¿Es 'Top Gun' una película gay? Según Quent Taranto, sí

Contents:

• TOP GUN: IS THERE REALLY A GAY SUBTEXT? WE ASKED THE WRER
• ‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’ IS ACTUALLY THE GAYT MOVIE OF THE YEAR
• JERRY BCKHEIMER WEIGHS ON TARANTO’S ‘TOP GUN’ GAY FILM MONOLOGUE: ‘A COMPLIMENT’
• ¿ES ‘TOP GUN’ UNA PELíCULA GAY? SEGúN QUENT TARANTO, Sí
• HOW TOP GUN BEME A GAY CLASSIC

TOP GUN: IS THERE REALLY A GAY SUBTEXT? WE ASKED THE WRER

Sce the inic Tom Cise airplane flick me out 30 years ago, fans have argued the ttosterone-fuelled actner is actually lan wh homoerotic subtext – a g-out movie blockbter clothg.

Legendary US film cric Ple Kael wrote her review at the time, “the movie is a shy homoerotic mercial: the pilots stt around the locker room, towels hangg prerly om their waists. “It is a story about a man’s stggle wh his own homosexualy, ” he says the film. They’re gay, they reprent the gay man, all right?

‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’ IS ACTUALLY THE GAYT MOVIE OF THE YEAR

And they’re sayg, go, go the gay way, go the gay way.

They’re sayg no, go the gay way, be the gay way, go for the gay way, all right? “Tony has a certa look that he was g stylistilly and you look at that look and ’s a very gay look terms of the haircuts and the styl and the male beefke, ” he says. Jt ask the people who thk ‘The Shg’ is Stanley Kubrick admtg he directed the fake Moon there’s lots of talk of butts and Maverick lls his -pilot Goose “honey”, but do that mean they’re all secretly gay and stgglg to e to terms wh their sexualy?

“Top Gun” producer Jerry Bckheimer celebrated the film’s 35th anniversary this month by reflectg on the movie’s unexpected legacy as a gay film an terview wh Vulture. This readg of the film was immortalized by Quent Taranto, who has a sgle scene the 1994 movie “Sleep wh Me” which he appears to give a monologue explag why the Tom Cise-starrg “Top Gun” is really “a story about a man’s stggle wh his own homosexualy. Taranto’s monologue and the blatant homoerotic unrton of the film’s signature oiled-up beach volleyball game have long kept “Top Gun” at least tangentially related to gay cema.

JERRY BCKHEIMER WEIGHS ON TARANTO’S ‘TOP GUN’ GAY FILM MONOLOGUE: ‘A COMPLIMENT’

Asked by Vulture what he mak of the homoerotic readg of “Top Gun, ” Bckheimer said he embrac even if that was not the specific tentn of the filmmakg team. Heather Dubrow Says She Felt 'Bldsid' By This Season of 'Real Hoewiv of Orange County'OffEnglishGif: ParamountYou ParamountTop Gun, my experience, is synonymo wh s perceived gayns. There are untls piec probg jt how homosexual s pictn of a (mostly) homosocial world of naval aviators is.

Such disurse was observable om the begng, too: Ple Kael’s review of the film that ran the June 16, 1986, issue of The New Yorker, about a month after the blockbter’s release, observed that when McGillis, Cise’s love tert, is offscreen “the movie is a shy homoerotic mercial: the pilots stt around the locker room, towels hangg prerly om their waists. Perhaps the most famo, and certaly most passnate argument for readg Top Gun as an explicly gay text is Quent Taranto’s monologue Rory Kelly’s 1994 film Sleep Wh Me, an apparently improvised (and entirely Tarantoian) b which Top Gun is fed as “a story about a man’s stggle wh his own homosexualy”:This sort of postmorn readg was particularly hip the ’90s (pecially Taranto’s work—see the multi-character “Like a Virg” analysis Rervoir Dogs), although is certaly heterocentric and, while jokgly so, predited on the notn of gay recment (Kilmer’s Ice Man, the film’s facto antagonist, leadg a crew reprentg gay men who are tellg Cise’s Maverick, “Go, go the gay way”). On Nexis, the search rults for “‘Top Gun’ and gay, ” suggt that this disurse only grew the years after the film’s release.

In the mentary on the physil releas of Top Gun, director Tony Stt says he found spiratn a book of black and whe photographs by gay photographer Bce Weber. “Everyone was sred bee was famo terms of the gay muny, this book, ” said Stt, who died 2012.

¿ES ‘TOP GUN’ UNA PELíCULA GAY? SEGúN QUENT TARANTO, Sí

Key to the fun of exvatg the homoeroticism of Top Gun is s prentatn as a bastn of straight culture: It picts aggro ary men giant jets who are tent on blowg everythg up eher wh their ln-dollar toys or penis. ’s script is full of gay nuendo, both overt (“This giv me a hard-on, ” says one of the naval trae durg a class, to which his buddy rponds, “Don’t tease me”) and seemgly unnsc (“I’d like to bt your butt, but I n’t! But if terpretg Top Gun as a gay movie is predited on s tend prentatn as straight, effectively teasg out subtext for sport, the fun is largely missg 2020.

Its gay reputatn (due no small part to the yearslong mors about Cise’s own personal life) is so tablished that reads like a total exaggeratn today, pecially a movie wh so much open-mouthed hetero kissg. Screenshot: ParamountScreenshot: ParamountOne uld argue that Cise’s endlsly dartg tongue is dog a lot of heavy liftg, prottg too much whout sayg a word, but otherwise, so much of the supposedly gay dialogue is dog jt the oppose. The adpan votn of gay sex amongst straight-intified men is rigur sh-talkg, a way of affirmg the unassailabily of one’s heterosexualy: “I’m so straight that actg gay will do nothg to alter me.

HOW TOP GUN BEME A GAY CLASSIC

” It’s an exprsn of power that, however subtly, others gayns and often impli s weakns or unsirabily direct opposn to the man who’s recg . Top Gun’s efulns 2020 is not as an alternate gay text—we have plenty of actual queer texts by now mastream media ma by actual queer people—but as a straight one that expos how siar homosocial male environments tend to be, regardls of how they’re anized by sexual orientatn. Beg straight looks pretty gay, and vice versa.