MSNBC Editor Blasts Top Gun: Maverick as ‘Insidious’ and ‘Poisonous’ for Showing Military as ‘Beacon of Virtue’ Ahead of Oscars

MSNBC opinion writer/editor Zeeshan Aleem blasted the uber-popular Top Gun: Maverick ahead of Sunday’s Oscars, arguing the movie is undeserving of golden statue glory and labeling it “insidious” for its positive portrayal of the U.S. military.

Aleem noted in a Saturday opinion column that it’s “remarkable” a popcorn movie like Top Gun could be nominated for Best Picture – it has a total of six nominations – though genre movies being nominated for the top prize has become more common in recent years thanks to the category expanding.

Top Gun is “as insidious as it is entertaining,” Aleem wrote. “It does not merely revive a forgotten human-centered spectacle; it also beckons for a return to accepting the American war machine as a beacon of virtue and excitement. It’s a poisonous kind of nostalgia, one that smuggles love of endless war into a celebration of live action.”

He argued the movie’s producers getting script notes from the Pentagon in exchange for access and cooperation make Top Gun “literal propaganda.” Main character Maverick (Tom Cruise) spends much of the movie arguing with his higher-ups and wrestling with his inability to successfully navigate the politics of bureaucracy, but these minor bits of rebellion were simply distractions, Aleem claimed, with the movie having an apparent blind faith in not only the military but the military-industrial complex.

“Top Gun is literal propaganda: In exchange for access to military aircraft, the producers of the movie agreed to allow the Defense Department to include it’s own ‘key talking points’ in the script,” he wrote. “Perhaps equally important, the script had to be written in a manner that flatters the military in order to secure the buy-in of the Pentagon.”

Because Maverick uses lines like “don’t think, just do” and never questions the merit behind his mission to take down a nuclear site, Aleem said the film acts as a pro-war work. The editor declared he hopes it tanks when Oscar time rolls around.

Top Gun: Maverick already found plenty of success in theaters, becoming the second highest-grossing movie of 2022. The sequel pulled in nearly $1.5 billion worldwide, more than $700 million of that from the U.S.