Is There Anything More Awkward Than The Sex Scene In ‘Top Gun’?

Top Gun, as Quentin Tarantino famously proclaimed in the 1994 indie film Sleep With Me, is “one of the greatest fucking scripts ever written in the history of Hollywood.” I could not possibly agree more. In the words of Stefon, it’s got EVERYTHING: Fighter jets, cool nicknames, proto-karaoke, flat spins, beach volleyball, the specter of nuclear annihilation, and enough homoerotic subtext to power a whole slew of thinkpieces. The finished product, courtesy of director Tony Scott, somehow manages to improve upon its already incredible source material, thanks to its incredible cast, an era-defining Harold Faltermeyer/Giorgio Moroder score, kinetic cinematography and a star-making performance by young Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. It also has the most awkward sex scene ever committed to celluloid.

I first saw Top Gun during the summer of 1986. On my twelfth birthday, my mom dropped myself, my little brother (who was 8 at the time), and a friend off at a suburban Detroit movie theater for an afternoon screening of the film that had completely dominated the zeitgeist since its release. If you’ve ever seen Top Gun, you know that it was constructed specifically to appeal to teenage boys, so naturally this went down as one of my best birthdays ever. I was, however, fairly traumatized by the movie’s lone sex scene, the first one (outside of a handful of scrambled late night HBO skin flicks) that I had ever seen without my mother there to physically cover up my eyes. It was equal parts mesmerizing and, frankly, revolting to me at the time; it starts off nicely enough, with some wind machines, blue light and a gorgeous Giorgio Moroder synth-line, but then WHAM. Did adults really use their tongues for stuff like THIS?!?

Consider my then 12-year-old mind BLOWN.

As the years went by, I watched Top Gun approximately a hundred million more times. With the possible exception of Rocky IV, I don’t think there’s a movie that I’ve seen more. Yet this sex scene, somehow, never gets less awkward. As I grew into a teenager and started doing some (very occasional) kissing of my own, I realized that there literally zero chemistry between the characters of Maverick and Charlie, and even less between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. As I’m watching every motion in this foolish lover’s game, I’m noticing that these two don’t kiss so much as they explore their surroundings with their flickering tongues, reptilian-style.

I mean, at one point Tom Cruise decides to lick her teeth? IS THAT EVEN A THING?

What were things like on the set that day? I can’t even imagine what was going through Tony Scott’s mind —a director, mind you, whose entire filmography was shot and edited in such an adrenalized manner that made viewers feel like they were taking visual bumps of cocaine— when he gave young Tommy Cruise the direction to embrace his inner tortoise and French the clearly uncomfortable Miss McGillis as slowly as humanly possible.

It’s not like this scene was constructed as camp, either (looking at you, world’s other worst sex scene). After all, it’s scored by Berlin’s soaring, Academy Award-winning song, “Take My Breath Away,” and the powers-that-be in Hollywood clearly intended that it would shore up Tom Cruise’s status as a (heterosexual) sex symbol after the laughable flop that was Ridley Scott’s Legend. So what went wrong?

Tom Cruise certainly isn’t talking, nor is Kelly McGillis. Nor will Tony Scott, of course, who passed away back in the summer of 2012. The rest of us are left to watch this scene in (literal) slow motion, as we turn and return to some secret place inside. This sex scene will always take our collective breath away, and along with it, our appetites, too.

PS – BONUS TOP GUN SUPERCUT ACTION, COURTESY OF BRIAN MAXWELL MANN!