Lonnie Jones

Cuddy
2 February 2019
English 102

Moonlight
Moonlight​ is a 2016 Academy Award-winning film directed by Barry Jenkins. It portrays

the hard life of a young black boy growing up gay with a mother who is addicted to drugs.

Throughout this movie the main character, Chiron, faces many challenges that change him as a

person (develops his character) and he ends up changing from a quiet skinny black boy who lets

people step all over him into a hardcore gangster who makes all his money from “trapping” or

selling drugs in the future. These challenges that he faced in this movie resembled cultural

anxieties that we as a society face and in today’s world. Barry Jenkins perfectly portrayed how

cultural anxieties like sexuality, betrayal, bullying and drug addiction can affect a person’s life

and eventually completely change who they are as an individual. At first glance you may just

think this movie is about the hard life of a black man growing up gay in a rough neighborhood,

but as you look deeper into the plot and realize what really put him on what most people would

consider the “wrong path” in life, you will realize that this movie is truly about how great your

treatment of a person can change or affect them.

One of the first cultural anxieties that Barry Jenkins touched upon in this film were

sexuality and bullying. Chiron’s sexuality was proven to be a problem for him the entire movie.
Because of the fact that Chiron was gay, he got mistreated and bullied for it for a large portion of

the movie. Even at the very start of the movie when Chiron was just a little boy other little boys

would chase him around, throw things at him, beat him up and yell homophobic slurs at him

(1:48:32- 1:46:42). Because of this mistreatment, he grew up as an introvert, he was quiet and

had only one friend. His only friend was a boy named Kevin, (Also known as Kev). Kev looked

out for Chiron & tried to help ever since they were little kids & they stayed close at the start of

high school. Chiron’s sexuality was still a proven problem in high school because the bullying

continued with new characters like Terrell (1:03:55-1:02:44). Chiron’s sexuality was definitely

an internal conflict for him the entire movie, however, the treatment he received for it became

one of his main external conflicts in the early and teenage stages of his life. At one point in the

film, Chiron & Kev are on the beach talking to one another (1:01:11- 56:42) and at one point

Chiron reveals to Kev that there are a lot of things that he wants to do that “doesn’t make sense”,

hinting at the fact that he is gay (he goes on to kiss him as the scene goes on). So this statement

alone reveals to the audience that Chiron’s sexuality is a constant mental battle for him because

he has these urges and feelings that he believes don’t make sense because the society around him

treats him as if it’s unacceptable. Society treated him horribly through bullying because of his

sexuality. This bullying eventually caused Chiron to snap and attack Terrell with a chair after

another bullying incident. This led to Chiron being sent to Juvenile detention and moving to
Atlanta and becoming a gangster when he got out. With the combination of his internal battle

with his sexuality, his external battle with bullying, and no clear coping mechanism, he was

bound to snap at one point.

The other two cultural anxieties that Moonlight portrays is betrayal and drug addiction.

Throughout the film, two people seem to betray Chiron, his best friend Kev and his own Mother.

At one point in the film, the Terrell forced Kev to help him jump Chiron (49:59- 48:54). This

was the bullying incident that drove Chiron to beat Terrell with a chair. You could tell that Kev

didn’t want to do it because he genuinely liked Chiron but peer pressure, the want to fit in or

belong and the fear of what Terrell would do to him if he didn’t help, all led up to him betraying

Chiron and jumping him. The fact that Terrell made his only friend turn on him only hurt Chiron

more and is what I believe to be what broke him. Chiron’s mother betrayed him through her drug

addiction. As a boy, she was a horrible mother to him because she was always strung out on

drugs. There would be random men in the house and she would often act out on him when she

was high. At one point in the film, she actually stole all the money from out of his pockets and

backpack to go buy more drugs (1:06:55-1:04:43). Because of her drug addiction, she was a

horrible mother, and as her son, he wasn’t able to trust, rely on or confide in her for anything and

that in itself is a form of betrayal. All kids should be able to have a good parent or guardian that

treats them right but she just didn’t. However, later on in the movie both of these characters are
reintroduced in Chiron’s adult life. Due to her actions, while raising him, Chiron & his mother

don’t really have a good relationship in his adult life. He still takes time out of some days to visit

her and talk to her but the respect and love don’t seem to be there. In one scene in the movie, he

visits his mother and she is extremely apologetic about how she raised him and it is clear that she

is a changed woman and knows she messed up (34:18- 29:32). In this conversation, she reveals

that she loves him and understands if he doesn’t love her back because she didn’t love him when

he needed her the most but because of the love she has for him she doesn’t want him to go down

the “wrong path” as she did. And in another scene from Chiron’s adulthood, Kevin calls him and

is apologetic about how things went down between them and they began to catch up a little bit

(39:19- 36:04). This conversation led to Chiron driving to Miami to visit Kev at his restaurant,

where they truly caught up and talked (27:10- 4:40). Kevin seemed genuinely concerned about

where Chiron was in life and was finally acting like a friend again. These scenes proved that no

matter what the cause of the betrayal, it can really damage both sides. Both Chiron’s mother and

Kev have been riddled with guilt ever since they betrayed Chiron and Chiron will never be the

same because of it. Kevin’s betrayal led Chiron to snap, become a juvenile delinquent and start a

life of crime and Chiron’s mother’s betrayal led to him not having anyone to turn to and turning

his pain into something unhealthy just like she did.

 No matter what context you watch this film in the underlying topic is definitely what is

known as the “Golden Rule”, you treat people how you want to be treated. If society would have

been more open to homosexuality maybe Chiron wouldn’t have had that internal battle of

thinking his urges and feelings were wrong or senseless. Or if Chiron wasn’t bullied in school he

wouldn’t have snapped and gotten arrested and maybe his whole life story would’ve been better.

Or if Chiron’s mother acted as the mother figure she should’ve been, he would have someone in

his own home to go to in his times of need. Or if Kevin acted as a real friend and stood up for

Chiron instead of jumping him maybe Chiron wouldn’t have felt so alone and isolated before

committing the crime that started his life of crime. But at the end of the day all of these are

hypotheticals, what happened, happened and we can’t change that. It’s the same thing in life.

You can’t change your actions after you do them and you never know how much your actions

can affect another person’s life. So if the audience takes anything from the movie Moonlight it

should be to be conscious of how you treat your peers.

MLA Bibliography:

● Moonlight. ​Directed by Barry Jenkins, A24 productions, 2016. ​Kanopy.