This is the Best — and Worst — Time for "Top Gun: Maverick"
AKA: The Geopolitical Implications of 2022’s Summer Blockbuster
“I’m so hopped up on America right now.”
That was the first thing I said after seeing Top Gun: Maverick this past Tuesday.
In my defense, the movie is designed to make you feel that way. Like the original, Maverick is chock-full of imagery and themes designed to appeal to a nostalgic ideal of America. The stars and stripes are everywhere. Hot men play football on a sun-drenched beach. Tom Cruise rides a motorcycle in a vintage leather jacket. A beautiful woman takes him on a sailboat in preppy clothes as the red, white, and blue flow majestically behind them. The military, too, are given a similar treatment. They wear their most nostalgic uniforms. Everyone is aggressively attractive in an old-fashioned kind of way. And the fighter jet scenes are exhilarating to the point of euphoria.
Top Gun: Maverick is such an effective piece of American propaganda that — especially as a white American, albeit one who’s relationship with America has grown increasingly complicated over the years — it’s frankly hard not to feel hopped up on America after watching.
The timing is somewhat serendipitous, of course. Maverick was originally set to be released in 2019, but was delayed numerous times for various reasons, before finally settling on its 2022 release date. From a propaganda standpoint, it worked out. A central tenet of Maverick, like the original, is that it sets up a clear conflict of good vs bad. As David Sims wrote for the Atlantic of the original film, “Who exactly the enemy is does not matter. What matters is that the hero is America.”
Just six months ago, such messaging may not have been as effective. It was unclear then if the US even had a military enemy. Now, though, most Americans agree that there is a clear enemy of the US: Russia. In fact, between January and March of this year, the number of Americans who viewed Russia as an enemy jumped to 70% from 41%. There isn’t even a partisan divide there — 72% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans describe Russia as an enemy, according to an April report from Pew Research Center. Of course, the reason for the change is obvious.
Last week, Kelly A. Grieco and Marie Jourdain wrote for World Politics Review (shout-out my employer) about the West’s messaging surrounding the war in Ukraine:
The West has framed the war in ideological terms: Autocratic Russia, they explain, is waging a brutal and unprovoked war against Ukraine, because the latter aspired to follow the Western model of liberal democracy. As such, the world must help Ukraine to defend itself—or risk imperiling the entire “free world.”
This strategic narrative has been very effective in mobilizing the United States, European Union and other like-minded democracies, drawing as it does on national memories of the ideological confrontations and wars of the 20th century. It appeals to liberal values that are deeply embedded within the U.S. and Europe, infusing the West with greater unity and purpose.
Top Gun: Maverick plays into this messaging to a tee. One of the central conflicts that Tom Cruise’s character, Maverick, faces is that of a changing military. In his vintage leather jacket and aviators, Maverick acts as a symbol for what the American military used to be — or rather, used to be perceived as. He’s free-spirited and independent, but willing to put his life on the line for a common good. He’s simultaneously stylish and commanding. He, and the movie as a whole, literally draw on “national memories of the ideological confrontations and wars of the 20th century.”
And then there’s the enemy in the film, who remains unnamed, much like in the original. But it’s clear that this is a battle of values, that “we” are the good guys and “they” are the bad guys. The stakes are so high because everyone understands that “they” cannot be allowed even a small victory. And with the final action scene taking place over snow-capped mountains on enemy territory, it’s difficult not to picture Russia as the unnamed evil the film alludes to.
As a result, Top Gun: Maverick, coming out when it does, only serves to bolster the already popular narrative — in the West, at least — of the West, specifically the US, as a protector of the liberal world order. It makes sense then, that many of the most popular markets for Maverick are countries that are actively supporting Ukraine and condemning Russia: the UK, France, Germany, Japan, and notably, Taiwan. (For the record, the film was banned in China and Russia, for obvious reasons.)
The trouble is, as Grieco and Jourdain note, the West’s pro-democracy narrative isn’t quite so popular outside the West. After all, very few countries in the world are democracies, and many that are have chosen not to even condemn Russia. Plus, the US and the West also need the support of non-democracies, so framing the war as a battle for democracy isn’t exactly effective in those countries. “Most of the world’s countries have no innate commitment to the defense of democracy and freedom; to them, what’s happening in Ukraine might seem like nothing more than a distant European war,” they write.
Instead, Grieco and Jourdain argue a much more effective strategy would be to posit the war in Ukraine as a battle for sovereignty, and that the threat Russia poses is not to the “free world” but to the universal norms that hold the global order together.
“Going forward, the West’s public diplomacy will need to actively deconstruct the idea that the war in Ukraine is a matter of West versus East.” That may be harder to do with Top Gun: Maverick making such big waves in the West. Obviously a blockbuster film will not be the needle-mover for any world leaders, but the more the film’s messaging bolsters the “democracy vs. autocracy” narrative, the harder it will be for the West to pivot its messaging to something else.
In essence, the timing of a film designed to get its audiences hopped up on America couldn’t be better. It also couldn’t be worse.
Further listening:
The Weekly Soundtrack
Summer starts tomorrow, and what better way to usher in the summer than with my very first summer playlist, created back in 2020.
I present: Burgers & Bold Rock
That’s all for this week! If you go see Top Gun: Maverick after reading this and are concerned that you’re feeling too hopped up on America, let me know. I have plenty of antidotes.
As always, please send me your questions, comments, recs, and potential weddings I could crash.
I'll refrain from posting everything I think about narratives surrounding the war in favor of latching on to your wedding crashers comment and mention that while I was in the north of spain I met a guy who was in town for his friend's wedding, who was getting married to the niece of the CFO of Chanel. Never have I wanted to crash a wedding more, and ever since then I've been kicking myself for not having the balls to ask this guy straight up if I could be his plus one to the wedding.