# Top Gun (1986) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 28, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013 "2006-01-28T21:14:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/21 "2006-01-29T03:17:52Z")
I love the movie but my real name is Maverick and the cliched jokes have been coming since the day was released. You would think that people would guess that I have heard them all before after 20 years. In addition, aviation is my main non-vocational interest too and was well before the movie. It wasn’t until I asked here a couple of years ago that I knew who they were fighting though. ---
**Author:** ![Bernard\_Marx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@Bernard\_Marx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bernard_Marx)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/22 "2006-01-29T03:19:58Z")
I just finished a two-week Navy flight screening program. About 80% of the words uttered by the ten of us over that two weeks were quotes from Top Gun. 🙂 > [@Johnny L. A.](#): > > F-14s, man! Maybe my second-all-time-favourite aircraft! What’s your favourite? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/23 "2006-01-29T03:30:24Z")
> [@Bernard Marx](#): > > What’s your favourite? Spitfire. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/24 "2006-01-29T03:51:31Z")
I got laid in a hotel room in San Diego in 1987 right after watching this flick on the in-room movie channel with my then-girl friend. I believe she used the Meg Ryan to Goose line (“Hey, Goose, ya big stud!”) on me. Ah, good times! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/25 "2006-01-29T04:15:14Z")
Of course, as has been discussed before, the movie is in fact about a man’s struggle with his homosexuality. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/26 "2006-01-29T04:54:47Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Can you believe this film is 20 years old? Wow. > > _Top Gun_ is a jingoistic recruitment film. ‘Rah, rah! We rawk!’ But still it holds a special place for me. See, I grew up in the shadow of NAS Miramar. I spent many summer days at the base pool. Dad was a pilot. (Civilian, under the G.I. Bill. He was Combat Aircrew in Korea, and got into surface warfare/Communications/ASW after he got his commission.) Flying is ‘in my blood’, as it were. F-14s flew over my school, and S-3s were a favourite site as I sailed at the Navy Sailing Club. Were it not for an unfortunate skiing accident in high school, I would have become a Naval Aviator. > > Consider also the times. We’d lost in Vietnam. In the 1970s the economy was in a shambles. Hostages had been taken in Iran. The Cold War was still on. By the mid-1980s we needed a ‘shot in the arm’. Yes, _Top Gun_ is a superficial film filled with clichés. But it was one of the things that made us feel good about ourselves. > > I’d been wearing flight jackets and Aviator shades since I was a kid. (My first flight jacket was a WEP jacket given to my mom to give to me by an F-4 pilot at Miramar.) After _Top Gun_ everyone was wearing flight jackets and aviator shades! Tom Cruise rides a sportbike. Now, sportbikes didn’t need this film to become popular. But it certainly didn’t hurt. > > _Top Gun_ reminds me of good times. I had a good job (on flight test programmes at Edwards AFB), drove a little Porsche and an MGB, was young with my whole life ahead of me… Terrorism was far away. Sure, we had a Cowboy in the Oval Office. Gangs were an ever-increasing problem. Scandals abounded. But for me it was fun, fun, fun in the Southern California sun. I had a very happy childhood, and the scenes of San Diego in the film reminded me of them. > > Now, about the film. There I was, in my early-to-mid-20s, a pilot’s license in my wallet, working around aircraft, and excited to see a film sure to appeal to a plane-crazy ‘Navy Brat’. An F-5 appears on the screen. ‘Ah ha!’ I thought, ‘I know all about “Top Gun”. That’s a VF-126 Aggressor aircraft. The filmmakers want us to think it’s a Bad Guy. But I know better. It’s an exercise.’ Whoops. My smugness was unfounded. In the film the F-5 really _was_ a Bad Guy! You probably know from my other posts that I frown upon such inaccuracies. > > But I liked the film. F-14s, man! Maybe my second-all-time-favourite aircraft! Great flying, and great scenery. The love story? Eh. Very contrived. And I wanted Kelly McGillis to wash her face. Too much make-up in several scenes. ‘Maverick’s’ father’s ‘official’ status following Mav’s career was a stretch. The movie follows a predictable pattern. But so what? It’s entertainment. I’ve seen a lot of films that fail in that respect. The style was, for the time, refreshing. I remember watching a lot of films when I was growing up that didn’t look as good. It’s a very ‘clean’ looking film. > > _Top Gun_ was an exciting well shot movie. Even today I can feel the energy. I can overlook such flaws as the predictable story and the unbelievable subplots. I still use such phrases as ‘Geez, I crack myself up’ and ‘Great shot! I should be a photographer.’ > > And it has planes in it. 😉 Top Gun more or less made me hate aviation, aviators, aviation enthusiasts, and people that wore flight jackets and aviator sunglasses. For all the reasons listed above ;). ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/27 "2006-01-29T05:24:08Z")
