How Magic Mike’s Last Dance Compares With the Previous Movies, in Charts

A detailed statistical analysis of every shirt-rip and bare butt cheek in the franchise.

Feb 09, 20234:21 PM

Salma Hayek and Channing Tatum dance closely in front of a greyed out background of attentive lookers on. Neon graph lines appear behind the two actors. — Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Warner Bros.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance, the third and ostensibly final film in the Magic Mike series, ends the nearly eight-year drought since Channing Tatum last graced the silver screen in order to hump some air (or a workbench). Steven Soderbergh, who returns to the director’s chair after ceding the previous installment to longtime collaborator Gregory Jacobs, has been upfront that the new movie has “no nudity,” defending the decision to Rolling Stone by arguing that “what’s sexy is intimacy and genuine emotion.” Still, as any fan of the franchise knows, some oiled-up abs never hurt.

So, just how demure is the closing chapter of this trilogy? To find out, we’ve continued our tradition of conducting a highly scientific analysis of each of the Magic Mike films. Below, the results are laid bare.

A bar chart with the heading: Number of Dance Scenes. Magic Mike is the first bar, in pink, which scores 17. Magic Mike XXL is the second bar, in purple, which scores 17. Magic Mike's Last Dance is the third bar, in blue, which scores 12. — Photo illustration by Slate

The first two films were consistent with 17 dance routines each, but the third film features only about 11, plus one audition montage, which we counted because we all know the best part of any dance film is the audition montage.

A chart with four sets of multiple horizontally extending bars and the heading: Male Nudity. The first set measures bare butts: Magic Mike scores 3, Magic Mike XXL scores 1, and Magic Mike’s Last Dance scores 0. The second set measures G-Strings: Magic Mike scores 15, Magic Mike XXL scores 7, and Magic Mike’s Last Dance scores 0. The third set measures shirt rippage with an asterisk, which below the chart notes: “Unsexy removal does not count.” Magic Mike scores 14, Magic Mike XXL scores 17, and Magic Mike’s Last Dance scores 11. The final set measures penis silhouettes: Magic Mike scores 1, while both others score 0. — Photo illustration by Slate

Soderbergh has already admitted that there is practically zero nudity in Magic Mike 3, so it’s no surprise that the film features nary a G-string. And while Big Dick Richie does briefly appear in the new movie, his namesake does not. However, the movie does begin to compensate for this with chiseled abdominals.

A vertical bar chart with the heading: Number of Lap Dances. Magic Mike is the first bar, in pink, which scores 10. Magic Mike XXL is the second bar, in purple, which scores 11. Magic Mike's Last Dance is the third bar, in blue, which scores 9. Overtop of the various colored bars is a cartoon illustration of Channing Tatum as Magic Mike, shirtless with a tie on, flexing his abdominal muscles in a squatting position, ready to give a lucky recipient a lap dance. — Illustration by Charlie Powell

Given that Magic Mike 3 has less dancing overall, fewer lap dances are to be expected. However, there’s a nice triple lap dance scene that keeps this sequel from falling too far behind its predecessors.

Another vertical bar chart with the heading: Number of Simulated Ejaculations, that only has one purple bar in the middle, signifying that the other two films scored zero. The first column, with no bar, sports a Magic Mike score of 0. The middle column, with the purple bar, indicates a Magic Mike XXL score of 2. The last column, with no bar, indicates a Magic Mike’s Last Dance score of 0. Laid on top of the middle purple bar is an image of a Reddi-Whip can stacked on top of a water bottle. — Photo illustration by Slate

Last Dance promises a climax to the trilogy, but it fails to build on one of XXL’s finest innovations.

Two Venn diagrams under the heading: Simulated Oral Sex. The first is a Venn diagram of simulated oral sex in Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL combined. This diagram consists of a large pink circle noting 15 instances of Fellatio, and a smaller purple circle noting 8 instances of Cunnilingus. They overlap creating a blue section, that notes 6 instances of the 69 Position. The second Venn diagram measures simulated oral sex in Magic Mike’s Last Dance alone. The pink circle is much smaller, measuring 2 instances of fellatio. The purple circle is bigger than this pink circle (but the same size as the purple circle in the previous Venn diagram), also noting 8 instances of Cunnilingus. These two circles do not intersect, noting 0 instances of the 69 Position. — Photo illustration by Slate

Though Magic Mike 3 doesn’t have the same quantity of dance scenes, it attempts to make up for this with their quality, serving up a couple of hall-of-fame hot sequences. This goes hand in hand with the film’s effort to cater even more explicitly to women. As often noted by Salma Hayek’s character, the goal of her and Mike’s male stripper extravaganza is female liberation, the female gaze—as she puts it, more delicately, in another scene, “No woman wants to be suffocated by testicles.” The changes in simulated oral sex stats prove that Soderbergh’s team was serious about this mission. The instances of men placing their faces between women’s legs far outnumber the times they shove their genitals into women’s faces. Perhaps this, at least, is a sign of progress.