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: MAVERICK’ IS ACTUALLY THE GAYT MOVIE OF THE YEAR
- JERRY BCKHEIMER WEIGHS ON TARANTO’S ‘TOP GUN’ GAY FILM MONOLOGUE: ‘A COMPLIMENT’
‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’ IS ACTUALLY THE GAYT MOVIE OF THE YEAR
* is slider gay in top gun *
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. It’s June 10, you’re askg your btie how Top Gun: Maverick uld possibly be so good when ’s the leral fn of ary propaganda, and a moment of feat, you scream-text at the top of your lungs: “DEEP DOWN EVERY AMERICAN LIKES PLANES AND TASTEFUL HOMOEROTICISM I GUESS”And you wish you’re wrong, but you’re not.
JERRY BCKHEIMER WEIGHS ON TARANTO’S ‘TOP GUN’ GAY FILM MONOLOGUE: ‘A COMPLIMENT’
I’ve even ma a handy-dandy Venn diagram to expla how Top Gun appeals not jt to the dads (’s oft-lled a dad movie) but also to the girls and the gays, powerful onle spher of fluence their own right who are no doubt the reason Maverick is dog so that’s probably bee, cril and fancial succs asi, Top Gun and Maverick are jt so… homoerotic. It’s tertg that you n fd so much playful and obv homoeroticism a seri where the target mographic is pro-ary, hyperpatrtic, and nservative-leang olr men who’d be agast any kd of “queer wokeism” their movi — pecially on as engraed pop culture nostalgia as Top Gun.
And the thg is, Top Gun has always been seen as blatantly homoerotic bee of that. Taranto’s character monologu about Iceman and Slir tryg to pull Mav to “the gay si” — and away om the heterosexual promise of Charlie — throughout Top Gun, and hontly? Everythg about their rivalry — wh the nstant one-uppgs and challeng, gettg each other’s fac, even mock-bg each other — is drippg wh homoeroticism.
Goose also mak what uld easily be read as a gay joke towards Mav at the O-Bar, sayg that he has to have “rnal knowledge, of a lady this time, on the premis” orr to w their bet — as opposed to a man, the dience is supposed to gus. So even when you’re not tryg to “make” Top Gun gay, or approach om a queer lens, the heterosexual romanc stick out like a sore thumb pared to how ep the iendships between men go. Though ’s not nearly as homoerotic as s precsor, that don’t mean don’t have s fair share of juicy moments.