Top Gun Shaped Me Without Me Knowing So
If we look at our lives, we have been shaped by the things and people that surround us, and this absolutely includes the people who raise us. I always blame my mother for my fangirl ways and the things I choose to watch. As I got older and embraced fangirl culture, my mother claimed the title herself as well. Let’s be honest, there is no way she wasn’t a fangirl when she had my brothers and me watching movies and shows she loved from the very beginning.
And that is exactly where Top Gun (1986) comes in. Top Gun was one of those movies that shaped everything about my mother. She watched it and rewatched it a million times, including me in those rewatches. She sat at the movie theater for the sequel in 2022 and brought me with her. She "complained" when she realized she wouldn’t be home for the movie's anniversary, which meant she wouldn’t be able to (re)watch the movie in theaters. And if my mom had a Letterboxd account, Top Gun would definitely be in her Top 4.
While Top Gun is not among my Top 4, it is one of those movies that I look back on fondly. The movie is good, we cannot deny that, and Tom Cruise’s performance is one of the best we’ve seen him deliver. Say what you want about Cruise, but his work is impeccable, and the movies he puts out in the world are always nearly perfect…or maybe that’s my mom’s influence speaking.
As I sat down to write about its 40th anniversary, I realized that Top Gun had become a part of my life in a way I never expected. I look back on it and can count it as one of the movies from my childhood, even though I never thought about it that way. That is the power of the media. That is why it’s so important to pay close attention to what we consume. Everything we watch and hear has an impact on us one way or another.
Top Gun’s impact on my life is closely connected to the kind of viewer and fan I grew up to be. If my mother hadn’t had that experience, things might have turned out differently. Because the movie shaped her and her love for films, it undoubtedly shaped me. It’s funny to realize how things affect us without us even realizing it.
Now, Top Gun will unknowingly shape another generation as my son continues to grow in a household of fangirls who love and cherish films. The next 40 years of this film’s legacy are on the shoulders of those who are growing up as the children and grandchildren of those of us who have rewatched Cruise’s performance over and over again. What a crazy concept that we truly can’t escape (nor would we want to).
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