The Life of a Queer Black Man

The Life of a Queer Black Man

Barry Jenkin’s 2016 film Moonlight is an essential representation of masculinity and forgiveness as they link up with boyhood. I this essay, I draw on the article “Masculinity and Moonlight: Eight black men dissect Barry Jenkin’s momentous film” to show the importance of the film. I also use the concepts of homophobia and shame to improve my analysis of the film. I begin the essay by offering a summary of the film, and then go ahead to illustrate how the article and the concepts help solve the complexity of the film

All through this film, Chiron is under constant pressure to act in ways that are traditionally perceived to be masculine. The film moonlight expounds on the idea of performance and how that performance is used as a form of survival. Moonlight is a visual representation that pushes us to take into consideration the day-to-day battles that the main character Chiron negotiates and navigates throughout his life. Moonlight exposes the contaminating and corrupting pathway of masculinity-the toxicities that come along with it, its ceaseless banality as well as its brutalities. This film is not about a love story. Instead, it is a representation of fearless, almost crushed adolescence, robbed innocence, and a fruitless adult life. In a cruel world that would have sent a character like Chiron to oblivion, he grows into a man that insists on creating a meaningful life for himself.

The concept of homophobia pushes Chiron to act in ways that are conservatively presumed to be more masculine. There are performance characteristics for every living in society. This ranges from residing in the inner city to ascending the ladder in a corporate way of life. We all create a vivid picture of how little or how much we achieve all through our lives. In my opinion, the best part about the film is that it illuminated or magnified the chaotic journey of being gay in a black neighborhood in America. A place where the perception that people have towards your sexuality could have a significant impact on your life. The society has created a picture or an image of how a male and female child should look and act. Any other thing that is contrary to the societal expectations attracts hate or sharp criticism. This pressure from Chiron’s peers, as well as adults, forces him to act in ways that would prove that he is not soft. The need to showcase one’s masculinity does not apply only to Chiron. Instead, it is a crucial factor or issue that is applicable to virtually all the men in Moonlight. This includes Kevin, who, unlike Chiron, seems to be self-assured in his masculinity. Nonetheless, it is interesting that the film brings about two completely different performances. The first performance is Chiron, who finds it extremely difficult to cope in his environment. On the other hand, there is Kevin, who sails through those waters with ease. In the article, David Lewis says that when he watched the movie, he realized that a very small number of black men are given the freedom to opt-out of showing some sort of pose or characteristics. He goes further to say that very few black people are able to sustain and fight back the violence that they go through within the community, the assaults that come from the outside world as well, the daily racist encounters the homophobia, and most importantly, in this case, hyper-masculine suppositions.

Like many other gay people around the world, the concept of shame forces Kevin to fake his masculinity. They are afraid of opening up about their sexuality. The homophobia faced by people who tend to show traditionally unacceptable behavior makes the majority of those people ashamed of their sexuality. These homophobic attacks are brought about depending on somebody’s body features or actions. To avoid the shame that comes with being labeled as gay, most people adopt a fake masculine character that acts as a mask to their true sexual identity. In most scenes of the film, masculinity is a robust, unsloping scale. It is aggressive, hard, and emotionally ambivalent is the only approved form of behavior among the black kids of Chiron’s age. Chiron’s friend Kevin is the only exception to that notion because, in the film, there are scenes that show the two giving an outlet on how to deals with the confusion that comes with intense and unusual emotions. Kevin tends to present himself as a conservatively masculine in his use of language when referring to women. Maybe he does this as a way of hiding his sexuality in a bid to avoid being called out the same Chiron is. Also, through the film, Chiron is encouraged to take into consideration who he is, as well as who he would prefer to be known as. This is because his sexuality made his peers give him nicknames like Black and Little. However, Juan takes Chiron into his care and encourages him to make the decision on who he would like to be referred to and own his personality rather than being who people wanted him to be. Whereas other characters in the film know their identity from a tender age, Chiron has a reaction to how people view him. In the article, Matthew Progress says that he has never seen a film of that nature capture a love affair between black men in such a comprehensive way. Affection, warmth, tenderness, and, most fundamentally, vulnerability became the central concept in the film. He goes on to say that what really made an impact on him was how the director of the film was able to give priority to the characters of Kevin, Juan, and Chiron, yet so sensibly show their participation and cooperation in an environment that completely worships masculinity. These remarks by Matthews reveal how the typical American society has been programmed to view black gay men. The intimacy, affection, tenderness, and vulnerability shown in the film is something the community finds bizarre, and it was eye-opening to watch the actions in the film. These perceptions that society has created make gay people ashamed of themselves; therefore, they find it difficult to reveal their true identity.

The concepts of shame and homophobia reflect the theme of forgiveness in the film. The fact that Chiron did not conduct himself with the masculinity that the society required of him as a boy, he faced bullying and resentment from his peers and, more surprisingly, from his mother. It is expected that a mother should be the only parent that understands their child’s sexuality and help them know it. However, in Chiron’s case, his mother, Paula, shows resentment towards him because of his feminine traits. In the last scenes of the film, Chiron, commonly referred to as Black, reappears with a completely new personality than what everybody was used to. He has undergone a complete makeover and is not the weak and girlish person that was being bullied and nicknamed. Since the last time he was shown in the movies, he has served a prison sentence, he has become more muscular and is even involved in rapping. These final scenes of the film heavily direct the focus on forgiveness, identity, and redemption, unlike all the other scenes in the movie. This is basically shown in the scene where Chiron reconnects with his mother. In a variety of ways, Paula and Chiron’s roles have been completely reversed. Chiron has now dived into drug dealing, whereas Paula has quit her drug abuse addiction, probably marking the dissolution of the antagonist in the film. There is a reversal in roles whereby Chiron takes care of his mother, acting more as her a parent than her child. These scenes can definitely function as the gateway to the process of redemption and forgiveness between Paula and Chiron. The fact that Chiron can still treat Paula with kindness, considering how she resented him as a child, is a sign that he still cares for his mother and has probably forgiven her.

In conclusion, Barry Jenkins has come up with a fantastic film that has sparked the discussion on how sexuality is interconnected with societal expectations of masculinity. David Lewis, in the article, goes on to appreciate the eye-opening nature of the film by saying that he hands down appreciates this film. He goes further to say that it was the first attempt to highlight the life of a peculiar black man.