Moonlight

Moonlight has been a pivotal film. Released in 2016, it deals with black masculinity, fatherlessness, homosexuality, and growing up impoverished and to a drug-addicted mother. It was adapted from a play titled, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, which functions as a key line of dialogue in the film. The director, Barry Jenkins, and playwright, Tarrell McCraney, actually grew up in the same location and attended the same elementary school.

A central theme of the film is Chrion's sexuality. The film is split into three sections, chronically his childhood through adulthood. When blackness is associated with aggression, 'Little', as Chiron is referred to, is often bullied and teased for his quiet and nonviolent behavior as a child. Though Little explores his sexuality with his friend Kevin, it is never explicitly said that he is gay, even when they have a loving reconnection and sexual history by the end of the film.

Drawing on his own life, McCraney said when asked about sexuality, "...gay to them in their sort of heteronormative thinking of it means that I only engage in sexual acts with men, and to me gay means being in an intimate, loving relationship with a person of the same gender to me." He further says, "I couldn't understand why people were calling me gay, I certainly had an attraction to women, still have an attraction to women, but what they did see me do or what they could see in me is that I was more graceful than the other boys."

In this way, Little is marginalized for not engaging in typical male behavior, though this isn't always indicative of sexuality. The correlation is an unfair assumption. This film does a beautiful job of tenderly exploring sexuality in a way that doesn't feel like propaganda or overtly explicit. It is one character's journey through life with the central question of the film being "Who am I?". Chiron's sexuality is a component of who he is, but not all of who he is.

"Watching Moonlight in the Twilight of Obama" discusses the discourse around black stereotypes and assumptions about black masculinity. The authors argue that Moonlight complicates the narrative, and shows the negative repercussions of such violently oppressive binaries and that individuals who are in-between categories do exist. It features a "diverse array of blackness. (290)" Indeed it does, with Chiron's mentor, Juan, appearing a "typical" drug-dealing black man, yet he turns out to be a tender and affectionate father figure to Chiron, breaking free of the stereotype.

This is a beautiful, important film that showcases us new ways to view sexuality, racial stereotypes, and coming of age in a gritty, real and vulnerable way.