December 7, 2022
Breaking Down the Iconic Moments in 'Top Gun' and 'Top Gun: Maverick'
Timothy Rawles READ TIME: 5 MIN.
Nearly 40 years ago, Tony Scott's 1986 action film "Top Gun" brought America, and maybe the rest of the world, to the realization that the Navy is a sexy, studded amalgam of hot young men who, in a career that literally requires precise communication, express their love for one another through topless volleyball games and drag queen-level sass. To the straight cis masses, this was nothing more than an action-packed sky odyssey starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, or a glorified Navy recruitment ad, under the influence of producer Jerry Bruckheimer's frenetic hand.
However, for a portion of young gay men from that generation, "Top Gun" was all of the above, but something more; the film seemed like hetero subterfuge. Now with box-office juggernaut "Top Gun: Maverick" getting ready to stream on Paramount+ on December 22, it's time to compare both movies and their homoerotic moments.
Bruckheimer says that the homoerotic undertones in the original "Top Gun" were not intentional, but he is glad that the community has embraced them.
"When you make a movie, people can interpret it in any way they want and see something in it that the filmmakers had no idea they were tapping," he said in an interview with Vulture in 2021. "So we're surprised every time we hear something talked about, or written about, the films that we make that have no real context for the filmmakers or what the filmmakers wanted to do. And yet there's a relevance to them, because people believe it."
Back in the late '80s and early '90s, straight male bonding was almost taboo. Expressing one's feelings for another man was considered a feminine trait. It was such a problem that there was a sudden "male movement." It included retreats that gave men permission to express their feelings toward their brethren through sensitivity and open-mindedness. Although it can't be proven, "Top Gun" may have had a hand in starting that trend.
In "Top Gun" we see an almost unhinged Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, played by the twinkishly cute Tom Cruise, get sent to the Naval Fighter Weapons School of the title. He's cocky but confident. Set amid an all-male revue of gorgeous actors of the time, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, and Rick Rossovich, the crew is forced to build relationships that aren't sexual, but close. It's heteronormative, but with a gay-for-pay vibe.
This is solidified in one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history: the steamy beach volleyball game. Take four stunning young sinewy men and put them shirtless and sweaty together under the gorgeous sunny weather of San Diego as Kenny Loggins sings "Playing with the Boys," and you have the masculine equivalent of T&A.
This year we got back into the "Top Gun" universe with "Maverick." But has that homoerotic formula changed, stayed the same, or has LGBTQ+ rights normalized the platonic love between straight men on screen? And can gay men, closeted or not, still be easily baited by a new batch of gorgeous straight men in (or out) of Navy uniforms? In a word... Yes.
In the age of the requel - the next chapter of a movie that is just a reworked plot of the original - it was probably no surprise to some that "Maverick" didn't fix what wasn't broken in that regard. Maverick (played again by Cruise) is still a bit of a wild card and is sent back to the Top Gun academy to train a new batch of sexy young pilots.
One of the great themes of this new film is its incorporation and focus on making older actors as sexy as their younger ones. There is Jon Hamm (51), Charles Parnell (47), Ed Harris (72) and Val Kilmer (62). And lest we forget Cruise (60), who is the epitome of the modern word "daddy." It's not often childhood crushes age along with the tastes of their audience.
Although this new version isn't as physically touchy/feely as the original, there are some genuinely heartfelt moments such as the interaction between Maverick and his longtime friend "Iceman" (Kilmer), and "Rooster" Bradshaw - the son of "Goose" who Maverick still carries guilt over, blaming himself for his death 30 years prior.
Taking a page from the original, director Joseph Kosinski again serves up some male bluster during a sporting event. This time we have the middle-aged Maverick against younger hunks, Miles Teller, Glen Powell, and Jay Ellis. Monica Barbaro, the film's female pilot also takes part in the game.
As with the original, this square-off called "dogfight football" is what Maverick describes as a game where offense and defense play simultaneously - hooray! Everyone can play skins (except for Barbaro in a sports bra)!
Still, the fervor of hyper-masculinity isn't as resounding as it was in the first film. Here the music choice is less subliminal, playing One Republic's "I Ain't Worried" in place of Loggins' "Playing With the Boys." The displays of affection are reduced to bare chest bumps and congratulatory piggyback rides. We even get a shot of Jennifer Connelly watching and reacting to the whole event from a distance as if the filmmaker himself is saying, "no homo."
The verdict on which "Top Gun" film is the most successfully homoerotic is - even though both films are terrific - the original. The difference is the newest one was made knowing that the gay legacy of the original exists. If what Bruckheimer said is true, that he was unaware of his film's homoerotic undertones, we can chalk that up to innocence, perhaps even an accident.
Kosinski's version lives firmly in the heteronormative world. In his straight-man universe, "don't ask, don't tell" seemingly still exists. That may have been truer in the first film, but that is what made it so scintillating; we didn't know the sexuality of the men, but they couldn't have admitted it even if they wanted to.
That mindless fantasy is missing from "Maverick." The original "Top Gun" accentuated its gratuitous male sexuality whereas its sequel strangely holds back. It almost feels like "Maverick" should have come out 30 years ago and "Top Gun," minus the technology, feels the most recent. Even today, in the shadow of its modern sequel, "Top Gun" remains one of the most iconic and homoerotic films ever made.
