AFTER many years of news surrounding the ongoing development of a sequel
to the 1986 action classic Top Gun, the
follow up will finally be landing in cinemas in 2022, under the title Top
Gun: Maverick. The most noted setback over the years was the tragic
death of Tony Scott who was originally onboard to reprise his directing duties.
However, while producer Jerry Bruckheimer was adamant to still make it happen,
the question now is how will a second Top Gun fit into today's
sociopolitical environment, considering all the social developments which have
transpired in the last 30 years? Or will it completely shift course from the
homosocial bonding of the first movie?.
Throughout the decades, the attitudes towards the roles of gender and
sexuality have positively progressed and while the original film acts as an
interesting and nostalgic period piece of 1980's Reaganism and traditionalist
machismo, both in its storyline and production, a sequel will have to adapt to
the attitudes of today to avoid coming across as an unintentional parody of
toxic masculinity. But what were the attitudes regarding gender and sexuality
in the 1980's that make the original film amusingly dated by today's standards?
As we look back through the history of modern cinema, at a time where
the socially constructed rules of behaviour between men and women have been
clearly laid down by the heteronormative establishment, there are quite a lot
of films which disguise their same sex desire through covert methods. The
buddy-buddy movies, or "bromance" films, fulfil these covert
narratives of homoerotic subtext, which can be read as "gay" just as
much as they can be read as "straight". In the 1980s, during a time
when the enforcement of socially constructed gender patterns were being
implemented on a greater scale, Top Gun was certainly one
movie which topped the list to bring together a story of male bonding through
machismo but on another level, highlighted very strongly implemented unrequited
same sex desire.
This is a movie which has been held up for a long time as an archetypal
example of Hollywood homoeroticism, outlined most notably through Quentin
Tarantino's monologue in the 1994 film Sleep With Me where he
proclaims that Top Gun is "about a man's struggle with
his own homosexuality". Moreover, a closer look at the film's enormously
"gay" undertones and the background of the whole production is what
is presented here.
Top Gun, which is
primarily about preparing pilots for war, is a ‘buddy movie’ with a cross
between male to male tension and male to male bonding. The characters of
Maverick, played by Tom Cruise and Iceman, played by Val Kilmer, go head to
head, vying to be the top of their class, both egged on respectively by their
all male group of buddies.
The 1986 action-drama about U.S. Navy fighter pilots may never be
matched for being one of the most blatant attempts to hide a very strong
homoerotic undertone. However, on another hand, it may have also been a
subconscious or even fully conscious intention all along, because of the social
and governmental pressures at the time. In understanding how the movie has
become one of Hollywood's most homoerotic stories, we have to look at the
behaviour and attitudes as represented in the film, as well as the attitudes of
the time. While the film avoided featuring any visual same sex contact, the
desires were implied the whole way through.
'Queer' Theory, which deconstructs the socially fabricated gender roles
and strips away the performative patterns which have been manufactured for men
and women throughout our society, is ideal for highlighting the undertones
in Top Gun. ‘Queer’ Theory focuses on, among other things, how
there is no natural code of rules for how men or women should appear or
socially present themselves. Everything we project onto men and women in terms
of social behaviour is purely manufactured by society. Men can act in a way
that is socially considered as "feminine" and women can behave
"masculine" under the fabricated rules laid out for both sexes. All
sexes can cry or be tough or be sensitive or resilient. The theory that gender
is performed helps to blur the divisions between 'male' and 'female' social
roles and subsequently, 'homosexuality' and 'heterosexuality'. Basically we are
all just bodies with different body parts and our social behaviour as human
beings has no predetermined coding because of our genitalia or internal organs.
Hollywood cinema has a history of depicting men as strong, virile
representations of masculinity with exaggerated bravado, directed at a
heterosexual male audience which falls subservient to the manufactured gender
roles. Some of the best examples of these narratives were represented by actors
like John Wayne, Charlton Heston and Clint Eastwood and became even more
prominent during the 1980's with the movies of the rugged stars Sylvester
Stallone, Chuck Norris and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as the more
"pretty-boy" tough guys Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer in Top Gun.
These characters all show one dimensional portrayals of men acting out a part,
pushed on them by how society has come to fabricate gender divisions.
