Magic Mike XXL’s gay appeal is surprisgly ep.

Contents:

• MAGIC MIKE XXL’S PERFECTLY SCULPTED GAY PANRG
• MAGIC MIKE'S MATT BOMER TALKS ABOUT BEG OUT AS GAY: WHAT BROUGHT HIM TO TEARS?
• ‘MAGIC MIKE’ IS BIG DRAW FOR GAY MEN
• NBA RUMORS: JAM HARN TRA TALKS, JOEL EMBIID, PJ TUCKER, RUDY GAY, LAKERS, WARRRS, BUCKS, MORE

MAGIC MIKE XXL’S PERFECTLY SCULPTED GAY PANRG

Now that we know a third movie, Magic Mike's Last Dance, will be g soon, we've got some ias for queer and gay actors we'd love to see jo the st! Magic Mike XXL’s Perfectly Sculpted Gay Panrg.

It’s the ntext of seeg the film I hold on to: A small group of gay iends and I picked the gayt theater we uld thk of (an off-brand cema New York’s Chelsea neighborhood), got liquored up on girly drks beforehand, and giggled wh light when, as we stepped off the lator on the mezzane, we saw that the theater had hired go-go boys to add ftivy to the openg night. Throughout all this, there was a sense that we were dog somethg slightly transgrsive—turng a movie that was ostensibly for straight women to one of the gayt events of the year.

MAGIC MIKE'S MATT BOMER TALKS ABOUT BEG OUT AS GAY: WHAT BROUGHT HIM TO TEARS?

That gay men are an equally enthiastic dience for Channg Tatum’s smooth mov and Joe Manganiello’s Adonis-like (though, sadly here, shaven) mculature seems to have dawned on the productn team behd Magic Mike XXL, the charmg sequel out this week. In fact, the film, which follows the temporarily reassembled stripper crew on a journey om Tampa, Florida, to a nventn Myrtle Beach, aka the “Redneck Riviera, ” is surprisgly ferential to s gay viewership—so much so that the first third largely pends on a drag show and s gltery wake for dramatic material. Of urse, drag isn’t what most gay men are g to this movie to see; the draw is more along the l of the glor sightg of Manganiello’s ass that about five mut or the mpy gas statn scene where the same man do himself Cheetos and water to make a dowdy shier se.

”) But the drag scene is a more explic nod to gay culture than the, and a wise one, that manag to panr jt the right amount. When first beme clear that the boys (all of them straight) were gog to a drag show, I tensed up: The temptatn for the edy to bee lazily homophobic such suatns is strong.

Mad Mary’s is the kd of bar/performance space that seems to attract straight women as well as gay men, but the mood on the night the boys drop is cidly queer. The trouble wh this kd of direct appeal to gay folks is that n often e off as Gaga “Born This Way” blunt and annoyg. No one lik a hard sell, and gays have a long history of repurposg straight culture for our own —as my iends and I did wh the first Magic Mike.

‘MAGIC MIKE’ IS BIG DRAW FOR GAY MEN

But the film’s attempt to wele gay dienc more directly, managed to add more pth than you might expect om siar summer romps. And even if the Whe Collar star did publicly aknowledge he was gay earlier this year, he's not about to start spillg anytime soon.

I go so far as to suggt that he uld be savg young gay people's liv.

NBA RUMORS: JAM HARN TRA TALKS, JOEL EMBIID, PJ TUCKER, RUDY GAY, LAKERS, WARRRS, BUCKS, MORE

"What we really have to do is stop the adjective before the job tle—whether 's 'black actor, ' a 'gay actor' or 'anythg actor, '" Bomer said. The two Texans practilly beg their book about beg the real Magic Mik by answerg the most mon qutn women ask them: “How many of you are gay?

It’s not that gay guys don’t like to strip, they sist — and there’s certaly no homophobia on their parts. It’s that, general, gay dancers n make a helluva lot more money gay clubs than straight on.