Moonlight is a 2016 film directed by Barry Jenkins, based on In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, an unpublished play by Tarell Alvin McCraney. The story follows a Chiron, a black boy growing up in Miami, through three distinct vignettes. These vignettes, spaced about ten years apart, depict Chiron’s childhood through young adulthood, as he struggles with poverty, trauma, bullies, and his own crystalizing sense of sexuality and masculinity.
From a sociological perspective, the film is fundamentally about the intersections of poverty, blackness, masculinity, and homosexuality. Each of these social forces exert powerful influence over Chiron, but no identity is singular. Each element complicates and informs the other – his masculinity is constructed in reaction to his …show more content…
From the beginning of the film we see that Chiron does not fit this model. He is quiet and small, with little interest in fighting. Other boys see these differences, characterize them as queer, and persecute him. In doing so they are simultaneously teaching Chiron what masculinity is – and perhaps more importantly what it is not – and practicing their own performativity identities. As a young adult, Chiron becomes Juan, in essence. He drives an identical low rider, wears the same gold jewelry and clothes, though he sports a larger grill and a more imposing physique. This development is certainly an imitation of the Chiron’s only father figure, but it is also an acquiescence to the particular demands of masculinity placed on poor black men. Chiron makes himself hard to survive in a world where softness is dangerous. Moonlight succeeds largely because it skillfully walks the line between challenging performativity masculinity and preserving black
From a sociological perspective, the film is fundamentally about the intersections of poverty, blackness, masculinity, and homosexuality. Each of these social forces exert powerful influence over Chiron, but no identity is singular. Each element complicates and informs the other – his masculinity is constructed in reaction to his …show more content…
From the beginning of the film we see that Chiron does not fit this model. He is quiet and small, with little interest in fighting. Other boys see these differences, characterize them as queer, and persecute him. In doing so they are simultaneously teaching Chiron what masculinity is – and perhaps more importantly what it is not – and practicing their own performativity identities. As a young adult, Chiron becomes Juan, in essence. He drives an identical low rider, wears the same gold jewelry and clothes, though he sports a larger grill and a more imposing physique. This development is certainly an imitation of the Chiron’s only father figure, but it is also an acquiescence to the particular demands of masculinity placed on poor black men. Chiron makes himself hard to survive in a world where softness is dangerous. Moonlight succeeds largely because it skillfully walks the line between challenging performativity masculinity and preserving black