Oscar winning film, Moonlight, is a story about coming of age. It expresses the emotion of a black man who is struggling to find his identity or identities growing up. The movie is based around the character, Chiron aka “Blue”, a young black male, who we as the audience see him grow up in three stages. We first see him as a young child who is always lonely and meets Juan who is a drug dealer, but also a father figure to Chiron. We see them connect in that father son bond, and Chiron is comforted by him. In stage two, we see Chiron in high school where he his still a loner type, he gets bullied by other kids, and only has one friend Kevin, who becomes his love interest. Chiron is done with getting beat up all the time and he hits one of the kids and this leads him to juvie. This leads to stage three of him becoming a young black man. He has moved from his home in Miami to Atlanta and we see he is not the same since his time in juvenile detention. He does not look the same as he was in high school, he has gotten buffer, has grills in his mouth became more tough, became drug dealer too, but most importantly he meets with Kevin again after being disconnected with him for a while. Chiron and Kevin talk and have a find their deep connection from when they were younger, and in the end they both find comfort in each other.
Moonlight portrays the themes of black masculinity and intersectionality and how the system of power is being a black man in a rough communities such as the one Chiron,”Blue”, was raised in can be controlled by a patriarchal society. Chiron is struggling not only his identity as a man, but a man who is finding his sexual identity. His first sexual encounter was with Kevin and it affects him. Getting bullied by the “rigid and aggressive” teen group in Moonlight and that is the opposite of Chiron’s character. In black communities being a gay, black man is considered weak and effeminate. Kevin hides his homosexuality and as he grows up he has a child with his ex-girlfriend. Chiron grows up and chooses the stereotypical black male as he becomes a part of the streets. Going back to when Chiron was younger, Juan tells him “black people are everywhere”. Chiron get the nickname “Blue” to cover up his real identity and that is his shell in order to survive the community he grows up in and he continues to build this shell as he buffs up. Moonlight expresses the message of the hardships of a young man and men just like Chiron struggling to fins his voice and reason of being and how it can be difficult in the black community to show vulnerability