During the mid 1980’s U.S. President Ronald Reagan received
international attention and national praise for his anti-communist, Cold War
stance. America began to regain an image of formidable force following the loss
of the Vietnam War. Throughout his term in office, Reagan had small wars in
operation around the world, from Libya to Lebanon and from Grenada to the
Persian Gulf. During Reagan’s presidency the military stood firmly in support
of anti-gay ideology. This was an ideology which placed gender into two
separate categories and viewed relations between people of the same sex as
somehow abnormal. This was conducted by screening recruits for homosexuality
and discharging those who were found out to be gay.
In a 1982 policy statement the U.S. Department of Defense made their
opinions clear on homosexuality by saying, 'Homosexuality is incompatible with
military service. The presence in the military environment of persons who
engage in homosexual conduct or who, by their statements, demonstrate a
propensity to engage in homosexual conduct, seriously impairs the
accomplishment of the military mission'.
The statement continued with a series of baseless, unfounded and unproven
discriminatory opinions. In fact, the Crittenden Report conducted by the U.S.
Navy Board of Inquiry in 1957, which was an even more politically conservative
and suspicious time, investigated the threat homosexuals may have to the
security of the United States. The report concluded that ‘homosexuals prove no
greater a security risk than heterosexuals’.
The heterosexist traditionalist viewpoints, very much enforced during
the 1980s, would be highlighted through a series of action movies throughout
this time. In Hollywood cinema, the drive for the heteronormative male hero
performance came from an inherent fear that any male protagonist could be
anything but heterosexual. As a result, much of 1980’s Hollywood, in a
desperate attempt to show how masculine the males are, specifically drew
attention to muscular bodies, which resulted in a fetishisation of the male
body. Scenes of Stallone as Rambo or
Schwarzenegger in Commando standing
firmly, topless, muscles shining, holding massive phallic objects in their
hands, were common images throughout this period. Subsequently, as these films
were being aimed at a heteronormative male audience, the images proved to
eroticise the male for the supposedly "straight" male spectator. Top
Gun follows suit with a scene including three topless men, all waxed, with
muscles glistening in slow motion shots. The characters are captured like male
models, exposing their bodies for the spectator, which is supposed to be the
heterosexual male.
In order to "straighten" the homosocial activities, a
secondary female character is brought into the narrative. This appears in Top
Gun in the form of the character, ‘Charlie’ played by Kelly McGillis.
A traditionally male name placed on a female character, possibly suggesting the
writers were fully aware of the innuendo. The introduction of the female
character helps to further the homoerotic tension as the woman has now created
a love triangle for Maverick, between herself and Iceman, who is not shown
being romantically involved with any female characters. This love triangle often
results in some sort of physical contact between the men, once again attempting
to display their machismo to one another.
Top Gun is a
film which dwells deeply on male relationships and exposing the male body
through sports, shower room scenes and highlighting testosterone levels through
the almost orgasmic sensation the men feel from flying fighter planes. There
are many scenes of topless men, flexing their glistening muscles, only in the
company of other men. As mentioned a volleyball scene includes several topless
men moving in slow motion in a hot sun with camera close ups on their muscles
with the song ‘Playing With The Boys’ playing over the soundtrack. The director
Tony Scott stated years later, ‘I didn’t have a vision of what I was doing,
other than just doing soft porn’. Incidentally, a hardcore gay pornographic parody of Top Gun,
called Big Guns was made the following year.
One scene in Top Gun depicts ‘Maverick’ on a night out,
where he intends to seduce somebody, with his co-pilot ‘Goose’ suggesting to
‘Maverick’ that he “must have carnal knowledge - of a lady, this time”.
In another scene a pilot says to his flying buddy, that the presentation of a
powerful fighter jet is giving him a “hard on” to which the buddy responds
“don’t tease me”.
There is also the tension between ‘Maverick’ played by Tom Cruise and his
colleague ‘Iceman’ played by Val Kilmer, indicating a possible sexual tension
as they both compete to be the best and confront each other face to face on a
regular basis and frequently keep an eye on one another during training and in
the showers. At the end of the movie, the sexual tension appears to be released
after a testosterone fuelled battle, when Iceman says to Maverick, ‘You can be
my wing man any time’.
