do he picks up a fuller figured woman and then immediately his back is injured and he has to

walk off stage and it's like also played for laughs yeah and the movie doesn't challenge that in any way and it just uh shames this nameless woman yeah so yeah it did come out in 2012 is the conclusion yeah that i would like to draw it very much did yes did you have anything else you wanted to talk about um i think in general i mean i i i think going off the 2012 stuff it just seems like there were some missed opportunities in this movie that maybe were addressed in the sequel i don't know magic mike's last dance it might just be a really long funeral movie i don't know or maybe it's a resurrection story it starts at magical michael's funeral and then he's like whoa and then he's like i've lost dancing i'm available to direct that uh but anyways it just felt like this this movie was

it we talk about this all the time but like movies of this era specifically it feels like a stepping stone towards more inclusive, better movies. Where this movie, I think, does show a lot of empathy towards its characters in a way that sex workers in general and male sex workers are not generally shown. I wish that there were more movies about women sex workers and marginalized sex workers who are you know dealing with shit that is much more immediately dangerous than what magical michael is dealing with which also is really difficult like there's just there's not enough movies about sex work in general that present sex workers as people you know and this movie i think is definitely a stepping stone towards that. And also doesn't get into the realm of tragedy porn, where I feel like that's another risk that you run.

Whereas like, it is still a fun movie. It's all, I mean, there's such a horny legacy. What is that? We should enter that into our vocabulary. Horny legacy,

tone palm. What else is there? This movie has a lot of horny depth. Horny depth. But then a horny depth can turn into a horny legacy tone palm what else this movie has a lot of horny depth horny depth horny but then a horny depth can turn into a horny legacy over time true oh it feels like a step in the right direction but ultimately like we've been talking about like it does come down on this bizarrely conservative end of like well only by you know giving up sex work was he able to find true happiness and and also in that way even like the way that we haven't really talked about how adam's storyline ends but the storyline with adam ends where he's completely had his ass saved by magical

michael who's given up his life savings to save his ass. And Ben responds by being like, thanks, Mike, that was really cool. And then immediately taking Mike's job. And then being like, well, I guess I'm Mike now. Again, it's like a Santa Claus situation almost. He killed Magic Mike and now he's Magic Mike. He took all of Magic Mike's money and now he's Magic Mike. I feel like that would maybe a little

under examined by the story. But like even that I feel like the way that his arc ends ends up kind of depicting his profession in a bad light of like by him staying in stripping and sex work that makes him a bad person where it's like no what makes him a shitty person is that he took all of Magic Mike's money

and then Santa Claus'd him. like that's the bad thing but i don't know how much this movie is interested in kind of like making that separation right i will say though that i did appreciate that this movie largely centered a male friendship where even though every movie ever made is about men, so few of them actually explore in an interesting way. Yes, Jamie? I'm just saying it does kind of fall into the fathers and sons trope where there's so many father-son. But in this movie, it does work. Yeah, I mean, we have sort of like a mentor daddy figure.

There's so many daddies in this movie come on and like matthew mcconaughey is channing tatum's daddy but he's like a grand bad daddy he's a bad daddy we don't like him this daddy has too much money we gotta get this daddy out of here and then channing tatum good daddy kid from beastly we don't not not a daddy yet aspiring daddy he's he's not yet a daddy still a son got a fucking human centipede of daddies some good some bad if for some reason in this movie it works for me generally i'm like enough with the daddies but in this movie there is a the spectrum of daddies is on display there's good

daddies there's bad daddies there's morally ambiguous daddies the point is i appreciate that this movie explored male friendship in a way that was fairly nuanced and interesting I mean especially because by the end it's like are they even going to be friends anymore I mean no Adam owes him a bunch of money but it's going to be a weird Thanksgiving because he's dating her his sister but yes yeah uh anyway I think that's all I had uh well then let's get into uh the reason that people think they listen to this show sometimes, which is does it pass the Bechdel test? That is, again, we've talked about this so many times,

but it's my favorite way to find out that someone is lying about listening to this show where they're like, yeah, I love finding out if it passed the Bechdel test. I'm like, do you think we just go through this script line by line and be like, hmm, does that pass? I guess not. No,

not that one. That would be fun though. Let's turn the page. Let's see if this one. Does this movie pass the Bechdel test? I don't think so because Joanna and Brooke do talk to each other

about swimsuits and tattoos, but Magical Michael is right there and like interjecting yeah i i saw that as well and i and and the whole subtext of that conversation is joanna is trying to get the vibe of like is she going to fuck me and magical michael right because they're always looking for a third which i i did appreciate that was presented very matter-of-factly the movie where like joanna and mike have been hooking up for a while they're always looking for a third and they're and that's just like who they are they're very different people they have the same interest

and that's what they want magical michael wants uh he wants to be a wife guy that's his business whatever but i i did like that joanna was presented as like a fully fleshed out character who just like this is something she wants to do but the subtext of that whole conversation is that she's like are me and mike gonna fuck this girl and so yeah i don't think that yeah also a third that they could have brought in is her fiancee that uh she seems to very much know what's right i was so confused about the fiance scene because the fiance was sort of like should i get out of here i'm like this guy is so fucking chill right what is it he was like i'm gonna go look at he's he literally says like i'm gonna go look in

