In Top Gun: Maverick, Maverick’s Taiwanese flag patch isn’t just a clue to the character’s past; it’s a clue to a major change in the way Hollywood does business. The long-awaited sequel to Top Gun is garnering universal acclaim for its commitment to authenticity. In an era when rampant CGI is taking the weight out of action movies, Top Gun: Maverick is ditching CGI for the physical and emotional heft of practical effects. Green screens have been eschewed for real locations and in-cockpit camera rigs, stunt pilots for the actors themselves, with the stars enduring a three-month training regimen designed by Tom Cruise. They’ve even opted to leave in certain unscripted shots – flapping ailerons, camera reflections, Miles Teller hitting his head on the cockpit canopy – deemed to add to the gritty realism of the movie.
Along with the effects and stunts, Top Gun: Maverick has taken pains with small details that make the characters and their Navy aviation department more believable. One such detail is a Taiwanese flag patch on the back of Maverick’s leather jacket. In real life, pilots’ patches can signify a number of things, including deployments, aircraft piloted, and career milestones. In the Top Gun cinematic universe, the Taiwanese flag patch on Maverick’s jacket is a tribute to his dad, Duke Mitchell, who flew a joint mission with Taiwan during the Vietnam War. It’s an illuminating, endearing character detail, but the significance of Maverick’s Taiwanese flag patch goes beyond authenticity and cinematic world-building.
Top Gun: Maverick’s Taiwanese flag patch signals a shift in Hollywood away from placating the Chinese censors in return for financing and distribution. With a population of 1.4 billion, China represents the second-biggest box office on Earth. It’s also very strict about what can and can’t be shown on screen, with sympathetic portrayals of America, Christianity, and same-sex romance, to name a few, off limits. For years, major Hollywood studios have kowtowed to China, relying on Chinese backing and box-office numbers to help them make bigger, better-performing blockbusters, cutting out things the Chinese Communist Party deems “sensitive topics” in return. When Paramount dropped its Top Gun: Maverick trailer in 2019, it looks like the studio is doing just that. As observers quickly pointed out online, Maverick’s jacket’s Taiwanese flag patch was gone, replaced by a seemingly abstract symbol with the same color scheme. The reason was clear: the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation, but rather as a province of China. The concession, however, wasn’t enough. Chinese tech giant, Tencent, pulled funding over the film’s alleged pro-America message, and when Top Gun: Maverick was released in 2022, the patch had been reinstated.
Do Blockbuster Movies Still Need China?
What happens next turned Hollywood on its ear. Despite zero dollars of financing or returns from China, Top Gun: Maverick broke numerous box office records, becoming Paramount’s highest-grossing movie ever, the highest-grossing movie of 2022, and Tom Cruise’s first film to surpass $1 billion at the box office. Many factors seem to have aligned to make the movie a hit, including ’80s nostalgia, a Memorial Day-weekend release, Tom Cruise’s star power, and an accessible story. Top Gun: Maverick, however, isn’t the unicorn it appears to be.
In 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home refused Chinese censors’ demands to remove the Statue of Liberty and also didn’t open in China. Yet, it became the highest-grossing film of the year. Pixar’s Lightyear, released summer of 2022, refused to cut a same-sex kiss scene and likewise didn’t screen in the People’s Republic. Lightyear disappointed at the box office, but its underperformance had more to do with the American audience temperament than a lack of Chinese distribution. If three’s a pattern, these movies seem to indicate that the summer blockbuster doesn’t need China. Of course, it’s too early to say whether films like Top Gun: Maverick will become the norm, but it’s a step in the right direction by Hollywood and a win for free expression in the arts.
