the thing about top gun (1986) is that val kilmer played a closeted gay man on purpose but tom cruise is just like that
wrote the tags before I looked it up but PROOF. VINDICATION.
Yes! Bruce Weber, a gay man himself, was famous for his photography that toed the very grey line between masculine and homoerotic. His most famous works and style are probably the Abercrombie & Fitch campaigns in the 90s (you know the ones).
Top Gun director Tony Scott specifically used Bruce Weber’s photography as a baseline for the aesthetic choices of the film
Cruise did agree, however, to meet with Scott and the producers. “He came into the office and Tony showed him this [photography] book that Bruce Weber had done on Americana and these great-looking guys,” says Bruckheimer. “We leafed through the book and Tony said, ‘This is what I want you to look like’ — all these guys in white T-shirts, all handsome. Tony was excited and Tom got excited.” (The Hollywood Reporter, 2016)
Cruise even met with Weber himself. These are in a book of Weber’s most famous photographs.
