Moonlight: In The Ghetto and Gay

Scrambling to define your sexual orientation can be terrifying at the best of times. Being a withdrawn, African-American boy growing up in a 1980’s Miami “hood,” doesn’t exactly help.

Set in a ghetto of poverty, gang violence, and a pervasive drug culture, director Barry Jenkins could have saturated this indie flick with proverbial scenes of violence, sleaze and machismo blah. But he doesn’t.

Instead we’re treated to a tender, meditative and compassionate coming-of-age LGBT story, portrayed through the harrowing life of young Chiron as he navigates a fatherless childhood, turbulent adolescence and burgeoning manhood.

His emerging sense of self and sexuality as a young man of color, are delicately interwoven into the harsh and caustic “hood” culture he is born into. In an almost survival-of-the-fittest environment where weakness of any kind are suppressed and disdained, he somehow survives through blood, tears and loss to emerge as a singularly sensitive and self-aware adult.

The Lotus

Chiron’s story reminds me of the journey of the Lotus . .

From the depths of a muddy, murky pool, the Lotus slowly ascends to the surface, erupting from the water as a beautiful blossom. During the night the lotus closes and submerges (like an inner cleansing), only to reemerge with the sunlight of a new day (a renewal).

The lotus seeds, consciously “know” what they are destined to become — elegant blossoms symbolizing beauty, awareness and enlightenment.

Its flexible stem symbolizes resilience. Its continual reemergence symbolizes never giving up, never quitting no matter how much others stereotype or try to silence us.

It’s Chiron’s oppressors who are cowardly and spineless — not him.

According to legend, the muddier and more opaque the water, the more radiant the Lotus flower when it emerges.

No Agenda

This tender flick has a refined sensibility that belies its machismo undertones. It does not burden the viewer with a turgid, partisan agenda.

To my mind, it is a very deftly woven tapestry of contemporary African-American culture, fraught as every lifestyle is with the pain, passion, ecstasies and pitfalls of growing up in a world that may love or hate you. Receive or reject you for who you are.

You can stream it on Netflix.com.

Enjoy!

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