In a series called Mondo Ironico, let us discuss how fucking antithetical something in pop culture is.
Arriving before Pride Month, Lady Gaga’s single designed to tie in “perfectly” (via generic platitudes) with the plot of Top Gun: Maverick “landed” to little fanfare. For “Hold My Hand” is nothing if not another flaccid “anthem” of the summer with that similar caterwauling sound she gave us for A Star Is Born’s “Shallow.” What’s more, Gaga choosing to be a part of this film in the first place is somewhat traitorous considering Top Gun’s overt ties to Republicanism. At the same time, it’s one of the most blatantly homoerotic mainstream films of the 80s.
In this sense, her offering of services for this particular movie’s soundtrack is ironic on a sort of ouroboros level. On the one side of things, you have her pandering to the toxic masculinity that Top Gun perpetuates with the audience it attracts. On the other, there is the notion that she is corroborating and trolling just how gay the original movie is. Not to mention her not-so-secret fetish for wanting to compete with Madonna—this time, by forging her own link to the 80s.
With a video that takes the usual lazy approach to executing a “plot” for songs featured in a movie, director Joseph Kosinski (who also directed Top Gun: Maverick itself) provides scenes of Lady G leaning “wistfully” against the wheel of a plane (obviously marked with the letters “LG”) when footage from the movie itself isn’t being paraded like all-American propaganda. There are also some moments that feature her in the same desert landscape in which Tom Cruise barreled his motorcycle down the highway. Instead of riding one herself to imitate the scene, she “wails on” her piano, belting, “You can cry every last tear/I won’t leave till I understand.”
Not exactly in keeping with the more Trumpian dialogue of 86’s Top Gun, with such gems as Maverick inferring he knows he has a one-night stand with Charlie (Kelly McGillis) in the bag. That is, after he harasses her with a karaoke’d version of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling. Her lack of being impressed by his “smoothness” is made clear when she asks him how long he’s been putting on this act, to which he tells her, “Twice… Crashed and burned on the first one.” She questions, “And the second?” Grinning, he “charms,” “I don’t know. I’ll tell you tomorrow… but it’s looking good so far.” The implication being that they’re going to wake up next to each other. And, with it being the 80s, Charlie has to act enchanted with rather than disgusted by his bravado.
So yes, Lady Gaga opting to be part of something so “dick-swinging” is both off- and on-brand. And perhaps in choosing to collaborate on this go-around of the movie, she hopes to make Top Gun more openly gay-friendly. In spite of such generic assurances as, “Hold my hand/Everything will be okay.” Will it though? Doesn’t seem likely. Even with Trump no longer being president. A “celebration” that Lady G was certain to be included in by singing the national anthem at Biden’s inauguration (lest the Top Gun-loving Republicans forget). An “honor” she seemed to be gunning for when she helped him campaign in Pittsburgh, in addition to giving a cringeworthy PSA while wearing makeshift fatigues during which she stated, “This is Lady Gaga. I’m voting for America, which means I’m voting for Joe Biden.” She then throws a can of beer on the ground to prove how “down” she is with Middle America (which, if she were, she never would have wasted a beer like that). And perhaps she wanted to further indicate as much by getting in on this Top Gun: Maverick action and insidiously serving as a siren to still-closeted gays in the region.
Her once-unabashed Biden affinity was also likely a factor in jumping on the project in that the video gave her the opportunity to wear the president’s signature accessory of aviator sunglasses as she waxes on with God-fearing American sentiments like, “Your prayers will be answered, let God whisper how.” But if God could whisper anything, it would probably be, “*cough cough* This song is bullshit.” And yet, despite Lady G betraying her liberal sistren by going to the dark side—Republican porn—it somehow doesn’t yet manage to top her performance in House of Gucci in terms effrontery.
