gonna let my friend @noitsnacktime (known media analysis enjoyer) handle this one :)
Hello! I’m assuming that you’re talking about this post, but let me know if you weren’t talking about gay propaganda!
The thing about Top Gun 1986 is that it was both successful at increasing naval recruitment rates (moderately; an 8% bump) and is also widely recognized as an iconic piece of gay cinema. These things are in opposition to each other; queer readings of Top Gun 1986 are generally subversive in the context of the film’s intent (though obviously Tony Scott himself knew what was up, as did certain cast members, like Kilmer and Rossovich.) Studio executives and producers like Jerry Bruckheimer—who worked on both films, were a different story:
What do you make of Top Gun’s secondary renown as a gay film that showcases some decidedly homoerotic content?
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. 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.
Top Gun 1986 was a movie filmed specifically and uncomplicatedly to make men and the navy in general look heterosexy for an audience, which of course ended up meaning that it was extremely homoerotic. The thing is that a lot of the homoeroticism in TG1986 falls under a category we can refer to as the “homoerotic male gaze;” basically, when men are presented to the camera as erotic objects, it subverts the general binary expectations we’ve developed regarding the male gaze in cinema, something that’s more common in some ways today, but was somewhat new in the 80s. It’s the difference between men in film whose erotic power lies in the relationships he has with women and men whose erotic power lies in their ability to seduce the audience, basically. In TG1986 there are very few women, every major character is within the same cohort, and there’s very little plot; there aren’t any significant emotional relationships except those between male peers. Combined with the aesthetic sensibilities of a director whose career had been mostly advertisement work and a script that was not originally written with a single heterosexual love scene (Charlie and Mav’s was added in reshoots), it’s a powder keg of homoerotic tension with no vent (excuse my mixed metaphors). It’s the perfect storm of moviemaking that’s desperately and unmistakably erotic and intensely misogynistic, rendering it joyfully and obliviously gay.
ALL THIS TO SAY that where Top Gun 1986 was riding a wave of new action cinema and military fervor in an era where being gay was illegal, Top Gun Maverick is operating in a wildly different industry. Gay audiences are a marketing demographic, and appearing socially progressive—while retaining plausible deniability—is a recruitment tool. TGM isn’t a meandering feature length advertisement for the military; it’s a blockbuster legacy sequel to one of the most influential films of the 80s and has a standard structure, essentially a heist film. No part of TGM is unaware of the cultural and cinematic legacy of TG1986! It’s the most intensely self aware and nostalgic sequel I’ve seen in ages, and it’s also many times more sanitized than its predecessor. There’s no unaware homoeroticism (there’s also just very little eroticism, homo or otherwise.)
When Ice and Mav have their heart to heart, they end it with a pointed reference to their first interaction (“You figured it out yet? Who’s the best pilot.” || “Who’s the better pilot; you or me?”) It’s a touching moment! It’s also right after Ice speaking fondly about the way he’s personally pardoned Maverick’s military transgressions over and over for more than two decades (“That’s why I fought for you. That’s why you’re still here.”) It’s deliberate! Even just as a display of friendship, it’s a bit horrifying. With the added weight of its cultural context as an exchange between guys who were ass out doing muscle poses while trading charged insults and biting (?) at each other in the first movie, it’s nothing less than weaponized yaoi. (Note also that Kilmer is deeply aware of his character’s cultural footprint, even referring to him as the first gay character he’d played on screen.) I’m being facetious here, obviously, but there’s genuinely no way to bring Ice and Mav back together as characters without subtextually acknowledging that they’ve been widely seen as symbols of homoerotic cinema for decades. They also sort of close out the duality of acceptable male homoeroticism onscreen by embracing in the face of both victory (first movie) and death (second), the two circumstances under which men are allowed to hold each other. Ultimately, their conversation is in service of the mission and the wider themes of the film, both things the first movie didn’t really have. Interactions in film always carry intent, and this one was manyfold. It just also so happens that they’re carrying history as well as that intent, and that history eases the delivery of what could be seen as nepotism and corruption—it becomes sweet rather than troubling when Mav says that “the only reason I’m here is you.”
