‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Enters the Pantheon of Conservative Fanfiction

Today’s newsletter is a guest post from the Culture desk of The New York Times. Marc Tracywho regularly spans the intersection of culture and politics, writes about Tom Cruise’s latest blockbuster — and the conservatives singing his praises.

“Top Gun: Maverick‘, the inescapable sequel to Tom Cruise’s blockbuster, has been hailed as a cinematic throwback.

Many critics have interpreted the story of an increasingly outdated pilot being recalled to teach today’s young people a thing or two for a final mission as a not-so-subtle allegory for the film itself. The film uses relatively little computer-generated effects, stars the now 60-year-old Cruise and still managed to raise more than $1 billion worldwide.

But amid praise from moviegoers who enjoyed the realistic dogfights filmed with real planes the real actors flew in, another community has embraced the movie for representing its values ​​and justifying its vision: conservatives.

A sample:

• Government Ron DeSantis from Florida: “Any movie that isn’t overwhelmingly awake can appeal to normal people.” (DeSantis hadn’t seen the movie at the time; he later saw it with his wife for her birthday, he said.)

• The Fox News host Jesse Watters“We’ve been longing to see a movie that’s unashamedly American, and we finally got it.”

• Tomi Lahrenfrom conservative sports outlet OutKick and Fox: “Top Gun’s undeniable success is proof that Americans are tired of WOKE and just want to watch good movies without a grand social justice message!!”

Right vs Hollywood

What is going on here?

There is a long tradition of conservatives seizing a cultural artifact produced by the entertainment industry, which is generally regarded as left-wing, and claiming it for themselves.

“This goes back years,” said Doug Heye, a Republican consultant, “and also when we had a Hollywood actor or a reality TV star as president. They feel under siege by the culture. That feeling has only increased, and it has increased because today there is even more content behind it.”

In a recent essay that discussed movies including “Top Gun: Maverick,” AO Scott, co-chief film critic of The Times, argued that a notable aspect of the conservative movement is its antagonism to the entertainment industry.

The ‘Modern Right’, Scott wrote, ‘defines itself against the cultural elites who supposedly cluster on the shores and conspire to impose their values ​​on an unsuspecting public. In this report, Hollywood is functionally in league with academia and the news media.”

And the enmity of conservative activists towards Hollywood and other cultural tastemakers has perhaps never been more striking.

DeSantis, whose ability to channel the movement could surpass that of other politicians (which may include Donald Trump’s), made a splash this spring. withdrawal of special tax and self-government privileges which Disney had enjoyed because of the huge theme park in its state. The governor and the company had clashed a newly passed state law that prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in some classes.

So when “Top Gun: Maverick” entered this culture war with its straight-forward, feel-good patriotism — among other things, it’s a movie about how awesome US Navy pilots can be, especially when fighting American enemies — the sense of alignment of conservatives naturally arrived.

“If something comes out,” Heye said, “and it’s another version of ‘Rocky IV'”—the 1985 film in which Sylvester Stallone’s working-class boxer enters the ring with a Soviet fighter named Ivan Drago—”it becomes something that , for the activist section of the grassroots looking for something that isn’t critical of their values, they’re going to latch on.”

This isn’t to say that Maverick, Hangman and the other pilots in the new “Top Gun” movie are going up against the current equivalent of the Soviet Union, whatever country that may be. As in the first “Top Gun”, which came out in 1986, the enemy is not explicitly identified.

Also, conservative politicians and media personalities do not claim that the film makes a compelling case for policies such as tax cuts or gun rights. Their argument has less to do with what the movie is than what it isn’t; have less to do with its particular plot or characters than its atmosphere.

“It’s political to be apolitical,” said Christian Toto, a conservative film critic and the owner of the website. Hollywood in Totoc.

He contrasted “Top Gun: Maverick” with some movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the gender-swapped Restart “Ghostbusters”. Their efforts at inclusivity — diverse castings, same-sex relationships — could come across as ham-handed, he said, especially to conservative audiences whose antennae are already on the alert for filmmakers who see them as trying to sneak in some spinach with the cinematic candies. .

The conservative allergy to such decisions in filmmaking flares up, Toto said, “when the audience feels like it’s being awkwardly placed there or that a message is being sent rather than being organically woven into the story.”

That the pilots training for the daring attack in “Top Gun: Maverick” seem to come from a variety of backgrounds doesn’t seem like liberal messaging, but realistic detail, Toto said.

“The cast is moderately diverse; there are women as pilots,” he said. “But they don’t comment on it; they don’t base the script around it. It is believed that these are simply very talented people who are willing to risk their lives for the mission.”

An All-American hit

Box office information does not contradict the cause of conservatives. According to Paramount, about 55 percent of opening weekend sales, an unusually high percentage, came from ticket buyers over 35.

And — atypical for major blockbusters in this era — “Top Gun: Maverick” has made more money in the United States and Canada than the rest of the world, according to Box Office Mojo.

Ben Shapiro, a popular conservative pundit who co-founded the website The Daily Wire, had predicted in his… rave review that the film would do better in its own country than abroad. “The film itself is quite red, white and blue,” he said. “That’s just assumed as background. That’s how movies used to be.”

Stanley Rosen, a political science professor at the University of Southern California who studies China’s film industry, said in an interview that “Top Gun: Maverick” represented an emerging idea that “Hollywood doesn’t need China like it used to.”

The film’s success could indicate that the days of Hollywood studios changed storylines to make their releases more palatable to Chinese censors and audiences – a trend documented in a recent book, “Red Carpet” by Erich Schwartzel – maybe slowly on your way out.

And, Rosen added, whatever the film’s actual political message, arguing that it has one at all may have its own merits.

“The controversy over being awake or whether this is Reagan-era nostalgia,” he said, “is very good for the box office.”

Table for two

California governor Gavin Newsom is set to have lunch in Washington on Friday with Vice President Kamala Harris, two of his aides have confirmed.

For Newsom, the journey, made official so that he could receive an award and discuss policy issues with lawmakers and officials of the Biden administrationhas doubled as something of a cleanup tour.

On Thursday, Newsom said clearly: that he supported President Biden as Democratic Party candidate in 2024 amid a whirlwind of coverage from my Times colleagues and others suggesting that liberal voters are not particularly enthusiastic about a new term for the 79-year-old commander in chief.

news reports, also in this modest newsletterhave noted that Newsom’s rise as leader in the Democratic Party could put him in competition with Harris, a longtime ally and possible future adversary in the state, in a hypothetical Biden-free presidential primaries.

Those stories have caught the attention of the vice president’s office as they entertained the governor’s staff at home in California. Both sides insist that there is no rivalry between the two leaders.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Newsom volunteered that Harris had been “great” as vice president and said they were just “checking in, like we constantly do.” However, he alluded to unspecified “limitations” Harris had faced in office, saying it was “a difficult time for all of us in public life.”

When asked what was on the lunch menu, a Newsom employee quipped in a text, “Arsenic and arm wrestling. The usual.”

Thank you for reading.

— Blake

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