This essay analyses the theatricalized performance of stripping in the popular films Magic Mike (2013; dir. Steven Soderbergh) and its sequel, Magic Mike XXL (2015; dir. Gregory Jacobs). Following a critical dance studies approach that attends to the intersection of body and gesture with socio-political, historical, and economic structures, I suggest theatricalized sexual labour in these films reveals the racial exclusions from the ideology of entrepreneurship. Considering the appropriation of black aesthetics in Magic Mike XXL’s performances of striptease, the film seeks to evaporate the spectre of race, that is, the way the white fantasy of the entrepreneurial subject is supported by the appropriation of racialized and especially black labour.
Articles by Broderick Chow
Broderick D.V. Chow is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at Brunel University London. His research explores how social, political and historical forces can be understood through performances of the body, and spans theatre and performance studies, anthropology, and sociology. He is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Leadership Fellows project Dynamic Tensions: New Masculinities in the Performance of Fitness (www.dynamictensions.com). As part of this he was recently a visiting scholar at the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports, University of Texas at Austin. He is co-editor of Žižek and Performance (Palgrave 2014) and Performance and Professional Wrestling (Routledge 2016). Broderick is an amateur Olympic Weightlifter and a BWL Level 1 Qualified Weightlifting Coach.