Moonlight
Moonlight is a 2016 film directed by Barry Jenkins. The film follows Chiron through his adolescence, teen, and adult life through three acts; Act One: Little, Act Two: Chiron, and Act Three: Black. During the first act, we see Chiron deal with emotional abuse at home while dealing with bullying at school. Also during this time we meet Juan, a man who meets Chiron after he is chased by his schoolmates. Juan acts as a teacher for Chiron, as well as a masculine figure in his life. However, by the time we get to Act Two, we learn that Juan has passed away. During Act Two, Chiron continues to navigate his sexuality while being bullied by his classmates. During both Act One and Act Two, Chiron is told he is “too soft.” However, after being punched by Kevin (a boy he had a sexual encounter with) and then attacked by another group of classmates, Chiron becomes “hard,” as we can see when he smashes a chair over his bully. This shift can be interpreted as Chiron falling into toxic masculinity, a trend that continues in Act Three. During Act Three, Chiron is an adult who has become a drug dealer. After getting a call from Kevin, he goes to visit him in Miami. By visiting Kevin and talking with him, Chiron is able to act as the softer kind of person he was when he was Little. As LaLi Mohamed says in Masculinity and 'Moonlight': Eight black men dissect Barry Jenkins' momentous film, “The film lays bare the corrupting and contaminating terrain of masculinity — its toxicities, its brutalities, its unrelenting banality.” Chiron was forced to live a life of toxic masculinity because of the bullying he experienced as a child/teen, and it wasn’t until visiting Kevin that he was able to break away from that toxicity.
An underlying theme of this film is questioning what it means to be a man. Many in Chiron’s life make a point that to be a man, you have to be tough but others in his life, like Juan, take a different approach. Juan takes care of Chiron and is kind to him, as we can see in the last scene with them together. When Juan is telling Chiron what a faggot is, Juan is very gentle with him and answers his questions kindly. Juan’s character acts as an example for Chiron and the audience of what a man really is. While watching the film, I thought this theme was similar to something else I had watched recently. In season two, episode ten of Community, Mixology Certification, there are similar themes. The episode is about one character’s (Troy’s) 21st birthday and the bar he and his friends go to to celebrate. Throughout the entirety of the episode, Troy listens to Jeff (sort of the “head” of the friend group) about what it means to be a man. Jeff tells him what to drink and how to drink, and Troy listens. However, by the end of the episode, instead of getting a drink, Troy drives everyone home. By not drinking, Troy is rejecting the toxic masculinity that Jeff partakes in. Even though he doesn’t follow Jeff’s example, Jeff still says Troy’s a man now, recognizing that being a man means taking care of the people you love.
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I think it's really interesting that you mention Community. I hadn't seen that episode, but from the few episodes I've seen, Jeff is a major, toxic masculine jerk who lies to people to get his way constantly. He's cocky and kind of misogynistic. Troy got people home safely in that episode, which echoes Juan's role in Chiron's life as a protector. There's this fantasy amongst masculine "men's rights" groups that men are supposed to be the protectors of others, but I can't help but wonder, who are they protecting us from? To me, protection is a feminine, maternal role, and there's a recent trend on social media advising young girls to call for "Mom!" in a crowded place instead of "Help!" because it will directly activate some woman's maternal instincts to help. Because of that, I see Juan in a maternal role. I see all nuturing, caring adults as maternal, even attentive fathers, because in nature, not very many species have attentive fathers, but they always have attentive mothers. I think mothering defies gender presentation, and can be part of a masculine identity.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting that you point out that Juan doesn't display any toxic masculinity. He really doesn't. But we see that Chiron tries, in a lot of ways, to emulate him in his adulthood, probably because he's the only real positive masculine figure in his life. I think it's also interesting that you pointed out that when he sees Kevin again as an adult, he's able to shed away some of his hardness and be softer again. I really enjoyed seeing his interaction with Kevin as adults. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHello! I enjoyed reading your analysis on Moonlight and liked your focus on the toxicities and brutalities Chiron had to face. I liked how you pointed out the theme of what it meant to be a man and also wondered throughout the film what happened with Chiron’s father. While it seems like he was not present in his life I did enjoy the father role Juan takes and how he did make an impact on Chiron’s life, especially the aspects he did not fully understand or accepted when he was young. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHello!
ReplyDeleteI loved your discussion on toxic masculinity, and how Juan's comfortable masculinity gave Chiron a figure that would show him that not everything had to be extremely unhealthy. Everyone around Chiron at school showed him that toxic masculinity was the only way to stay afloat, but Juan showed him otherwise!
I loved your connection to the Community episode and the discussion around what it means to be masculine, which is usually largely toxic, versus what what people truly consider "a man" to be. The connection is made more interesting when considering that Troy is the only Black character in the group, and receiving the information about masculinity from a white man, which would carry a different definition than Jeff's ideas. Loved reading your thoughts!
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