{"id":1518,"date":"2017-02-05T19:28:28","date_gmt":"2017-02-05T23:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/pitstopforthespirituallybamboozled\/?p=1518"},"modified":"2017-02-28T15:33:47","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T19:33:47","slug":"moonlight-ghetto-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pitstopforthespirituallybamboozled\/2017\/02\/moonlight-ghetto-gay.html","title":{"rendered":"Moonlight: In The Ghetto and Gay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe><\/p>\nScrambling to define your sexual orientation can be terrifying at the best of times. Being a withdrawn, African-American boy growing up in a 1980\u2019s Miami \u201chood,\u201d doesn\u2019t exactly help.<\/em><\/p>\nSet 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\u2019t.<\/p>\nInstead we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\nHis emerging sense of self and sexuality as a young man of color, are delicately interwoven into the harsh and caustic \u201chood\u201d 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.<\/p>\nThe Lotus<\/strong><\/p>\nChiron\u2019s story reminds me of the journey of the Lotus . .<\/p>\nFrom 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).<\/p>\nThe lotus seeds, consciously \u201cknow\u201d what they are destined to <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1521\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/675\/2017\/02\/7acmusyrzpu-jay-castor-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"7acmusyrzpu-jay-castor\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\">become \u2014 elegant blossoms symbolizing beauty, awareness and enlightenment.<\/p>\nIts flexible stem symbolizes resilience. Its continual reemergence symbolizes never giving up, never quitting no matter how much others stereotype or try to silence us.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s Chiron\u2019s oppressors who are cowardly and spineless \u2014 not him.<\/p>\nAccording to legend, the muddier and more opaque the water, the more radiant the Lotus flower when it emerges.<\/p>\nNo Agenda<\/strong><\/p>\nThis tender flick has a refined sensibility that belies its machismo undertones. It does not burden the viewer with a turgid, partisan agenda.<\/p>\nTo 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.<\/p>\nYou can <a href=\"https:\/\/dvd.netflix.com\/Movie\/Moonlight\/80121348#movieDetails\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">stream it on Netflix.com<\/a>.<\/p>\nEnjoy!<\/p>\nImage Insert: <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/search\/lotus\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Unsplash.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finding dignity and beauty in darkness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2586,"featured_media":1521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[173,171,170,172],"class_list":["post-1518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barry-jenkins","tag-lotus","tag-moonlight","tag-netflix"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Moonlight: In The Ghetto and Gay<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Finding dignity and beauty in darkness\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pitstopforthespirituallybamboozled\/2017\/02\/moonlight-ghetto-gay.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moonlight: In The Ghetto and Gay\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Finding dignity and beauty in darkness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pitstopforthespirituallybamboozled\/2017\/02\/moonlight-ghetto-gay.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pit Stop for the Spiritually Bamboozled\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-05T23:28:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-02-28T19:33:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/675\/2017\/02\/7acmusyrzpu-jay-castor.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2592\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1728\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gerard A. 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