# 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:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**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, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/41 "2006-01-29T18:20:29Z")
I don’t really think Top Gun was meant to be homoerotic either, although it very well could have been. And probably all the “Tom Cruise is gay” rumors helps. When I was 10 or so I had probably watched this movie 50 times, it was my favorite movie and really made me want to be a pilot. Years later when I started hearing some of the gay jokes about the movie, then watched it again, I thought it was really funny and partly true - the acting makes it really easy to make gay jokes about. > [@RickJay](#): > > Tarantino’s explanation of the movie as a metaphor for sexual ambiguity does work. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2006, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/42 "2006-01-29T18:28:32Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Are _all_ locker room scenes homoerotic? I don’t see it. To me it looks like typical alpha male ‘I’m better than you’ behaviour. Well, if you listen to the commentary on the DVD, the technical advisor explained to the producers that the Top Gun school was basically just a few chairs set up in front of a chalkboard in the corner of a hangar. He said the pilots would show up, take class, fly and then get in their cars and go home. The point was that there _were_ no showers or locker rooms at the Top Gun school! There would be no point in having the pilots confronting each other while wearing only towels! The producers said, “Too bad. We’re getting these guys naked.” There are a lot of scenes and camera angles in the movie that convince me that the “gay” subtext was very much intentional. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/43 "2006-01-30T04:53:09Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I think he was saying it ‘unfortunetly’, because now the idiot thinks he can get away with it anytime. Exactly. Basically, it was a menuever he shouldn’t attempt but the fact that he pulled it off will only encourage him. As for the “gay” subtext, I’m pretty sure the purpose of filming all those shirtless guys was for benefit of the ladies. But it does look pretty gay. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/44 "2006-01-30T05:08:22Z")
Side note to Johnny L.A.–It is far from a great movie, but if you’re interested in this stuff, try to locate what I think was a made-for-TV-movie called (I think) “Red Flag: The Ultimate Game.” That’s the Air Force version of Top Gun. It is interesting and a little more down to earth, but hardly “high class cinema.” ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/45 "2006-01-30T05:30:49Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Or is it just fashionable, two decades later, to deride the film (possibly because of Tom Cruise)? Well, in the movie he _does_ wind up with a lover named Charlie. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/46 "2006-01-30T05:37:42Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > 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? Probably sour grapes. I wasn’t trying to tear the movie apart. I like F-14s. And the movie was a hell of a recruitment tool for the U.S. Navy. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/47 "2006-01-30T16:16:45Z")
I saw _Top Gun_ the summer after my high school graduation. I had a 4-year NROTC scholarship in my back pocket, and dreamed of being a naval aviator. Talk about a motivational shot in the arm! (Unfortunately, during my entrance physical, I’d also just been informed that I needed eyeglasses. I therefore decided to go into submarines, unless my eyesight miraculously improved in the interim.) I never saw any homosexual subtext in the movie. Just a lot of swagger. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/48 "2006-01-30T17:05:07Z")
**Top Gun** is my favorite gay love story movie of all time, though I haven’t seen **Brokeback Mountain** yet. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/49 "2006-01-30T17:29:48Z")
I’d read somehwere that Don Simpson had studied gay porn to capture its aesthetic for Top Gun. Not a bad idea, really: if your selling beefcake you’d want to know how the experts do it. It all kind of went over my head when I saw the move in 1986: I was living on a Navy ship, and showereing with naked of guys meant navigating around in a mob of guys with zits on their shoulders and asses who didn’t bother to flush the toilets. Kind of ruined me for homoeritic subtext. One thing in Top Gun that did pique me was the bit where Tom Cruise runs out of the office and slaps a tray of coffee out of the hands of the enlisted man. I knew a lot of asshole officers, but even they knew that an officer fitness report is more flamable than an F-14. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/50 "2006-01-30T17:36:20Z")
Ah Top Gun. **Anthony Edwards** with hair. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/51 "2006-01-30T17:41:43Z")
> [@Slithy Tove](#): > > One thing in Top Gun that did pique me was the bit where Tom Cruise runs out of the office and slaps a tray of coffee out of the hands of the enlisted man. I knew a lot of asshole officers, but even they knew that an officer fitness report is more flamable than an F-14. Eh? I don’t think he slapped it out of his hands, he just bumped into him on the way out. At least, that’s how I remember it. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/52 "2006-01-30T17:43:34Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > Top Gun more or less made me hate aviation, aviators, aviation enthusiasts, and people that wore flight jackets and aviator sunglasses… No shit. I had to watch _Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Flying Tigers,_ AND the hopelessly antiquated _Dive Bomber_ before I felt any different. ---
**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 30, 2006, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013/53 "2006-01-30T17:47:01Z")
I don’t think that was even Tom Cruise. Wasn’t this the scene after the tower fly-by, where Tom Skerrit’s CO is chewing him out, then storms out of the office and crashes into the guy with the coffee? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/top-gun-1986/342013.md?page=2)