This piece contains spoilers for the Magic Mike Live show! You have been warned!
The theater at the Sahara Hotel and Casino is situated at the top of a long escalator, and on Saturday night that escalator hosted a parade of women with impeccable blowouts and false eyelashes and sparkly tube dresses on their way to witness the masculine magic of Magic Mike Live. Both dressed in black and not a bridal veil or sash between us, my mom and I stuck out like sore thumbs as we ascended into the land of the abs. We were in town for a family friend’s wedding, and it was both of our first time in Vegas in ten years (since my 21st birthday). When we booked our room at the Sahara and I saw Magic Mike would be in our lobby, I’d insisted we go, feeling the show would be a fun, himbo-filled romp to please both our Boomer and Millenial palates. But now, entering the lobby, I was feeling that particular apprehension of being responsible for subjecting one’s mother to partial male nudity at ten o’clock at night. What if she was uncomfortable? What if I was uncomfortable?
As the show began, my apprehension turned into dread as a Bill Burr-esque MC in a denim jacket took the stage and introduced a group of dancers dressed as a cowboy, a firefighter, a naval captain, an all purpose Chippendale type, and a cop, calling them “young, dumb, and full of hot, spicy cum.” I don’t like hearing that word outside of very particular circumstances, and those do not include sitting beside my mother as a woman two rows up receives a series of pelvic thrusts to the face. The dancers were dispersed to aggressively hump, bump, and grind on the women near the stage, their dancing jerky and cheesy in time with the janky music blasting over the speakers.
The music halted suddenly and sirens sounded as the heel MC singled out a thirty-something woman in the crowd with a beautiful, bouncy blowout and an adorable red jumpsuit. “DRY PUSSY ALERT,” he yelled. “WE GOT A DRY HOLE OVER HERE, FELLAS!” He and the fireman dancer dragged her onstage and I looked over at my mom who was watching through a crack in her fingers. “SHE LOOKS OLD TOO! WHAT DO YOU THINK, ABOUT FIFTY?” A few women in the crowd booed. “WELL YOU KNOW WHAT WE DO TO DRY HOLES AROUND HERE!” The MC threatened. On his cue, the fireman whipped out a two foot long fleshy dildo and pointed it at the woman, and proceeded to shoot her from her shiny stilettos to her long chestnut hair with gobs and gobs of silly string.
At the exact moment that I began looking for the exits, though, the room went dark and a single spotlight shone on the woman. She was a plant! She held a microphone, and we were hearing her inner thoughts, about how she’d begrudgingly come to this show with her friends, but if she was being honest she really would like to feel free and have a pleasurable experience, but these guys were going about it all wrong. Just then, her childhood imaginary friend, the Magical Unicorn, begins to speak to her in a disembodied voice from above, saying tonight she can have anything she wishes for. She wishes for the heel MC to disappear and poof. Applause. She talks to the disembodied voice of the unicorn about pleasure and feeling safe, and the unicorn affirms her preferences. “Hang on,” she says, “Magical Unicorn, have you always had the voice of Channing Tatum?”
She then tells the Unicorn that women don’t want to see dancers dressed up as firemen, but would prefer a guy who just looked really good in jeans and a t-shirt. Boom — one such guy appears at the edge of the crowd illuminated by a spotlight in the dark. More and more wish-fulfillment guys appear one by one in the same fashion — a dirty but not too dirty musician, a guy who loves puppies, a guy who brings you Taco Bell when you’re hungover (holding a bag of Taco Bell!), a guy with a job who can pay for things. “And ladiessssssss,” she cries, “how about a guy who… GOES TO THERAPY?!?!” The screams were deafening. At this point I glanced over at my mom whose jaw was totally slack in shock. She had her phone out recording and I think she ended up effectively producing a bootleg of the entire show.