If there’s one thing that director Quentin Tarantino is known for, it’s his exceptional understanding of filmmaking and his ability to inject his own unique perspective into his movies. In particular, Tarantino is famous for his love of classic cinema and his ability to reference and reinterpret it in his own work. So, it’s no surprise that Tarantino’s rather humorous understanding of Top Gun’s subtext is both insightful and entertaining.
Top Gun, directed by Tony Scott and released in 1986, is a classic action movie that has become a cultural phenomenon. Starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, the movie tells the story of a group of Navy fighter pilots who attend the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School, better known as Top Gun. Along the way, they experience romantic entanglements, rivalries, and a deadly aerial battle with Soviet MiGs.
Surface vs Subtext
On the surface, Top Gun is a machismo-fueled movie about the thrill and danger of aerial combat. But, according to Tarantino, there’s a deeper, more homoerotic subtext going on that most people never pick up on. In fact, Tarantino refers to Top Gun as “the gayest movie ever made” and offers a pretty compelling argument to back up his assertion.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tarantino goes into great detail about the homoerotic subtext of Top Gun. “There is no Top Gun without the gayness,” he says. “It’s a love story between two men.”
Character Interactions
One of Tarantino’s key observations is the way the characters interact with each other. He notes that there’s a lot of male bonding going on, and that the characters are constantly touching each other and gazing into each other’s eyes. According to Tarantino, this isn’t just some sort of bro-mance, it’s a full-blown love story between Maverick (Tom Cruise) and Iceman (Val Kilmer).
They’re constantly jockeying for position with each other,” Tarantino says of the two characters. “It’s like a tennis match of homoeroticism.
Quentin Tarantino
Phallic Images
Tarantino also points out the many phallic images in the movie, from the fighter jets themselves to the shots of Cruise and Kilmer’s crotches in their flight suits. He notes that many of the characters’ lines are filled with innuendo, like when Iceman tells Maverick, “You are still dangerous. You can be my wingman anytime,” to which Maverick replies, “Bullshit. You can be mine.”
The True Romance
But Tarantino doesn’t just see Top Gun as a love story between Maverick and Iceman. He also notes the homoerotic tension between Maverick and his female love interest, Charlie (played by Kelly McGillis).
“What makes it even funnier to me is that in the original script, the love story between Maverick and Charlie was much more explicit,” Tarantino says. “They had a whole sex scene in there that they cut out.”
According to Tarantino, the decision to cut out the sex scene was based on concerns about the movie’s box office potential. The studio didn’t want to risk alienating the movie’s core audience of young men by including too much romance.
But Tarantino argues that the decision to cut the sex scene actually makes the movie more homoerotic. He notes that without the sex scene, the focus is even more on the male relationships in the movie, making it even gayer than it would have been otherwise.
Interesting Perspective
Of course, not everyone sees Top Gun as a love story between two men. Many fans and critics alike see it as a straightforward action movie with a few romantic subplots thrown in. But Tarantino’s reading of the movie is certainly an interesting one, and it offers a new perspective on a movie that has been beloved for over 30 years.
Conclusion
Ultimately, whether or not you agree with Tarantino’s interpretation of Top Gun, it’s hard to deny that he has a unique and insightful perspective on the movie. His ability to see the homoerotic subtext in a movie that most people would never think to interpret that way is a testament to his creativity and his understanding of cinema as an art form.
And, of course, it’s always entertaining to hear Tarantino’s take on a classic movie like Top Gun. Whether or not you agree with him, it’s hard not to laugh at his rather humorous understanding of the movie’s subtext.
