Why muscles are the big thing in movies

As fans of the series look forward to the release of Magic Mike XXL this summer, Dean Van Nguyen examines Hollywood’s recent trend of casting bulked-up male actors in its leading roles and asks whether the representation glorifies the Adonis bod.

HOLLYWOOD movies are getting bigger. Not the stunts, not the budgets nor the cinema screens, but the leading men. Where Tinseltown’s most famous male stars were once lean, dapper and classically handsome, now they are buff and hulking.

Jacked-up super men are topping the bill at the box office, regardless of the film’s content, themes or target audience. And filmmakers are shoehorning in as much flesh as they can to drive ticket sales.

This archetypal movie star look hit its apex three years ago, with the release of male stripper comedy-drama, Magic Mike. This July, its sequel, Magic Mike XXL, will open, with audiences again preparing themselves for the bulky pecs and chiseled abs of Channing Tatum and his team.

While heterosexual women flocked to see the original film, they didn’t get what they expected. Sure, there was plenty of flesh — Tatum fusing his impossibly skilful dance moves with snake-like gyrating, Matthew McConaughey hopping around a gym in the tiniest shorts in the history of cinema, and a man known as ‘Big Dick’ Richie using a device to enlarge his penis, before swinging it in front of the audience like a piece of string.

But Magic Mike wasn’t made to arouse carnal desires. Channelling the spirit of his early, low-budget pieces, director Stephen Soderbergh approached its characters with a gentle touch, and the film was acclaimed.

The sequel seems closer in spirit to what the flesh-hungry masses thought they were getting the first time. Judging by the trailer, this will be more of a fun-time summer flick than the arthouse-friendly original, tickling its audience’s pleasure centres without asking them to think too much.

Towards the end of the first 90-second preview, which was released in February, the words “You’re Welcome” flash up on screen — presumably a reminder from producers that we should thank them for allowing us to lay eyes on the Adonis-like physiques of the film’s cast.

The poster even has a shirtless Tatum pointing right at his crotch.

The status quo

This trend is not exclusively seen in movies that overtly celebrate hunks — it’s everywhere. Hugh Jackman’s depiction of Wolverine in the first X-Men movie, 15 years ago, was of a trim, athletic figure.

Cut to today and the Australian has become increasingly pumped-up in the role.

Equally, Henry Cavill’s beastly frame in Man of Steel bears little resemblance to that of classic Superman, Christopher Reeve, who played the character in four movies in the 1970s and 1980s. Even the iconic James Bond has not escaped, having been transformed from Sean Connery’s heavy-smoking, hairy-chested depiction to the bulky Daniel Craig in his modest swimming trunks.

We have, of course, seen larger-than-life men on-screen before. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s acting career brought body building into the mainstream in the 1980s and heralded an era of pumped-up action stars.

But his alien physique was seen as something other, not something desirable. Throughout the history of film, the most notable screen icons have fitted the mould of James Dean, Carey Grant and Marlon Brando — all classically handsome, but hardly built. Hulking frames, you see, don’t lend themselves well to most leading-man roles in Hollywood. Guys like Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks have reached the highest point of movie stardom because they can play the everyman, which most of the top-tier roles have traditionally demanded.

Cavill said as much when promoting Man of Steel, in an appearance on BBC’s The Graham Norton Show. Having outlined his nine months of physical training for the role — as well as a contractually-obligated agreement that the film studio could control everything he ate — Cavill explained why his body no longer looked like it did in the movie: “That’s Superman shape. It’s great for the role of Superman and not much else easily.”

With characters like Wolverine and Superman, you can make an argument for why the actors need to get up to that size.

Wolverine has adamantium (a fictional metal) moulded to his skeleton, for goodness’ sake. It’s expected that he be a little more carved-out looking than most. And Superman is, indeed, just that — a super man!

But it’s hard to explain away how James Bond finds time to lift weights in his hectic life with her majesty’s secret service. Or take Guardians of The Galaxy, for which actor Chris Pratt transformed his body from the doughy look fans of sitcom, Parks and Recreation, were used to seeing to the ultra-athletic Peter Quill. There’s no gym on his space craft, so how did he chisel that torso? Elsewhere, a new generations of stars, like Ryan Gosling, Tom Hardy and Chris Hemsworth, have brought raw muscle to roles that shouldn’t demand such bulk.

