The Pleasure Principle of Magic Mike XXL: Sonic Visibility Toward Female Audiences

Abstract

A key difference between Magic Mike (2012) and Magic Mike XXL (MMXL, 2015) is the latter films narrative shift toward the viewing experience of its targeted female audience. The hyper-lean storyline that streamlined all the indulgences of Steven Soderbergh’s original transformed the franchise into a spectacle for women. The goal of this article, then, is to examine how MMXXL’s sonic and visual structures create the resonance that then translates to pleasure and a more holistic kind of representation for female viewers. By exploring how this film deploys not only the visual cues of beautiful male bodies to create bodily responses in its largely female audience but also querying how the sound cues create sonic visibility, I aim to illustrate how MMXXL enables women viewers from a cross section of intersectional identities the opportunity to not only feel seen but also desired.