‘Magic Mike XXL’ gives
women what they want

MOVIE REVIEW

Stripper flick treats
women as the worthy

audience they are

By CHLOE GILKE

Managing Arts Editor

A lot of women love “Magic

Mike.” During its first five days
in theaters, “Magic Mike XXL”
played
to
an

audience
com-

posed primarily
of females — 96
percent of the
people
seeing

the film over the
holiday weekend
were women. If
the movie made
$27.1
million

and the average ticket price was
$8.00, then 3.39 million people
spent their Fourth of July gazing
at Channing Tatum in a thong.
Just 140,000 of these people
were men.

This statistic is astounding,

but it makes sense. Anyone can
enjoy the movie, but “Magic
Mike” is made for the ladies.
“Magic Mike XXL” truly exalts
its female viewers, providing an
all-encompassing experience of
fun and pleasure that isn’t avail-
able anywhere else in cinema. In
this film, women are presented
as queens who deserve to be lis-
tened to, loved and respected,
and men should act according to
a woman’s needs. For 115 min-
utes, “Magic Mike XXL” fulfills
its duty to its royal audience, and
puts on a banging performance
that effectively satiates its view-
ers’ desires.

“Magic
Mike
XXL”
fol-

lows
former
stripper
Mike

Lane (Channing Tatum, “Dear
John”) as he reunites with his
old friends for one last road
trip to a stripping convention
in Myrtle Beach. The script is
more ensemble-driven than the
original “Magic Mike,” and the
road movie structure gives the
movie an excellent opportunity
to explore its supporting char-
acters with greater depth. Each
member of the “Kings of Tampa”
emerges more fully formed, each

with his own goals, ambitions,
sense of humor and dance moves.

Without
Dallas
(Matthew

McConaughey,
“True
Detec-

tive”) managing their perfor-
mances, the guys also learn to
find their own joy in stripping
— they don’t want to be firemen
and cops anymore. Stripping is
their preferred method of self-
expression, so crucial to their
identities that one performer
even says he’d keep doing it even
if he got rich and didn’t need the
money. “Magic Mike XXL” ’s
choreography is especially cre-
ative in the way that each guy
brings his personality into his
performance. The new moves
aren’t always perfect (unless, of
course, it’s anyone’s fantasy to
see Matt Bomer sing a D’Angelo
song while humping the floor),
but on the whole, the choreogra-
phy is sexy and innovative.

“Magic Mike XXL” also has

a solid grasp on its inherent
campiness. Many of the actors,
including Tatum, Gabriel Igle-
sias and Donald Glover, are natu-
ral comedians, and their comfort
with the movie’s sillier material
shows. It’s easy to forget that the
original “Magic Mike” was actu-
ally a very depressing movie,
with heavy themes of corrupted
innocence, addiction and failure.
“XXL” is a better movie for leav-
ing behind all the sad stuff and
for allowing Channing Tatum
to reveal to the audience that
his drag queen name would be
“Clitoria Labia.” If “Magic Mike
XXL” is tasked with providing a
pleasurable experience for the

audience, it’s only fitting that
the movie is actually pleasurable
to watch.

Among “XXL” ’s greatest addi-

tions is Mike’s ex-flame Rome
(Jada Pinkett Smith, “Gotham”),
who now runs a prestige strip
club in Savannah. The character
was originally supposed to be
played by Jamie Foxx, but Smith
brings so much to the role that
it’s impossible to imagine anyone
else pulling it off. Her chemistry
with Channing Tatum smolders,
and the monologues she delivers
to introduce her strippers engage
audiences in the strip club and in
the movie theater. She reinforces
the movie’s feminist themes by
her insistence that everyone in
the room is a beautiful “queen”
to be worshipped. When she
addresses the the room about
what kind of man women want,
Rome speaks with the confi-
dence of a circus ringleader and
the pathos of a best friend.

It’s no surprise that only

140,000 men saw “Magic Mike
XXL” during its opening week-
end. The film embodies, quite
clearly, what women want —
women want a lot of things. Like
Rome says, women want some-
one who listens to them and
wants to please them. Women
want to be treated like a wor-
thy audience and enjoy the same
sexy material that men can find
in pretty much any movie today.
“Magic Mike XXL” makes enor-
mous strides in gender-equal
film sexuality, and it accom-
plishes all this while staying fun,
silly and always sexy.

‘BBHMM:’ don’t
kill me, Rihanna

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW

By DANIELLE RAY

Daily Arts Writer

To be honest, it’s rare that I

ever watch music videos. I find
most are trite and not worth the
three or four
minutes
they

took
away

from my life
to watch them
(I’m
looking

at you, Nick-
elback).
Even

for my favorite
artists, it usu-
ally still takes
a bit of chatter
around their latest videos for me
to take a look. That’s why “Bitch
Better Have My Money” took me
by such surprise.

The project is almost less of a

music video and more a short film;
it’s seven minutes long. Going in,
I had my fingers crossed that the
seven minutes would be worth my
time, but I didn’t have high hopes.

I was wrong.
“BBHMM” is a masterpiece.

The plot of the video surrounds
Rihanna and two friends (fel-
low gang members?) who kidnap
“your wife” and put her “in the
backseat of my brand new foreign
car.” Given the lyrics, it’s pretty
obvious this woman is the “wife”
of the “bitch,” but as the whole
video centers on Rihanna tortur-
ing this woman, you can’t help
but start to think this bitch really
owes Rihanna some big fucking
bucks.

Where “BBHMM” really excels

is making you forget those lyrics
by the seriously grotesque actions
committed by Rihanna and her
friends. They tie the wife up with
rope, naked and upside down,
and swing her like a pendulum

from the ceiling; they force drugs
and alcohol down her throat;
they (SPOILER ALERT here and
below) drown her in a pool whilst
they have a pool party and flirt
with the sheriff.

This is all so enthralling that

when, at the end, the video flash-
es back to the husband the wife
kissed goodbye in the morning
and moves into Rihanna fingering
knives with him tied up in front of
her, it’s genuinely surprising that
he is, in fact, the “bitch,” and, pos-
sibly even more surprising, her
accountant. The video ends with
Rihanna covered in his blood,
lying naked (worth watching the
video for, even if the rest had been
bad) on top of the trunk she origi-
nally kidnapped the woman in,
which is now filled with money.

TL;DR version: This video is

truly terrifying and completely
captivating for the entire seven
minutes. You probably won’t be
able to watch it again for at least
24 hours because you’ll be so
thoroughly disturbed.

The true genius, though, is that

this video really adds something
— a layer of depth, of plot, intrigue
and even of social commentary —
to the song, which is what I find
lacking in most music videos.
Although we all know Rihanna
has seen and been through some
shit, I highly doubt she is actu-
ally a blood-thirsty killer. With
“BBHMM,” Rihanna reminds us
that music is a form of expression,
and we all have that tiny part in
us that is just a cold-hearted bitch
that wants and will get her money
at any cost. She’s playing a role
that’s not herself, a party-girl or
anything else typical of the the
pop music landscape, in typical
Rihanna fashion. And that’s why
we love her.

6

Thursday, July 9, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS

A+

Bitch Bet-
ter Have
My Money

Rihanna

Roc Nation

ROC NATION

Murdering fashion and kidknapping wives

WARNER BROS.

”Is little Mike XXL?” I whisper under my breath...

A-

Magic
Mike XXL

Warner Bros.

Rave & Quality 16

MUSIC VIEO REVIEW