A guy thing

But Hollywood’s not about logic. It’s about escapism. About giving people what they want. If hunky men will sell tickets, then hunky men they shall have. But why this shift in what people want to see? Interestingly, every survey, study, or poll I examined found that women do not place importance on muscular physiques when choosing a mate.

Nor does it ever seem to feature in the top-three attributes — physical or otherwise — of what women find attractive. A study published in March, by British menswear company, Jacimo, for example, found that 72% of women prefer men with the ‘boy next door’ look, rather than hunks.

So why the flood in the cinema doors to see Magic Mike? Back in 2012, Maria, from the website nerdyfeminist.com, offered this eye-opening analysis: “It doesn’t seem to me that strip clubs are actually an authentic expression of female desire. It seems more like women feel like they have to be ‘like men’ by going, but when they actually do attend, the experience is more about bonding with other women, whooing, being silly and getting embarrassed, rather than women actually enjoying the experience of having male privates in their face.”

Although women went to see Magic Mike in large groups, the film is framed from a male perspective.

As much as it invites females to ogle at the bods on display, even more it teases the males in the audience with promises of the stripper lifestyle. Alex Pettyfer’s ‘The Kid’ begins the film as a broke 19-year-old, with no prospects or future.

But upon meeting Tatum’s Mike, he’s thrust into the sleazy stripping world and, on his first night, he is rewarded with a sweaty wad of money and oral sex from a pretty 21-year-old.

Magic Mike seems less interested in fulfilling female fantasies than in fulfilling male ones. Even the two prominent female characters — Mike’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, Joanna, (Olivia Munn) and The Kid’s sister, Brooke (Cody Horn) — have little

interest in the stripping.

Concerns

While Jacimo claim women aren’t as enthralled with the ‘perfect’ body as you might think, when the same poll asked men what they believed women wanted, they responded with “Justin Bieber’s hair, Gerard Butler’s chiselled face, Hugh Jackman’s moviestar arms, David Gandy’s tight abs and Cristiano Ronaldo’s smooth legs”.

Indeed, Hollywood’s tendency to cast hunks has come at a time when men are increasingly concerned with their own physicality.

According to Britain’s National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), surveys have found that male body-image anxiety has dramatically increased, from 15% to 43% over the past 30 years.

A 2012 study of 394 men, commissioned by Central YMCA and the Succeed Foundation, found that 80% of men talked about their own or others’ appearance and almost two-thirds thought their arms or chests weren’t muscular enough. Respondents pointed to celebrities for negatively reinforcing unrealistic ideals of physical perfection.

“Historically, conversation about your body has been perceived as something women do, but it is clear from this research that men are also guilty of commenting on one another’s bodies, and, in many cases, this is having a damaging effect,” said Central YMCA’s chief executive, Rosi Prescott, as reported by The Guardian.

The media pushing unrealistic body images on the public is hardly something new. Ask any female, ever.

Whatever the era’s zeitgeist look, whether it’s been the silicone-enhanced Pamela Anderson, the unhealthily-thin frame of Kate Moss, or the impossible dimensions of Christina Hendricks, women are constantly confronted with a standard of beauty that’s just not attainable, unless you have the necessary genetics and a lifestyle that allows you to spend a lot of time on your body.

Men certainly aren’t objectified in film at nearly the same level as women. But the statistics show that men are equally susceptible to feelings of inadequacy, and the constant bombardment of what Hollywood deems to be perfect bodies is potentially damaging.

As images of what makes a man attractive become more singular (ie bigger is better), guys in the audience are going to question whether they measure up.

Filmmakers, of course, shouldn’t necessarily be compelled to compromise their vision for the benefit of wider society. But, ideally, the wider film industry should not methodically make people feel negatively about themselves, or promote a culture of objectification of either sex.

Above all else, Magic Mike was a good movie, showing male strippers to be real people, and they are no less deserving of their story being told than anyone else. Let’s hope that the sequel is of equal merit, and goes beyond the mindless titillation of its trailer.