‘’Moonlight’’, directed by Barry Jenkins, narrates the childhood story that many of us know but maybe have difficulty talking about. The movie examines the life of an African American man named Chiron, who had a rough childhood in Miami.
The movie divides his life into three parts, and each of these refers to the names others gave him during those periods. ‘’Little’’ refers to the name-calling his childhood bullies did; ‘’Chiron’’ is his birth name, and ‘’Black’’ is the nickname that his childhood friend and young crush, Kevin, gave him. Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes portray Chiron’s character at three different stages of his life.
The protagonist questions his identity from a very young age as he faces a world that tries to impose gender roles upon him. In his later years, he ends up adopting the things he fought against. Between the bullying he receives as a kid and the physical abuse suffered as a teen, it’s basically impossible for him to feel comfortable assuming an identity that puts him at risk. Hypermasculinity evolves into homophobia, which he would have to face during most of his life.
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Despite not getting to know his father, and not living with a mother who suffers from drug addiction and has to prostitute herself to get by, there are a few silver linings in his story. One of the local drug dealers, Juan, serves as a type of father figure to him after finding him hiding from his bullies in an abandoned building. At one point in the film, Chiron reveals he’s being bullied and thus begins to question his sexuality. Juan reassures him that there’s nothing wrong with that and, even so, he was too young to know what his sexuality concretely was, which was the truth, in Chiron’s case.
Many people who don’t conform to non-traditional gender roles don’t know how to identify themselves as kids, and when they aren’t allowed to explore these identities in safe spaces, it becomes even more confusing and possibly traumatic experience when it comes to taking up an identity. Even in his teens, he saw how he was betrayed by the one person that showed him warmth and affection in a romantic way, which made him adopt even more masculine roles in his adulthood for his security.
As an adult, he’s finally independent and financially stable, but it seems as if the past still chases him. Chiron hasn’t learned how to interact sexually with others, and his mother still rings a sour bell in the back of his head since his line of work as a drug dealer haunts his mother. However, the movie positively crescendos. It illustrates how it’s possible for Chiron to feel empowerment in his adulthood and learn how to love both himself and others. He’s finally able to express how he feels with the person who showed him warmth and affection as a teen. It might not be the ideal picture, but it’s a genuine story in how it’s told, and that on its own demonstrates the hope of growth despite the odds.
These stories, in reality, usually unfold with crueler undertones and in a less coherent, linear form, but that doesn’t mean that these life testimonies cannot lack beauty, moments of tenderness, and overcoming one’s limitations. Jenkins was not looking to portray a perfect story with a completely coherent ending. Instead, he wanted to show how traumas people resolve traumas at a very individual pace, conditioned to the privileges that each person has, and how each identity makes some experiences more difficult for some people.
Surrealist frames, sensual dream sequences, and flashbacks serve as mediums to present how humans are capable of expressing and comprehending their emotions on a psychological level. This dimension puts into question what a family truly is in contrast with what society defines as a ‘’family.’’ For the longest time, Chiron’s family and support group consisted of Juan and his girlfriend. They gave him a home and affection, regardless of their backgrounds. Most mainstream narratives would paint this as a tragedy, but for him, that was his family, and his biological mother was a larger source of trauma for him.
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The protagonist’s silence throughout the movie illustrates the trauma he’s suffered. He avoids expressing himself so he won’t be judged or attacked by others. As an adult, it’s difficult for him to express how he feels, even though he’s no longer judged or scrutinized for any of the things he was when he was a kid. In fact, as an adult, he’s hypermasculine, full of muscles, and would appear to be relatively confident when he speaks—all the opposite of what he used to be criticized for.
Yet, his childhood friend and crush, Kevin, laments the fact that Chiron is essentially a drug dealer with muscles whose job is to shut others up. Chiron wasn’t able to ‘’escape the cycle” because he was never brought up in a space that respected his identity, let him express himself, and took measures to protect him and prevent alienation during school. Chiron did the best he could to survive, and society will probably scrutinize his current lifestyle without knowing the factors that contribute to this. In fact, the hypermasculine gender roles that are expected of from black men made it nearly impossible for him to envision a life where he could freely explore his sexuality and live differently from what society expected out of him. In that sense, ‘’Moonlight’’ dares us to redefine societal scripts and see the humanity behind the stigmatized.
A very tender movie sprinkled with hope and tragedy, ‘’Moonlight’’ paints the intimate portrait of a complex being. In place of judgment, it offers empathy.