ParamountThis is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obssed, wrten by senr entertament reporter Kev Fallon. To receive the full newsletter your box each week, sign up for week:A very gay even gayer movie!A very gay even gayer vio!The gayt of them all. (Happy Pri Month!)Actually, Top Gun: Maverick Is the Gayt Thg This WeekLast weekend, I ma a gay pilgrimage of my own. I took my sad ltle self to the nearby Alamo Draf
Contents:
- TOP GUN: WHY TOM CISE'S FLYG ACTNER IS AN UNTENTNAL GAY CLASSIC
- HOW DID TOP GUN BEE SO GAY?
- THE ORIGAL TOP GUN WAS MY SWEATY, SEXY GAY SALVATN
- ‘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?
HOW DID TOP GUN BEE SO GAY?
Taranto's -character rant about Top Gun's gay subtext were addrsed by producer Jerry Bckheimer, who took a solid stance on terpretg art. * is top gun 1 gay *
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. ‘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.
THE ORIGAL TOP GUN WAS MY SWEATY, SEXY GAY SALVATN
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”).
‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’ IS ACTUALLY THE GAYT MOVIE OF THE YEAR
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.
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.