the mirror so it almost implies that they are in an open relationship, which makes it weird that Joanna wouldn't have told Mike that. And I wish we kind of got a landing place there. Cause I didn't dislike the Joanna character. I didn't feel like she was made out to be a villain, except for the fact that her storyline ended so abruptly that you feel like you didn't get closure with her because it was clear that like she was conflicted on how she felt about Mike. It seemed like she and Mike wanted different things. I feel like it was kind of unique in that you usually see

like in big movies that the woman in a heterosexual relationship really wants something more right and that the man doesn't it was clear in this situation that mike wanted more than joanna was willing to give but then it was like it just sort of stopped when it was like this random hot guy was like i better get out of here and then then that was just kind of that was just kind of the end of the story for them um but i liked her story in general i like to think that there was a final scene that got cut or something because it just felt kind of abrupt same um anyways it doesn't pass the bacterial test sorry nope but how about that nipple scale of ours how about that nipple scale

how about it zero to five nipples based on an examination of the movie through an intersectional feminist lens hmm this movie

made me horny five nipples and that's our show thanks for coming all right i will say i would say like i don't know i guess two and a half i do appreciate that this movie attempts to humanize sex work even though it is about men boo and uh predominantly white men but uh I think that there's enough,

I don't know, it's just one of those split down the middle things where it is doing some cool, subversive, interesting things and is also adhering to some other problematic tropes of the time.

Two and a half nipples. I'll give one to Brooke. I'll give one no actually no i don't know she i take it back i hate women i don't like that she was all like sex work is gross uh and you can't kiss me until you quit i'm gonna give one to the pig who eats vomit i'm gonna give the other nipple to the vomit no i don't know it's two and a half nipples to the pig the end uh i'll do i'll do three i i think i i like this movie a lot it certainly made me i don't even know if it made me horny there's something about like there's i this is a personal thing but like there's a threshold when when someone gets too hot it becomes science to me where i'm just like this is really like i put on a fucking monocle i'm like interesting you know like at some point when a person gets too

like traditionally hot it it becomes scary to me but that said i this movie is a really horny movie i like how it does i mean it like and we've talked about this a little bit but it like you know shows really macho masculine stuff but then it also shows the other side of it and it shows like the challenges that are presented by like having to constantly perform this and it is i think like it was ahead of its time at least in 2012 for showing sex work in an empathetic way even though it is certainly not perfect based on what we've discussed and and it also you know just kind of in you know i don't want to use the phrase interrogates masculinity because it makes me feel like i'm a fucking loser but whatever jamie we're podcasters we're losers we are fucking losers so i'm gonna go walk into traffic um well anyways it interrogates my hand uh i'll give it three nipples it's it's it's

a good movie yeah it's it's not uh my main issues with it are the way that it ends in a needlessly ambiguous way given that it seemed like it was building towards a more decisive conclusion right um and then it sort of like at the end i didn't like how the women in the movie were it was like there's only one female character in the entire movie and she doesn't really have anyone to talk to when it was like it would have been interesting to give her more people to talk to and just more women in general that were not very background character generalized yeah um it's a really white movie and an air like especially because they specifically ground it in tampa that also makes no fucking sense um so it's just like

i it steven soderbergh you know that's a steven soderbergh problem i think anyways uh three nipples i'll give one to channing tatum doing the sexy worm i'll give one to the chair that everyone's coming all over with a zebra print on it uh-huh and i'll give my final nipple to the big dick. Okay. Ooh. Yeah. The one that they keep saying, swingin' low.

That one. Nice. Yeah. Well, folks, that's our show. Thank you so much for coming. We don't, normally we would have time for questions but guess what we don't we talked for too long but feel free to we'll be out in the lobby in a few minutes feel free to come and say hi otherwise thank you so much for coming you're coming give it up for yourselves

that was the episode thank you so much for listening we also want to give a big thanks to the Elysian Theater yes in Los Angeles where we did the show special thanks to Kate and Mel and Paul at the Elysian three of the greats And thank you to everyone who came out. We really appreciate it. You've made us feel so welcome and loved and we love our LA crew and we hope to see the rest of you soon. But yeah, huge shout out to The Elysian.

If you're ever in LA and want to see a great comedy show, they're happening there almost every damn day. All the time. Oh, why don't you get over there? Yeah. And in regular orders of happening there almost every damn day. All the time. So why don't you get over there? Yeah. And in regular orders of business,

you can find us on the internet, on, you know, where we normally live. Sure. On Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast. We also have a Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon, where you can get two additional episodes from just Caitlin and myself every single month with a fun theme. Obviously, we are currently observing Titanic month, but we're also doing Romeo plus Juliet. So it's actually kind of a DiCaprio youth theater month.

I keep forgetting what it's actually called. It leonardo de caprillo or de caprillo de caprillo and stitch not a movie we're doing this month but uh it's five bucks a month and you get two bonus episodes a month with over a hundred episodes in that feed so what a bargain over there absolutely wow and you can buy our merch which jamie designed all of it fyi and that can be found at tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast and um yeah you know rate us on the platforms the podcast platforms give us a like give us a review give us a follow all the other great stuff absolutely wow um and until next time we'll see you uh same time same place next week we love you Thank you for listening. And we'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks.

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