This movie has its moments, but the jingoism and technicalities really hurt it. I recognized the F-5’s standing in for Soviet aircraft. I know that the producers couldn’t get the real thing, and most of the people watching wouldn’t know the difference. That’s fine. But the Russians did not camouflage their planes by painting them high-gloss black. And there’s just no way to really follow what’s going on in the combat sequences. There are very, very few directors who can shoot a sequence like that so that the action speaks for itself. Instead we get shots of things moving around on the screen, then someone says “look out behind you!” but it never adds up to any sense of space, motion and tactics. Maverick and Goose are frustrated because they lose credit for their first kill in training when Jester hurries to get below the “hard deck”, but that fight started with the planes ducking around below the level of the mesas, so what the hell was going on with any of it? And it damn sure wasn’t worth Art Scholl’s life. ---
**Author:** ![Spiny\_Norman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Spiny\_Norman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiny_Norman)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/28 "2006-01-29T05:49:30Z")
When I first saw “Top Gun”, I was in the army, it was summer and in that blessed interlude between basic training and major exercises, where army training is as close to a nine-to-five job as can be. Plenty of spending money and free time. At the time, that was one heckuva cool movie. It may have been the first one I saw in Surround sound - it certainly had some of greatest flight sequences I’d seen at the time, and seeing it on a big screen certainly subtracted nothing. The music wasn’t too bad, either - we’d have “Danger Zone” blasting as we drove out to go skydive. Half our platoon went to see it in one evening, and for a bunch of 19-year olds whose heads were still reeling from the introduction to the military system, this was heady stuff. Rebellion, brotherhood, noisy & powerful machines, heroics and things that go bang ? Sign us up! The results were rather predictable: A rash of “personalized” gear, cool (and not-so-cool) nicknames and some semi-heroic attempts at challenging authority (which for some reason never worked that great). Rather pathetic, but we had fun with it, at least until we had to pay for whatever articles we had put our personal touch on. I still think it’s a decent guy flick - the politics are sorta outdated, the romance a tad contrived, but the flying is pretty cool, and the good guys win. Mind candy, but of the decent sort. ---
**Author:** ![EvilGhandi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@EvilGhandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilGhandi)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/29 "2006-01-29T05:58:51Z")
For me, the biggest Huh?! moment of the movie was when they were discussing the out come of the simulator engaments. What’s her face, call sign Charlie, the civillan you don’t salute but listen to, says to Maveric, and I paraphrase, "Pilot one performed a split S? thats too fast it’s too dangerous. \*Unfortunatly \* the manuver results in a victory. Because it’s always unfortunate when US combat forces win. Maybe I’m just bitter at having served under Carter. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/30 "2006-01-29T06:47:58Z")
The Air Forces does [Red Flag](http://www.afa.org/magazine/Nov2000/1100redflag.asp), [also here](http://www.defence.gov.au/redflag/background.htm) and [here](http://www.nellis.af.mil/units/red_flag/index.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/31 "2006-01-29T08:52:38Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Of course, as has been discussed before, the movie is in fact about a man’s struggle with his homosexuality. 😉 And yet, uberheterosexual Tom Cruise is the star. How strange. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/32 "2006-01-29T09:32:25Z")
> [@EvilGhandi](#): > > For me, the biggest Huh?! moment of the movie was when they were discussing the out come of the simulator engaments. > > What’s her face, call sign Charlie, the civillan you don’t salute but listen to, says to Maveric, and I paraphrase, "Pilot one performed a split S? thats too fast it’s too dangerous. \*Unfortunatly \* the manuver results in a victory. > > Because it’s always unfortunate when US combat forces win. Maybe I’m just bitter at having served under Carter. I think he was saying it ‘unfortunetly’, because now the idiot thinks he can get away with it anytime. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/33 "2006-01-29T15:17:05Z")
Another big _Top Gun_ fan here: I was 14 or 15 when it came out, and my adolescent female brain nearly exploded trying to choose between Maverick, Goose, and Iceman. 😉 Also, I’d recently come back from 2 years of living overseas, and had a DoD brat’s appreciation of cool planes (I still like cool planes … one of these days I’m going to find a friend out here who enjoys air shows!). It was always more of a “guy” movie, but I did have a few female friends who also liked the movie: we all wanted to be Charlie. 😃 > [@cerberus](#): > > The Air Forces does [Red Flag](http://www.afa.org/magazine/Nov2000/1100redflag.asp), [also here](http://www.defence.gov.au/redflag/background.htm) and [here](http://www.nellis.af.mil/units/red_flag/index.htm) Anyone with access to an IMAX theatre _must_ go see _**[Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag](http://www.fighterpilotfilm.com/)**_. I saw it almost a year ago, out here at the new Smithsonian [Air & Space](http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarhazy/) annex at Dulles: simply amazing. In fact, now I want to go see it again. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/34 "2006-01-29T15:36:05Z")
