Gautama Mehta — The best Hollywood movies are made with an appealing amoral grandiosity of purpose. Often they’re about the U.S. military. People who don’t know how to read say these movies are meant to persuade you that the U.S. military is good and its enemies are bad. Among the class of illiterates who tend to think this way are the U.S. military, its enemies, and even the people who make the movies.
Tom Cruise knows how to read. He is the star of “Top Gun: Maverick” and also its protagonist. He made the movie, he is the movie’s audience, and he is the enemy of the U.S. military.
In “Top Gun: Maverick,” Tom Cruise plays Maverick, the best fighter pilot in the Navy, whom I surmise he also played in “Top Gun.” Before the movie begins Tom Cruise appears onscreen to say the stunts were real and thank you for seeing it in theaters. Before that there was a trailer for another Tom Cruise movie, “Mission: Impossible” Part Seven Part One, which will open in July 2023.
In “Top Gun: Maverick,” fighter pilots have been made obsolete by drones until a group of people named only as “the enemy” does something involving uranium in a place drones can’t reach—a place only fighter pilots can bomb. So Maverick must return to Top Gun, the naval base where fighter pilots are trained, to train a group of younger, lesser fighter pilots to bomb the uranium-connected endeavor.
We never see an enemy soldier’s face. No one discusses the enemy’s motivations or denounces its atrocities. (What kind of propaganda is this, illiterates?) All we ever really learn about the enemy is that it has superior planes to the U.S. military, but it also has an old, obsolete U.S. military plane sitting around—the kind Tom Cruise used to fly—so Tom Cruise steals it and defeats the enemy.
“A feature of the Western ‘war on terror’ that seems to come out of fable rather than reality is an inability to see the enemy. In fact, it is an inability to define the enemy,” writes Rahmane Idrissa in the New Left Review. Idrissa is discussing the French war in the Sahel. But for our purposes, like Tom Cruise’s, the Sahel doesn’t matter.
Tom Cruise understands that efforts to see or define the enemy of the U.S. military are not merely futile: they hinder the plot and cheapen the spectacle. Tom Cruise doesn’t want to battle the U.S. military’s enemy. He wants to rekindle his lost love with Jennifer Connelly, to watch the sun glisten in the magic hour on the backs and torsos of handsome young fighter pilots playing football on the beach, and to see the look of reproach in the eyes of Jennifer Connelly’s teenage daughter when she catches him jumping out of her mother’s bedroom window. War puts Tom Cruise in these situations; an enemy would sully them.
The absence of the enemy of the U.S. military allows Tom Cruise to battle his own enemy—a world in which he feels old and irrelevant—and win. When it’s over, the Navy’s best fighter pilot and Hollywood’s last movie star are victorious in their defense of planes and Hollywood, and none with eyes to see can seriously believe war is anything but a narrative device.
Lenny Wheelman, Transcribed by Guthrie London — People say Hollywood is changing. They say that “Movies” are changing. I wouldn’t know. In fact, I’ve never been a big fan of movies. Movies take my least favorite element of activities — commitment, precipitated by long run times and pricey tickets — and pair it with my least favorite element of life, impermanence. You start them, you watch them, and they end, and you leave the theater with nothing new in your life, with the feeling that a universe has been created and destroyed in the span of two hours. But let’s rewind to the beginning, when I decided to go see “Top Gun: Maverick”.
On the morning of June 2nd, 2022, I made myself four hard-boiled eggs and put them in a bowl. I struggled to get the shells off. Those slippery eggs are always fooling me with their strange outfits. Once I had peeled those disgusting eggs with my hands, and I had their tender insides ready for mastication, I took out a fresh, cold liter of Diet Coke from my refrigerator, ready to pair with my meal. The whole thing made me sick. When my doctor told me I shouldn’t eat eggs, due to my high cholesterol, I misheard him, due to my poor hearing, and I thought that he said I should only eat eggs. Those fucking eggs were making me sick, and when I called him to clarify, he cleared up the mistake. Although I’m not entirely sure that I know what’s going on, as I can barely hear anything anymore.
I remember, when I was a teenager, the movies used to be so fun. You’d go to the drive-in with a girl, you’d barely watch the movie, and instead you’d make-out, and do hand-stuff. Gone are those days, now people won’t let their teenagers out of the house — and the teenagers don’t even want to go. They want to play with their Tik-Tok and their xbox and do online school. I haven’t done hand-stuff in over 10 years. Things have really changed — so when the trailer for “Top Gun: Maverick” popped up on television, I was excited. These people weren’t on Tik-Tok, they were out doing their jobs. And, boy, look at those planes. And who couldn’t use a hero, played by Tom Cruise.
But things became more difficult. I forgot where I was going. When I left the house, I had a light bulb in my hand. I don’t know why I picked it up, but maybe I had unscrewed it from a lamp. I figured it must’ve been dead, that’s why I unscrewed it. But I wasn’t sure. When I got to the bus stop, there was no way to know if it was a working light bulb or not, I couldn’t remember. So I began to worry. I was so distracted on the bus, holding the light bulb, and wondering if it was working, that I missed my stop. I went a whole 10 stops too far. When I got off the bus, I was surrounded by ethnics, and I didn’t recognize any of the street signs. I held the light bulb tight, in case someone tried to rob me.
I met a dog. He was a small dog, and he started following me. I think I was on my way to the other bus, to get back the way I came, but I had been walking a long time and the return bus was right across the street, so it didn’t make sense. The dog must have been a beagle, the way he walked. At first I thought he was trying to get my light bulb, and I shouted at him, but then I realized he was just a puppy, and he didn’t want my light bulb, he was just looking for some food. Ok fine, I thought, I’ll find him something to eat. I went into the convenience store on the corner, to look for some food. I spent half my money getting him some canned pineapple. But when I got outside, I realized I had left my light bulb inside. When I went back in to get it, I couldn’t find it. I went over to the shelf where I had gotten the canned pineapple. The light bulb was there. So I took it, along with the pineapple, back outside. As I walked out, I was afraid the kid at the cash register would think I was stealing the canned pineapple. So I said, “I’m not stealing this,” very loudly. He said something in return, but I couldn’t hear him — I didn’t make eye contact, I just kept walking as fast as I could until I got back outside. When I got outside, I thought I’d find the dog, but he was gone.
I walked back in the direction of the bus stop. I was sure that by that time, I had missed the movie. It didn’t really matter — the movie wasn’t real anyway. You go to all the trouble of getting there and sitting through the whole thing and then it ends. And most of the time, the ending isn’t very good. I found the bus stop and sat down. It was dark now, and people were closing up the last shops. I didn’t know when the next bus would come. I set the light bulb down next to me, but it immediately rolled off the bench and cracked on the ground. I had carried it around all this time for nothing. Now it was broken. I continued to sit next to the broken light bulb, until I finally broke and opened up the canned pineapple. I thought it might be a good snack to have while waiting for the bus. I was eating the pineapple chunks with my fingers when the dog plodded up to me. He wasn’t trying any mischief, so I gave him a chunk of pineapple. When the bus came, I waved goodbye to the dog, and got on.
I wouldn’t recommend “Top Gun: Maverick” to anyone, because I haven’t seen it. Maybe I’ll go next Sunday, but by that time it might have ended.
