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.

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

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’ IS BIG DRAW FOR GAY MEN

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.

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

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. But the film’s attempt to wele gay dienc more directly, managed to add more pth than you might expect om siar summer romps.