I was about 11 years old.
Dad and I went to the video club and rented Top Gun (on VHS).
As my father’s Volvo drove into the garage, I couldn’t wait to take off my seatbelt and slip the clunky tape into the VCR. I was finally only seconds away from seeing for myself all that talk school friends had been ranting about for weeks.
"F-16 fighter jets"
"Best dog fights ever"
"Maverick, Goose, Iceman"
" Oh, that Beach volleyball scene..."
“I feel the need for speed…”
“You can be my wingman any time…”
… I lapped it all up. But one thing made Top Gun the best movie I had ever seen until then.
Kelly McGillis.
She instantly and forever became my “dream girl”.
30+ years later, the only one who does not repeat in the sequel to Top Gun is Tom Cruise's (and my 11-year-old-fantasy) romantic interest in the movie: Kelly McGillis.
Why?
According to her words it is because she is ugly, fat, and old. So no one called her.
(I still love you Kelly).
Kelly McGillis, the woman who did contortion acts to help make Tom Cruise’s 168 cms of humanity look “dreamy”, epic and masculine for the rest of his existence.
Kelly is now 64 years old (and looks like it). But, of course, it would be crazy for Tom (59 years old) to continue placidly in love with a woman who looks his age.
Can't the air idol get something "better"?
Well yes, after all marketing is here to fulfill male fantasies.
Enter the (excellent) actress Jennifer Connelly, 51 years old.
The difference?
She looks 30 and is abnormally beautiful and slim.
So why is it that friend-adversary Val Kilmer/Iceman (now 62 years old) is idolized for coming back to the sequel 30 years later appearing his age and having a voice box due to the tracheostomy he recently underwent to treat throat cancer?
The truth?
His age does not put Tom's manhood in check. On the contrary, it revalidates it.
But for Kelly the world is not as forgiving of her wrinkles and weight.
Despite #MeToo and all the female empowerment talk on social media channels, Top Gun’s sequel still positions “the Girl” in the movie as a measure of the hero's masculinity.
She, like in the 1980’s, is still a trophy.
She is a message to other men: “I am immortal.”
And it’s not like the marketing guys, didn’t think of these things when putting the movie together. Women, blacks, geeks and misfits were all added to the air crew Maverick (Tom Cruise) trained and lead into battle. It was done in a cringe-worthy, obvious, "we ticked the boxes"kind of way. Each crew member representing a "target audience" or "segment".
But masculinity is still sacred in this movie genre. The powers that be in Hollywood (of which Tom Cruise is a big part of today) decided not to touch it.
So the question begs: why did we not use this Top Gun sequel as an opportunity to empower women of all ages, shapes, and sizes?
After all, in the last James Bond we saw the Daniel Craig get a ride on the back of a scooter by the new, female, afro-descendant 007.
My feeling is that masculinity is intimately linked to the idea of immortality and since this is impossible, what we need are accessories that show men they still have power.
And when it comes to Top Gun, 50 plus year old men are a very, very, very “key audience”. It’s the kind of movie I imagine Donald Trump watching draped in the American flag, eating a cheeseburger, and rubbing his you-know-what (if he still has one that is).
Thus, women will be concerned with maintaining their beauty and not getting old (that is their power) and men will be concerned that other men will envy them through the things they can possess (that is their power).
Cut to the scene we all wanted to see again. Tom riding with the girl on the back of his super sporty motorbike.
Tom doesn't care who he takes on his bike: what matters to Tom is that the world knows "what" he can take. It is a dialogue between men: “You see what I have on my back seat? It’s ALL mine.
The hero is omnipotent and the girl accompanying him is an embalmed mental image from the 80’s. She is still there to make men forget their finite lives and shadow any signs of vulnerability.
Women are just there to chase away that fear.
Top Gun’s 2022 sequel tells, us men, that we can continue saving the planet while she waits, at home. That ideal home that you never set foot in, but that you know, somewhere in your mind is there. You know it exists because every blockbuster movie and ad campaign when you were growing up made sure you saw it… and wanted it.
But how the world would change if we got used to seeing men loving the same old, fat and "ugly" women that looked their age.
Men who, perhaps, stayed for 36 years next to the same body and did not change it for that of the nanny.
Men who would embrace the passage of time and feel proud to call up 64-year-old Kelly for another ride on the back of Tom's motorbike.
To me, it seems these would be real men. Real Mavericks.