Masculinity And Identity In Moonlight

The film Moonlight was released October 21, 2016. Moonlight is all African American cast, and was awarded over 25 awards including the Academy Award for best picture. This film is a coming of age story that follows the dramatic ups and downs of the life of Chiron, a young Africa American man growing up in Miami. The plot begins from the time he is in elementary school to the time he reaches adulthood. The plot is structured in three stages of the life of Chiron and touches on the topics of the struggle of dysfunctional households via socialization, sexuality and sexual identity, physical and emotion abuse, and the process of accepting ones self.

This is a criticism of Moonlight, a film directed by Barry Jenkins. It is a coming-of-age story, telling the journey of a young gay black man named Chiron. Through linear character development the film follows a young Chiron from adolescence into adulthood while growing up with alpha males in Miamis black ghettos. The Story is told in three parts, with a different actor playing the lead role in each section: a young Chiron named “Little”, as a teen named “Chiron”, and an adult named “Black”. Despite a compelling lead performance by Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris, and its great soundtrack, Moonlight falls flat and never gets out of the shadow of its typical cliche plot, all the while, the film continued to never overcome the obstacle of

Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight depicts the coming-of-age of a young black boy as he struggles with and endures abuse for his sexuality, causing him to hide his internal conflicts. The life of the protagonist, Chiron, is split into his three main stages of life, with each part focusing on the physical and emotional abuse he endures due to his homosexual orientation. When the viewer first meets Chiron, he is running from bullies. As he ages, the bullying follows him, causing him to harden and avoid vulnerability in his adult life. Jenkins uses climactic scenes in Chiron’s life to portray how prejudice against black sexuality forces him to conceal his true identity. In Moonlight, Jenkins’ cinematic style illustrates Chiron’s public and private

Through the depiction of Chiron and his struggle in the film Moonlight Jenkins shows that the system one lives in and the internal self results in domination against oneself. Chiron the protagonist of the film is considered weak and fragile in comparison to his classmates and the people in his community and thus Chiron is targeted by his peers and even within his own household. In Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks it is argued that the black man plays a part in their own domination by constantly viewing themselves as less than the white men.

The director of this film clearly presents an idea of masculinity and how it especially is pertinent in context to the african american men in the film. Growing up in his early days, Chiron does not have a male or fatherly figure in his life. The director shows that Juan acts as a stand in for Chiron’s father-like figure while protecting him from the threats of bullies and his mother. Juan could represent a positive male presence since he genuinely

The movie surveyed a wide array of the troubles faced by boys and men as they try to navigate the realm of masculinity. A common theme was the command “be a man” and the cultural baggage that comes with living up to that ideal. To “be a man” means to not cry, to not be sensitive, to not let people mess with you, to respond with violence, to be angry, to drink, to womanize.

Lucas presents the reflection of masculinity in the Australian cinemas by drawing example from “The Man from Snowy River (I) “, where she analyzes the conventional masculinity by narrating the development of the male character in the movie characterized as young Jom Criag (Tom Burlinson) who has to inherits knowledge and strengths from his father. During his journey to manhood after his father’s death, he meets another man through whom he learns survival skills, develop friendship, win over his rebel and proclaim heroic status. Lucas promulgates through her analysis that this movie reflects the dominant and hegemonic masculinity by presenting that a masculine figure needs to adapt, be physically strong, and be determinant of his aspirations (Lucas page 140)

Stephen King employs colorful visual imagery, personification, and vulgar, dominating diction to display Jack’s failure to maintain aspects of his masculinity such as expectations to provide a sense of safety and a proper shelter for his family as well as the desire to remain the head of his household during the resurgence of the wasps. King utilizes vivid color and visual imagery to highlight Jack’s deficiency in terms of masculinity. King states, “[Wendy] took a coloring book off [Danny’s] worktable and slammed it down on the wasp. It left a viscous brown smear” (191). The smear left by the wasp is depicted as brown, a very opaque color with a dirty and polluted connotation.

