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

Contents:

• HOW TOP GUN BEME A GAY CLASSIC
• HOW DID TOP GUN BEE SO GAY?
• TOP GUN: IS THERE REALLY A GAY SUBTEXT? WE ASKED THE WRER
• TOP GUN: WHY TOM CISE'S FLYG ACTNER IS AN UNTENTNAL GAY CLASSIC
• ‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’ IS ACTUALLY THE GAYT MOVIE OF THE YEAR
• ‘TOP GUN’ IS THE GAYT MOVIE EVER MALET’S TAKE ALL JONATHAN POLETTI·FOLLOWPUBLISHED ???????????·7 M READ·JUN 11, 2022--10SHAREIN 1986, AT THE HEIGHT OF THE AIDS EPIMIC RONALD REAGAN’S AMERI, TOM CISE’S SUPERGAY ARY FANTASY WAS THE #1 MOVIE OF THE YEAR.THE FAMED REVIEWER PLE KAEL OF THE NEW YORKER DISMISSED AS “HOMOEROTIC MERCIAL.” BUT THE UNTRY LOVED TOP GUN—AND DO TO THIS DAY. IT’S THE STRANGT…GAYT STORY?“TOP GUN” (1986; PUBLICY STILL)“TOP GUN”—THE VERY TLE SEEMS GAY—WAS A GAY ENTHIASM ON RELEASE.A 1998 BGRAPHY OF TOM CISE BY WENSLEY CLARKSON NOT THAT “A LARGE NUMBER OF HOMOSEXUALS WENT TO SEE TOP GUN OVER AND OVER AGA BEE THEY ENJOYED CERTA SCEN THE MOVIE.”WHICH SCEN, THOUGH? THE WHOLE MOVIE IS “A GAY PORN SHOOT,” AS THE GAY CRIC MARK SIMPSON ONCE WROTE, STARRG “A SIRABLE, SMOOTH-SKNED, BUFFED BOY WH A TARTY GR.”THERE WAS THAT VOLLEYBALL SCENE.
• JERRY BCKHEIMER WEIGHS ON TARANTO’S ‘TOP GUN’ GAY FILM MONOLOGUE: ‘A COMPLIMENT’

HOW TOP GUN BEME A GAY CLASSIC

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.

HOW DID TOP GUN BEE SO GAY?

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.

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

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. It's also, to put bluntly, one of the most homoerotic movi ever ma.

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

Top Gun's homoeroticism. It's tly fascatg how unbridled the homoeroticism of "Top Gun" is.

Google "Top Gun Gay" and you'll get a hefty 1, 390, 000, 000 rults. In her review, cric Ple Kael said that "the movie is a shy homoerotic mercial [... " Quent Taranto would famoly give voice to the theory that the film is actually a gay love story via a typilly Taranto-que monologue the movie "Sleep wh Me.

" But watchg the film 2022 as this relic of unexpected gayns is still a cur experience. There are moments of the movie that are so startlgly gay that they go right back round to beg hetero. In the mentary on the physil releas of the film, Tony Stt said he found spiratn for the athetic of "Top Gun" a book of black and whe photographs by gay photographer Bce Weber.

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

"Everyone was sred bee was famo terms of the gay muny, this book, " said Stt. He also acknowledged that the film had bee popular wh gay dienc. It would have been wearily unsurprisg had such rpons eliced gay panic, pecially given the startlg homophobia of the era.

There's also a thartic thrill to be had wh seeg a film that is pure ary propaganda be this gay, given that was illegal to be out and servg the '80s (the Department of Defense clared 1981 that "the prence the ary environment of persons who engage homosexual nduct or who, by their statements, monstrate a propensy to engage homosexual nduct, serly impairs the acplishment of the ary missn. ) Queer reprentatn of any kd was extremely rare, particularly films of this sle, and gay jok were mon. The moments that we thk seem gay are posned here as guys beg dus, jt iends and lleagu hangg out and enjoyg themselv ee of srn or judgment.

‘TOP GUN’ IS THE GAYT MOVIE EVER MALET’S TAKE ALL JONATHAN POLETTI·FOLLOWPUBLISHED ???????????·7 M READ·JUN 11, 2022--10SHAREIN 1986, AT THE HEIGHT OF THE AIDS EPIMIC RONALD REAGAN’S AMERI, TOM CISE’S SUPERGAY ARY FANTASY WAS THE #1 MOVIE OF THE YEAR.THE FAMED REVIEWER PLE KAEL OF THE NEW YORKER DISMISSED AS “HOMOEROTIC MERCIAL.” BUT THE UNTRY LOVED TOP GUN—AND DO TO THIS DAY. IT’S THE STRANGT…GAYT STORY?“TOP GUN” (1986; PUBLICY STILL)“TOP GUN”—THE VERY TLE SEEMS GAY—WAS A GAY ENTHIASM ON RELEASE.A 1998 BGRAPHY OF TOM CISE BY WENSLEY CLARKSON NOT THAT “A LARGE NUMBER OF HOMOSEXUALS WENT TO SEE TOP GUN OVER AND OVER AGA BEE THEY ENJOYED CERTA SCEN THE MOVIE.”WHICH SCEN, THOUGH? THE WHOLE MOVIE IS “A GAY PORN SHOOT,” AS THE GAY CRIC MARK SIMPSON ONCE WROTE, STARRG “A SIRABLE, SMOOTH-SKNED, BUFFED BOY WH A TARTY GR.”THERE WAS THAT VOLLEYBALL SCENE.

How many films have you seen where guys refe to hug one another or be open about their feelgs bee would be seen as too gay to do so? The refal to tegorize certa typ of behavr as "gay" or "straight" is a powerful move that dispts homophobic mdsets.

Today, Tony Stt's US Navy fighter pilot flick is known primarily for s homoerotic unrcurrents. Top Gun's 'gayns' has bee a shared joke, the subject of knowg SNL sks and a host of YouTube parodi. It's hard to believe now, but when Top Gun was released 1986, the vast majory of the people who flocked to see did not thk ‘gay’.

Nearly a later, 1994, I poted out the film's outrageo homoerotics my book Male Impersonators – and found that plenty of people still weren’t prepared to have Top Gun’s heterosexualy impugned. Later that same year, the director Quent Taranto ma a ntroversial meo appearance the movie ‘Sleep Wh Me’, argug that Top Gun was about a gay man stgglg wh his homosexualy.

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

As I rell , his clchg argument was that Top Gun uldn’t be a gay movie bee he’d watched twenty tim and he’s straight. Top Gun isn’t a gay movie – but ’s flagrantly not a very straight one eher. How did the film bee adopted as a gay in?

And partly ’s bee Top Gun has e to be seen as the qutsential 80s movie, and the 80s are now seen as culturally ‘gay’.