How Gay Is ‘Top Gun’? Hilarious Mashups Reimagine ’80s Classic as Forbidden Romance
The trailer takes a closer look at Maverick and Iceman’s “relationship.” Screenshot from Top Gun.
Is Top Gun really just a story about forbidden gay love in the 1980s Navy? It’s a valid question that many fans have pondered for decades, and anyone looking for compelling evidence to support the theory should look no further than these hilarious mashups we found on YouTube.
In “Top Gay,” YouTube user HappySuperFunTime provides a clever supercut of Top Gun’s seemingly endless examples of homoerotic tension and euphemisms for gay sex, such as the legendary beach volleyball scene and a pissed off commander yelling “I want some butts!”
Another popular video takes several suggestive scenes and turns the kind-of-covertly gay ’80s action flick into a definitely gay love story about two pilots battling not just the enemy but their feelings for each other. We’re not gonna lie; it actually looks pretty good.
The clip appears to be your standard action movie trailer all the way up to the point where Maverick is first introduced to Iceman at the bar, and the chemistry between the two is … intense. Iceman gets within no less than 5 inches of Maverick’s face, and they both maintain unblinking eye contact typically seen only in Western showdowns or in romantic comedies before a first kiss. The only reprieve in their soul-searching glares comes when Iceman looks down at Maverick’s lips, and it suddenly becomes clear why Tom Cruise is always running in his movies. He’s trying to outrun the deep feelings he developed for Val Kilmer in that scene.
The scene fades, and a song that sounds like something middle-aged women would drink wine and cry to in the 1990s queues up and plays throughout several more cuts of Maverick and Iceman exchanging intimate, longing glances … in a classroom, in a fighter jet, in the locker room. It’s all pretty great, especially in light of the fact that US sailors no longer have to hide who they are if they happen to love someone of the same gender.
Read Next: How ‘Top Gun’ Made Ethan Hawke an Actor and His Brother a Green Beret
Eric Miller is a former Army Combat Medic from Parkersburg, West Virginia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and has worked with homeless populations and veteran services throughout the state. He is an avid outdoorsman and has recently become interested in woodworking.
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