I don’t understand why people call this a ‘gay’ movie. Jocks are jocks, and they tend to have big egos. It’s just how they are. By implication, saying _Top Gun_ is ‘gay’ is saying that [insert very competitive athletes of your chosen sport] are gay. Or it implies that men who watch _Top Gun_ are being turned on by glistening muscular male bodies. (Maybe some are. I certainly wasn’t/am not.) I think the ‘beefcake’ was intended for female viewers. Are the ‘gay’ comments just because of the rumours about Tom Cruise? Or is it just fashionable, two decades later, to deride the film (possibly because of Tom Cruise)? ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/35 "2006-01-29T16:26:25Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > I don’t understand why people call this a ‘gay’ movie. [http://www.ebaumsworld.com/2006/01/barebacktopgun.html](http://www.ebaumsworld.com/2006/01/barebacktopgun.html) ---
**Author:** ![PetW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@PetW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PetW)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/36 "2006-01-29T16:38:03Z")
Just watch the movie again. When Iceman and Maverick are in the locker room trading verbal blows, about inches away from eachother, then Iceman turns on his big gay smile… Just watch the movie again. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/37 "2006-01-29T16:57:49Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > [http://www.ebaumsworld.com/2006/01/barebacktopgun.html](http://www.ebaumsworld.com/2006/01/barebacktopgun.html) Funny, but virtually _anything_ can be depicted as gay (or whatever else you want to depict it as) by taking clips out of context and adding graphics. > [@PetW](#): > > Just watch the movie again. When Iceman and Maverick are in the locker room trading verbal blows, about inches away from eachother, then Iceman turns on his big gay smile… Just watch the movie again. I did. Just looks like jocks doing the alpha male thing to me. But then, I’m not looking for gay guys. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/38 "2006-01-29T17:02:13Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > I Are the ‘gay’ comments just because of the rumours about Tom Cruise? Or is it just fashionable, two decades later, to deride the film (possibly because of Tom Cruise)? To be honest A) I don’t think Tom Cruise is gay, and B) I really do think “Top Gun” is remarkably homoerotic. Probably unintentionally so, but still - the long, loving shots of phallic F-14 nose cones and missiles hanging from wings. The many bathroom towel-around-the-waist shots. The obvious sexual tension between Maverick and Iceman. Tarantino’s explanation of the movie as a metaphor for sexual ambiguity does work. Like professional wrestling, it never admits to being gay, but it is. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/39 "2006-01-29T17:12:46Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > the long, loving shots of phallic F-14 nose cones and missiles hanging from wings. Just shots of a beautiful machine. Nothing phallic about it. ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.’ > [@RickJay](#): > > The many bathroom towel-around-the-waist shots. Are _all_ locker room scenes homoerotic? What about NFL locker room shots? I think that those scenes were there for two reasons: [ul][li]To show that fighter jocks are ‘jocks’, just like the football players everyone knew in high school[/li][li]To give female audiences some beefcake to look at, in case they don’t like jets[/ul][/li]Certainly gay men may be attracted to jocks, of the sports or pilot variety, and they may enjoy looking at men in towels. But as a hetero male, I don’t see it that way. I see it as a depiction of two rivals trying to prove who’s the best. > [@RickJay](#): > > The obvious sexual tension between Maverick and Iceman. I don’t see it. To me it looks like typical alpha male ‘I’m better than you’ behaviour. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/40 "2006-01-29T17:18:11Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Probably unintentionally so… I think that’s the thing. As I said earlier _anything_ can be _anything_ taken out of context, or depending on the viewers’ inclinations. Take, for example, guys you (may) know who are always ‘on the hunt’ and who brag about all of the women they’ve had sex with. Are they gay? Are they overcompensating for their latent homosexuality by ‘proving’ their manhood by having sex with as many women as possible? Or is it a demonstration of alpha male behaviour, where the alpha male strives to pass on his own genetic make-up? The beta male may say, ‘Oh, he’s only doing that because he’s secretly gay.’ But is that accurate, or just sour grapes? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013.md?page=3)