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Hangman and Rooster, but I also don’t think there’s much to say. They’re sort of just like if Ice and Mav never entered a locker room together. It’s not even queerbaiting, it’s just scraps of male affection that are amplified by the movie’s utter lack of sexuality. I’m not against a movie that’s not sexual. TGM introduced a familial relationship that drives the emotional core of the film really well, and that’s fine! It’s just that there’s nothing subversive about taking these two characters and interpreting a side of them that’s not even vaguely alluded to in the film. Sex can’t be separated from Top Gun 1986, so readings of it as a gay movie happen within the reality of the text itself. That’s just not the case with its sequel; there’s no heterosexuality to subvert, because there’s no sexuality to begin with. The closest we get is the beach scene, which is a heartwarming scene about teamwork and also the power of sun-kissed oiled up abs. That’s fine! It works well! It’s just not shot in the same way as the volleyball scene, which director Tony Scott himself said he approached as soft porn. I’m not saying that scenes in movies should be shot like soft porn. I’m just stating the facts. Queer readings of Hangman and Rooster are purely additive, and they’re perfectly acceptable. Nobody is presenting them to the audience as sex symbols. The author doesn’t have to die, because the author’s long since vacated the premises. I’ll also say explicitly that the lack of textual sexuality also makes any queer interpretation less inflammatory, because the implication that a film has accidentally implied gay sex in it is much more controversial than accidentally implied gay billiards.
Talking about the imperialism in TGM would be either a much longer or much shorter post. It would be like talking about the flour in bread. There’s a lot to talk about but it might be a little obvious and/or boring, so unless you’ve got something transcendent, it might not be worth it. All I’ll say, because this post is way too long already, is that the movie itself is deeply invested in justifying the necessity of the US military. It’s also about grief, loss, and the godlike public image of Tom Cruise. Anything that furthers the agenda of the movie promotes the messages within it. It just so happens that Ice and Mav’s closeness furthers that agenda, and doesn’t subvert the intent of the film.
Hope this cleared some things up! I (clearly) love to talk about this stuff, so feel free to follow up!
gonna start saying that top gun yaoi is intersectional activism
okay me and my friend were talking about this and like. personally I think the only objectively moral way to consume top gun is through the lens of gay sex. but you cannot consume it EXCLUSIVELY through the lens of gay sex - you need to be aware at least peripherally of its intent as military propaganda and consume it only as yaoi in DEFIANCE of that intent, rather than focusing on its homoeroticism to the detriment of your understanding of it as media. this also changes how you perceive fic written about top gun, because imo, because the intent the author wrote with very clearly carries through to the fic. some of it is interested in icemav as people and some of it is interested in creating yaoi out of the characters from top ‘blatantly so heterosexual it loops back in on itself military propaganda’ gun, in defiance of what it stands for. and the latter is infinitely more interesting to me. and I think I really really enjoy the intent of the fics that write icemav having sex out of spite instead of icemav having sex bc they deeply like and emphasize with them as characters and people. I think the best top gun fic are the ones where the authors are very aware of their purpose as character and like the intent is to sort of make a mockery or clown on them if that makes sense. instead of being really attached to them as character, because they’re not. they’re distilled essences of the filmmakers intent. they’re the negative space surrounding their roles in the movie
this is also why top gun 2 is much less watchable to me than top gun 1986 BECAUSE of how intensely marketable and watchable the sequel is. that watchability is for a PURPOSE. all art carries a purpose even pure entertainment… and it was created to be entertaining to have us associate the military with that entertainment and excitement. they reintroduced and in fact WEAPONIZED the homosexuality between ice and maverick specifically to lessen the impact of the connection between them - the fact that ice has been covering for his legal mistakes for 25 years becomes gay, instead of horrifying ethically and legally. as my friend eames said… ’“i think it’s because the homophobia was so intense in the 80s that they assumed that in straight media there was no possibility of gayness and that conversely allowed a much greater scale of male expression within "het” media. whereas in topgun2 they HAVE to be aware of queer readings by a mainstream audience". and that highlights the difference between fan creations about top gun 1 and top gun 2 in my head. the implicit taunt and forcible death of author intent in creating homosexuality in top gun 1 fundamentally is different from the product created from the homosexuality of top gun 2. because top gun 2 was so aware at that point of the homoeroticism of the franchise AND queer readings by modern audiences that it folds it INTO itself - WEAPONIZED it to make it more watchable. and so there is, for me, no way to engage with queer readings of top gun 2 in a way anywhere near as gleefully spiteful as queer readings of top gun 1. because top gun 2 WANTS you to read it that way and furthermore acknowledges and uses it in its plot to further its imperialist agenda
