It was announced earlier this week that America’s favorite set of abs—otherwise known as Channing Tatum—will star in a reboot of 1984 film “Splash.” You know, the one about the mermaid.
And no, Tatum will not be taking on Tom Hank’s role as the straight-talking fruit salesman, Allen. He’s going to be the mermaid. Er, merman. A glowing, chiseled and undoubtedly glistening merman.
All ovary-tittering aside, this is a pretty unsurprising move, given the overarching context of Tatum’s career. It’s yet another peg in his ever-expanding roster of roles that place him squarely in the realm of deeply female-centric, hypersexualized objectification.
You’ve seen it countless times by now. Channing Tatum stripping and gyrating in “Magic Mike.” Channing Tatum walking around shirtless with a cat on his shoulder in “The Vow.” Channing Tatum having a torrid affair with Winona Rider in “The Dilemma.” (OK, maybe you never saw that one.)
These are best described, I think, as “wine night” roles. They belong in the kind of movie that you turn on at 1 a.m. at an impromptu sleepover, or before cracking open that bottle of rosé with a raised eyebrow. Ladies?
Maybe it’s a little sexist to buy into the whole idea that women just want to sit around and ogle at pecs while eating chocolate or whatever, but truthfully, most of us been there at some point or another. And there’s a lot to praise about the existence of this archetype that Tatum has cultivated, one that’s closely related to that kind of *ahem* pelvic-thrusting sexuality.
On the other hand, though, there’s this deeply and typically masculine side to his work; the kind you would expect from a guy that looks like him. Like, he has actually been in a movie called “Fighting,” in which he spend the entire film—you guessed it—street fighting. It does not get much more cookie-cutter macho than that.
Tatum maintains this effortless, zig-zagging balance between the gender lines we’ve drawn for film stars in a way that’s almost entirely unique to his personal brand. There are other actors that come close–Ryan Gosling comes to mind—but never quite in such polarizing manifestations as Tatum. So why? Why go from doing “The Vow” to “White House Down”?
While I’m sure it’s pleasant to have some variation in your career, his choices seem more tactical than that. The male- and female-centric parts aren’t just arbitrary choices—they’re a necessary yin and yang.
Because Tatum’s proven he can be a soldier or spy, he can also be a shirtless, sensitive dope without it being weird or “girly.” The more traditionally male he goes in action movies, the more his feminine side is legitimized and accepted. It’s a gradual push-and-pull system: Do a blockbuster action movie, then a rom-com. Film a cowboy western, then agree to be a merman.
Imagine a world where an actor who didn’t have that established background took the part of the mermaid in the “Splash” reboot—Brad Pitt, for instance. It would be jarring at best, and I imagine downright upsetting (for some people) at worst. Childhood ruining, even. We all seem to be very into that theme this year.
It’s important to note, by the way, that even when Tatum does get to take on more traditionally feminine parts, they’re often played for comedic relief. He can be pretty and dumb, but the prettiness and the dumbness serve a function: It’s not just a side effect of the sheer ornamental or one-dimensional nature of his characterization.
In fact, the type of part that Tatum embodies is exactly the kind that women in Hollywood are trying to break away from—the attractive, vapid eye-candy, more decorative than substantive. A piece of ass. Tatum is a piece of ass, sure, but he’s also a piece of ass that gets to blow shit up and do action stuff, or even take on more serious, hefty stuff like in “Foxcatcher” and “Side Effects.” He has the liberty to pull from both sides of the two-gender spectrum.
It’s refreshing to see an actor who has fully embraced and cultivated his specific brand of sex appeal, and one who subverts traditional expectations of gender roles. I would never knock Channing Tatum for doing what he does, because he does it really, really well. But it would be nice for that flexibility to be available to actors of all genders.