Stephen King uses metaphor, telegraphic sentences, and desperate diction in his novel The Shining when describing Jack’s anxious reaction to the wasps’ reappearance to illustrate how Jack’s inability to maintain stereotypical masculinity threatens his family’s safety, future, and structure. Through metaphor that depicts Jack’s animalistic response to seeing the wasps, King establishes that Jack’s efforts to carry out a traditionally masculine response are counterproductive. When he initially processes the wasps’ return, King captures Jack’s reaction with “‘Shut the fuck up and kill them!’ he roared” (King 191). With the use of the word “roar”, King compares Jack to a provoked tiger. Tigers are ferocious creatures that do not help with caring for and protecting their families, and the metaphor reflects this fact; despite his controlling facade, Jack is nervous when the wasps reappear, and he can only yell for his wife to protect the family.

To read Babio without recognizing the gender politics at work in the play would disregard much of how the play itself creates meaning. So much of the play’s plot and character dynamics are related to the way gender functions in this play. One major theme of Babio is the idea of masculinity and how masculinity is defined. Through the portrayal of Babio as an effeminate character, Babio is able to define masculinity through absences in Babio’s Character. Consequently, Babio makes the additional point that lovesickness is not an intrinsic aspect of medieval masculinity, despite the fact that love sickness is often attributed to men.

Imagine if you go outside your front door and you look left. There are two people dealing cocaine. You look right and there is someone being robbed with a gun. The movie Moonlight tells a story about a kid named Chiron who was different from everyone else, because he is different he got picked on and got taken advantage by everyone else including his mother, Paula. When Chiron had an opportunity to start all over he pretended to be someone he wasn’t so he could survive and be respected by others. The film shows Chiron in the parts of his life, when he was a kid the others called him Little, throughout his teenage years he was called Chiron, and as an adult he was Black. The movie took place in Miami, Florida in the “hood” around the 1980’s

Identity is transitional. Not one identity is held constant throughout one’s life. Thus, the intersectionality of one’s identity conveys how complicated humans are. This complex nature of humans is brought to life in the movie Moonlight. Directed by Barry Jenkins, this coming of age film explores the many facets of identity in the main character, Chiron. Chiron is not the only fully thought character; every named character parallels people of all walks of life. Through the intricacies of the characters, stereotypes are presented and shattered. But, the film’s central point is not to counter stereotypes. Moonlight tells a story of reality where stereotypes are rooted in truth. Consequently, Moonlight plays into a majority of stereotypes of class, race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight is a masterful queer coming-of-age story told in three parts - Two years after Richard Linklater’s masterpiece Boyhood composed a unique passage of time portraying realistic preciousness of a young man on the journey to manhood, Jenkins continues the coming-of-age instrument further from Linklater. Diving into the brutal conditions of Miami streets, Moonlight shatters the dated template of masculinity with a potent story of closeted homosexuality among black men. The film rises above the wrongful stereotypes associated with sexual orientation and urban environments.

The novel Things Fall Apart took place in the Igbo Society-the part of the world that has very strict views on gender roles, but not just gender roles. It is likely that every individual in the Igbo society viewed or defined masculinity differently. To some, masculinity was expressed through anger and violence; to others, masculinity was expressed through a man’s responsibility. These different views on masculinity can create conflicts and can therefore impact individual's life. In the novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo and Obierika different interpretations of masculinity led them to a different life and such intention was successfully introduced through Achebe’s uses of foil characters.

Moonlight is an American drama film that chronicles the life of African-American male Chiron, who is being raised by a careless mother in a harsh Miami neighbourhood. Its most prominent themes are love, stereotypes and identity. The filmmakers create meaning from these through combining different elements of aesthetics (the style or look of a motion picture). Aesthetic effect refers to the practise of using different elements of a film (mise-en-scene, sound, cinematography and editing) to generate film form.