How Drake’s SXSW Strip Club Docuseries ‘Magic City’ Walked a ‘Fine Line’ With Nudity: ‘The Art Is Being Celebrated’
variety.comJennifer Maas TV Business Writer New Drake-produced doscuseries “Magic City: An American Fantasy” debuted at SXSW Monday night to a roaring crowd packed with friends, patrons and fans of the project’s titular iconic Atlanta strip club, Magic City.
After the first episode of the three-part doc, which does not yet have a distributor or platform attached, was screened, producer Cole Brown and director Charles Todd fielded a few questions from the audience, including “Was there anything too explicit to put in the documentary?” “We wanted to walk a fine line with nudity, in particular, where you can’t make a documentary about a strip club and not have any nudity, it just isn’t true to form, and you’re trying to tell the true story,” Brown said. “At the same time, we didn’t want it to be salacious, gratuitous.
We wanted to use it in such a way that you’re getting an image of what this place is. But if you go to Magic City, you see all the anatomy.” Per the logline for the “Magic City” doc, “In 1985, phone salesman Michael Barney — friends call him Mr.
Magic — puts his slick-talking gift to work, opening a small strip club in Atlanta. He plays DJ, bartender, and bouncer while his only dancer separates men from their money.
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