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Channing Tatum – The Modern Male Stripped Bare

I like Channing Tatum.

I like the fact he hasn’t got a fashion beard. I like his open, boringly beautiful boyish face. I like his GI Joe body. I like the kind of slightly goofy characters he plays. I like that he worked in a strip joint before he started stripping off for Hollywood. I like the way he works the vibe that he’s a no-nonsense blue-collar Southern boy who could have ended up on a gay-for-pay website – and wouldn’t be embarrassed if he had.

I like the way his name is as American and daft and reversible (versatile?) as, say, Todd Hunter. I like the fact that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He’s like a prettier Marky Mark, sans the hang-ups and machismo and avec a sense of humour instead.

But most of all I like Tatum Channing because he knowingly embodies both the joke and the seriously good news about men’s objectification. The butt of the gag and… the butt. Tatum gives male tartiness a good name.

And I can’t wait for the male stripper comedy Magic Mike. Which is shimmying up to be the must-see metrosexy movie of the summer.

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17 thoughts on “Channing Tatum – The Modern Male Stripped Bare”

  1. Mark Walsh

    Mark S.
    I’m happy to see that you took in “The Eagle”. Also, while, because I didn’t know whether or not anyone had, I didn’t get into elaborating my own fondness for Jamie Bell, who sticks me as being a complex actor,attractive in his own way. I have some difficulty describing the relationship between the two men because I had alot personally invested in the relationship between Marcus and Esca; Maybe it is s/m and that sexual element is what makes a female role unnecessary or even distracting. Their relationship is not that much unlike those which I’ve had with “straight’ men. Of course there is a lot of physicality between the two.

    I expect that there is an s/m aspect to my actual sexual encounters and it may play into my difficulty understanding Gay marriages or romances. I noticed a day or two ago that I had no problem punching a(straight)fellow from my gym in the arm as a form of greeting, something which would scare the gay people around.They do a lot of rolling around fighting and in contact with one another.

    I can only imagine what a splendid ass Tatum has, since we didn’t get to see much in that film,and that is my favorite aspect of any male. I’m not sure that plastic would suffice though.
    I didn’t notice that the film had any origin in a book. I’ll have to research that.

  2. Mark S

    Mark W: I also saw ‘The Eagle’. I’m rather fond of Jamie Bell too. So you can imagine I had a nice time. (I can never forgive Peter Jackson for just throwing Jamie away half way through ‘King Kong’, to no real dramatic effect.)

    ‘The Eagle’ struck me as being more than slightly s/m, and in a way that neither Tatum nor Jamie appeared to be entirely ignorant of.

    The original novel ‘Eagle of the Ninth’ by Rosemary Sutcliff was written in the 1950s – the same decade that Mary Renault produced some of her most homoerotic fiction.

    Though Sutcliff wrote her novel for ‘older children’, Sheenagh Pugh detects a certain kind of ‘slashiness’ in Sutcliff’s writing in this interesting piece on slash and women litfic writers here:

    http://sheenagh.webs.com/thecolonelslady.htm

    UPDATE:
    Apparently Channing has ‘marble buttocks’ that should be used to make sex toys with – according to his straight male colleague:

    http://www.out.com/entertainment/popnography/2012/03/16/channing-tatum-should-be-sex-toy-model-adam-scott

  3. Mark Walsh

    I find Channing attractive both physically and psychologically. He has the “strong silent type” down quite naturally- he’s just not pretentious like Marky-Mark who seems childishly arrogant. While I see C.T. is in some romantic leads, the film i chose to see was “The Eagle”, about a young roman legionaire who plays opposite another young man who is equally honorable etc as Channing.
    Interestingly, there are absolutely no female characters playing the role of “reward” which are pretty much invariable in American movies(it was made in Scotland and Hungary) It was a movie about two eventually fond male friends. The plot is bout the development of their relationship; of course it went against the romantic M/F rule and wasn’t consequently popular. I’m not sure if Bromanticism as such is in play. The relationship is about the manly, courageous, honorable features of each one’s character in relation to the other.
    These are features which are sexy to gay men.
    There is not however any of the narcissism that is so popular now.

  4. Sam

    Speaking of slightly goofy boyishly beautiful people, after FOUR SERIES of Hustle we never did see Matt DiAngelo shirtless. Though in a gracious nod to those of us who had little other reason to watch we did see him in a tight Lycra outfit. I know this isn’t really on topic, I just find it amazing that they hired him presumably partly to look pretty and never really played that card.

  6. Mark S

    Deal. You can have Tovey, I’ll have Tanning Chatum. Though I suspect Tovey’s absolutely filthy in the bedroom – with the right direction….

  9. Natty Soltesz

    I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t seen ‘Warrior’ yet, and also that I didn’t try to cruise Tom Hardy when he was in town. He’s been here twice, in fact – he filmed the new Batman movie here this summer. I wonder what lucky Pittsburgh man answered his Craigslist ad?

  10. Mark S

    You live in Pittsburgh? Where ‘Warrior’ was set?

    In a funny way I almost do live in Pittsburgh as I’m just down the road from the UK’s Pittsburgh – Middlesbrough.

    There’s no one I’d rather see ‘Magic Mike’ with, Natty.

  12. Mark S

    Russell Tovey certainly gets about, doesn’t he? He’s almost become a bit too officially everyman to be… everyman. Or rather, everyboy. Can’t say I’ve wondered too much what his bod looks like. Nice bugger lugs tho.

  14. Mark S

    So you did, Hans. And way back in 2006. But that just means you’ve had your turn with him. He’s MINE now.

    (I’m refusing to look at the link of him with a fashion beard.)

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