In The Moonlight B Boys Look Blue
Watching moonlight has oddly felt like home to me. I remember the first time I watched it–crying on the floor of my bedroom, not only because of the beautiful story, but how the environment felt plucked right from scenes of my childhood. Watching Chiron, the film’s protagonist, run through fields after school searching for safety as he is chased by bullies –finding it in adults around him only to be disappointed by their contradictions, then building guarded walls around himself after an adolescence of heartache–felt achingly familiar. I’ve known countless Chiron’s. I’ve seen countless moments when gentleness and wonder were traded for a tough exterior, borrowed from expectations placed on us.
In Moonlight, we see the meek and mild Chiron of Act II, transformed by love and betrayal become the rigid drug dealer we find in Act III. The resolving events of Act II, that cause Chiron to be sent to juvenile facility, lead him on the path towards becoming a heavily guarded man–one who embodies everything he once despised in the people he loved.
The film develops this guard alongside the use of music. Unlike the two previous acts, hiphop becomes a supporting character in Act III. Beginning with the song “Cell Therapy” by Goodie Mob, whose lyrics voice the perspective of those oppressed by the state and paranoid of its surveillance mechanisms, lines like “Who’s that peeking through my window, Pow, nobody now” reveal the nature of the persona Chiron has now taken: Black. This name stems from a nickname given by his past friend and teenage lover, Kevin. Lyrics of the song co-construct Black: not only is he guarded against being seen, he also fears what others might discover if they look too closely.. In the act’s opening conversations, we watch Black joke around with another man connected to his work as a drug dealer. As they talk about women and sex, the song plays softly on Black’s car radio. Though the film does not present him having romantic or sexual relationships with women, Black carries the conversation seamlessly, mindful of the “watching eye” he has created for himself. Later, he speaks about rebuilding himself after the tragedies of his youth: a version of himself far removed from the sources of connection and pain. He rebuilds a version of himself much like the gold fronts he wears a shiny almost plastic shell covering his truth.
Black is best understood as a hollow reproduction of Juan, a father figure of his childhood who offered him shelter within the rough environment he simultaneously had a hand in creating. From the career to the car to the look, Black models his masculinity on Juan, forgetting to find his own. Rather than understanding what it means to be a man, Black defines manhood through replication and cover.
This construction of masculinity is clearest in how Black uses music.. As mentioned earlier, “Cell Therapy,” reveals Black’s masculinity guarded by heavy surveillance. Later, a chopped-and-screwed version of Jidenna’s “Classic Man” plays as Black drives to the restaurant where Kevin works, whom he then drives from Atlanta to Miami. The lyrics–“I’m a classic man, you can be mean when you look this clean, I’m a classic man”-- as a tool for Black to assert a superficial performance of masculinity, rooted in refraining from emotional connection and pursuing external validation.
The song’s “chopped and screwed” style–a Houston technique of remixing hip hop music through slowing down portions, repeating them, skipping, and stopping–further explains the nature of Black’s masculinity. This practice rejects a smooth flow, with the bumps along the road leaving space for an open mind, patience, and unpredictability. Even as Black has used hip hop to rebuild a hard and hollow version of himself, the genre offers avenues where his present may be informed by the softness and vulnerability created by experiences of his youth.
Black forever carries Chiron with him, in the beautiful weaknesses he reveals when the sun goes down. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve known many Chirons. I do not consider that a bad thing. I see Black as a function of all the pain and the conditions that caused Chiron to transform to Black. Black comes as a result of society’s failure to care for and protect what is gentle and mistaking softness for fragility. Black points out the isolation that comes from disconnection with yourself, reminding us that adulthood is merely building the cradle your inner child needed.