Mike Lane was a sub

A note from the lockdown.

Last Friday I watched Magic Mike and chatted about it over WhatsApp with two pals and last night we watched Magic Mike XXL together and chatted about it over WhatsApp. This experience, this sexy novena, has brought me to the following conclusion: Mike Lane, the not great furniture designer who also trades as Male Entertainer Magic Mike, is a sub.

This is made obvious in a scene in Magic Mike XXL. Mike visits Rome, the owner of Domina. Their shared history is alluded to. Mike worked for Rome, took a temp gig, tried to return - perhaps crawling, and Rome said no not allowed back in my house.

Mike then found himself working for - not with, as he seemed to think - Dallas, the snake oil sheriff, in Magic Mike. Our part-time carpenter thinks he’s happy. He’s making business plans, using words like equity, seeking out mentees, courting an emotionally cold lady. He makes a big life decision to walk a straight line. Be a socially acceptable provider. But even when he fled the orbit of Dallas, he didn’t tell the man to explicitly fuck off. He couldn’t do it. He doesn’t have it in him.

Then in Magic Mike XXL, he has no Dallas and no woman who doesn’t manage a comedown the way you should. (You let the person recover enough to be sitting up and vocally thanking you for the McDonald’s and then you tell them how they’ve let down their parents who gave everything for them to make it in this world. This approach is not the Betty Ford Center but it is a good way to make someone feel humiliated and inferior, like a piece of meat tenderised to pieces seeping pink juice onto a plastic cutting board.) In Magic Mike XXL, Mike’s compass resets to his past. Dallas never respected him. The sister of The Kid might have represented authority - her healthcare job had a uniform - but she never complimented him or rewarded him. She was a shitty manager of Mike’s life.

Remember all that bullshit about Mike wanting to take her for breakfast? He’s the one who brings it up. He’s desperate for the aftercare. Which is what sitting in and paying for cooked eggs is - a little treat for surviving the night or week before, a check-in moment with someone who likes you.

Some more evidence: when he loses his cool during his cosplay bank appointment in the first movie. He is distraught that a woman who can make a decision about his security won’t budge. He seeks out Rome when he’s vulnerable after the non-toxic masculinity hijinks prove Too Much Fun. His secondary hero’s mission in Magic Mike XXL is to make a sulky hot girl smile while he’s in the nip. He lives to please. And be dominated.

Preferably in an overcrowded with witnesses club setting.