Top Gun: Is There Really A Gay Subtext? We Asked The Wrer

Contents:

• TOP GUN: IS THERE REALLY A GAY SUBTEXT? WE ASKED THE WRER
• JERRY BCKHEIMER WEIGHS ON TARANTO’S ‘TOP GUN’ GAY FILM MONOLOGUE: ‘A COMPLIMENT’
• ‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’ IS ACTUALLY THE GAYT MOVIE OF THE YEAR

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.

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

They’re gay, they reprent the gay man, all right? 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.

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

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. 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.

Two years later, he doubled down on that reputatn wh a meo Rory Kelly’s die dramedy Sleep Wh Me, which he lays out the many reasons why Top Gun, wh s many homoerotic unrton, is actually a gay film.

“It is a story about a man stgglg wh his own homosexualy. They’re gay; they reprent the gay man, alright? Go the gay way, go the gay way.