The concept of needing a partner, a ‘wing-man’ at all times throughout the
exhausting experience of being a fighter pilot easily denotes sexual
intercourse.
In 1986 the views of the U.S. Military, outlined in 1982 by the Department
of Defense, had not changed with regard to homosexuals entering the Military.
Nonetheless despite the clearly homoerotic subtext, Top Gun got
full endorsement, support and backing from the U.S. Military. Military
personnel read the scripts and granted permission for the production team to
film on their bases around America and to use their fighter jets. Following the
movie’s release, Top Gun was highly praised and applauded by
the U.S. Navy. A retired admiral noted that Tom Cruise and ‘Top Gun’ “did a
lot” for the Naval Academy’.
The film was regarded as a positive advertisement for the U.S. Navy.
What the conservative anti-gay establishment of the time kept seeing
were masculine bodies that were represented as tough, rugged and hard. This was
what symbolised the spirit of America, which was a tough attitude, represented
physically and therefore mentally, able to overcome all failures and future
obstacles. Nonetheless, what the U.S. Military failed to see was the homoerotic
subtext in these films. They failed, just like they would fail to see the
actual sexuality of new recruits whom they screened for homosexuality. They
failed because identity is not fixed but constantly crossing over and
interweaving. This failure raises the essential question of how a judgement can
be made about gay people in any instance if the military had no idea who is or
who is not homosexual.
Top Gun was a
movie which held a covert homoerotic undertone but didn’t actually come out and
say what can be easily read into it. However, this was the attitude which would
be brought about in a new policy initiated in the 1990’s under a new
Presidency. This was the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" policy
brought in under the Clinton Administration, which projected the message that
homosexuality must be kept silent, as opposed to heterosexuality which could be
exhibited without any concern or second glance. Although the policy was
negative for gay rights, it was still a step forward at the time from what had
gone before, allowing gay people to serve quietly. However, it is now a
tremendous sign of progress within the LGBT quarters that this policy was
finally overturned under the Obama Administration in 2011, allowing gay people
to serve openly in the U.S. Military.
While the rights of gay people has significantly progressed, mainstream
Hollywood is still at odds over portraying heteronormative men, or any type of
man for that matter, engaging in same sex desire and romance. While a film
like Top Gun will top the list for highlighting a Hollywood
homoerotic subtext, regular and passive representations of gay men have yet to
light up the mainstream silver screen. Of course, there are some films which
are today representing homosexuality without resorting to such forms of covert
subtext, but they are all too often low budget, art-house movies made for a
niché audience. Either that or they are films which are only focusing on the
sexuality as the narrative rather than it being a passive part of the
characters.
Saying all that, it is one positive step that the covert homoerotic
subtext of Top Gun isn't as required as much today as the
world becomes more educated about the rights and lives of gay people and how
gender is simply just a performative invention. An invention gradually decaying
from the days of placing men and women into constructed repressive identities.
While it has been well reported now that actress Jennifer Connelly will be
playing Maverick's love interest it would have been the appropriate time to
project the current trends and attitudes by unleashing the undertones of the
original movie and finally having 'Maverick' and 'Iceman' get married in the
sequel to Top Gun. The open-mindedness of Hollywood producers to
ever accept the subtext of the original, or any other old buddy movie, and
incorporate its realities into a now normative passive part of main Hollywood
characters remains to be seen.
- Ivor Casey
References:
§ Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1999) p.33
§ Danger Zone: The Making of Top Gun. Producer: Charles deLauzirika. Paramount Home Entertainment. 2004.
§ Halberstam, Judith. ‘Queer Studies’ in A Companion to Gender Studies, ed. by Essed, Philomena, Goldberg, David Theo, Kobayashi, Audrey (WileyBlackwell, 2008)pp.62-70 (p.65)
§ Kellner, Douglas. Media Culture, (London: Routledge 1995)p. 77, p.80
§ Neale, Steve. ‘Masculinity as Spectacle’ in Screening The Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema, eds. Steve Cohan and Ina Rae Hark,(London & New York: Routledge 1996), p.13
§ Top Gun. Dir.Tony Scott. Paramount Pictures, 1986
