‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Is Actually the Gayt Movie of the Year

TOP GUN: WHY TOM CISE'S FLYG ACTNER IS AN UNTENTNAL GAY CLASSIC

Top Gun has one scene so inic, the sequel shed and went even eper. Here's a look at the gay subtext that everyone's been talkg about. * is top gun 1 gay *

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. Go the gay way.

Be the gay way. Go for the gay way. Last year, when Top Gun celebrated s 35th anniversary, Vulture asked producer Jerry Bckheimer about the film’s standg as an inic moment gay cema.

HOW DID TOP GUN BEE SO GAY?

* is top gun 1 gay *

‘Surf Girls Hawai’i’ is the Real-Life ‘Blue Csh’ We’ve Waed 21 Years ForOffEnglishGif: 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.

THE ORIGAL TOP GUN WAS MY SWEATY, SEXY GAY SALVATN

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. ” 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.