The Legacy of Juan; Moonlight’s Unsung Hero
Juan, brought to life by actor Mahershala Ali, leaves a lasting impression throughout the film.
With beautiful cinematography and powerful acting, it’s no surprise that the movie Moonlight won Best Picture at the Oscars.
The ensemble performance of three actors in three separate acts: Little, Chiron, and Black, showcases the painful struggle of identity and homosexuality of one young black boy growing up in Miami, Florida (side note: I’ll mostly be addressing Chiron by his actual name instead of by his two nicknames; Little and Black).
Chiron is the focal point of the story, but there is another character who stood out to me more than anyone else in the film: Juan.
Juan’s character is only in the first act of the film.
Juan finds a young Chiron hiding from the other young boys in the neighborhood after they chase him down for being “different”, for appearing weak; for being gay.
Whether or not Chiron could comprehend if he may have been gay at the time, the other boys target him. Even Chiron’s own mother, Paula, notices the peculiar way he carries himself. She tells Juan, “You ever seen the way he walks, Juan? You gon’ tell him why the other boys kick his ass all the time?”
But this does not cease Juan from taking little Chiron under his wing, helping the young boy find himself and gain confidence in who he was.
While Juan’s appearance in the film is very short-lived compared to the rest of the characters, the impact Juan has on Chiron is profound.
Here are the reasons why:
Chiron’s Baptism in the Miami Ocean
Juan’s biggest impact on Chiron was when he was, well, “Little”. Juan takes Chiron to one of their local Miami beaches and holds him in the water. Teaching him how to swim and how to trust. Chiron was accepted by Juan, completely and effortlessly, as the divine ocean embraced them.
After that moment on the beach, Chiron would oftentimes show up at Juan’s front door seeking refuge from his neglectful home life and drug-addicted mother, Paula.
The Crucifixion of Juan
The last scene we see of Juan is when a young Chiron asks Juan if he is a drug dealer, to which Juan responds with a painful and honest:
“….yes”.
Juan’s heart-breaking guilt for being the reason why Chiron’s mother continued down her never-ending rabbit hole of addiction brings Juan to tears.
This was the last time we see Juan alive.
Throughout the rest of the film, it is only explained through dialogue that Juan has died. The audience is left to assume that Juan has been crucified by the inevitable, doomed life of any long time drug-dealer. Either way, Juan had gone much too soon in Chiron’s story.
Whether or not it was intentional from the writers or the director of the film, they never stated exactly how Juan had passed. He is simply…gone. But as I watched the film, it was clear to me that Juan never left.
His presence stayed throughout the film. Chiron continues to carry Juan with him until the very end.
Blue is the Warmest Color
After their communion on the Miami ocean, Juan tells young Chiron of a story from when he was a young boy living in Cuba. Juan says:
“I was a wild lil’ shorty, man, just like you. Running around with no shoes on when the moon was out. This one time, I run by this old lady. I was runnin’, hollerin’, cuttin’ a fool, boy. This old lady, she stopped me. She said ‘runnin’ around catchin’ up all the light, in moonlight, black boys look blue. That’s what I’m gon’ call you. Blue.”
When Chiron asks Juan if “Blue” was his name, Juan said:
“ No.”
Juan follows this up by stating:
“At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you gon’ be. Can’t nobody make that decision for you.”
While Juan did not identify with being called “Blue”, the color blue is seen frequently throughout the movie. Blue represents what Juan represents; freedom, self-acceptance, and the heart of Miami.
Juan’s car was an icy blue. The blue of the ocean. The cool, florescent blue hues are consistent everywhere in the film.
When Chiron meets back up with Kevin (his childhood friend and lover) in the last act of the film, what color shirt does Kevin wear?
That’s right, it’s blue.
The Sublime Word of Juan
Juan makes it known that he did not accept his nickname of “Blue” as his own, even if that was how the older woman from Cuba had viewed him. Just because someone else saw Juan as one way, under one particular light, it did not mean Juan identified with the way others perceived him.
This was paramount to Chiron’s growth.
*(side note: explicit language below)
When the tougher neighborhood kids would call young Chiron “gay” and a “faggot”, Chiron wasn’t yet aware that he did not have to accept those derogatory nicknames or personas. It was up to only Chiron himself to decide who he was going to be.
A younger Chiron asks Juan what a “faggot” is, to which Juan responds:
“A faggot is a word used to make gay people feel bad.”
“Am I a faggot?”, asks Chiron.
“No.”, says Juan. “You can be gay, but you ain’t gotta let nobody call you no faggot.”
Chiron receives the chance from Juan to know that he has a choice.
The film is broken up into three parts: Little, Chiron, and Black. “Little” was a nickname given to a young Chiron by his peers. In the second part of the film, after meeting Juan, a teenaged Chiron no longer wants to be called “Little”. Chiron was originally called “Little” because he was smaller than the other boys, was very quiet, and appeared powerless.
Similar to when Juan had rejected his nickname of “Blue”, Chiron made the decision to fully embrace and identify with his actual name.
The only friend Chiron had growing up was his childhood friend and first love, Kevin.
Kevin gives Chiron the nickname “Black” (side note: the color nickname is very similar to Juan’s old nickname of “Blue”). Although Chiron is leery of the fact that another boy gave him a nickname, to avoid any implications of his sexuality, Chiron never did stop Kevin from calling him “Black”. This implies to the audience that Chiron chooses to accept his nickname “Black”.
Juan’s saint-like words of wisdom continue to give Chiron assurance even after he was long gone.
The Resurrection of Juan
Kevin was Chiron’s first and only sexual experience with a boy. Kevin made Chiron feel loved and trusted; like how Juan had always treated Chiron from the moment he found the vulnerable little boy hiding away from the world. There is a sense of safety and security from both Juan and Kevin, and each time, those beautiful moments were shared beside the waters of the Miami beach.
In the third and final act of the movie, Chiron is grown and out of jail. He was living in Atlanta, Georgia near his mother, who is now sober and living in a halfway home. Chiron embodies Juan for the first time in an ominous way; he is now a drug dealer, running the streets with authority and smarts just as Juan once had.
Chiron drives a similar slicked out car, but in the color of black, like his nickname. There is a crown on Chiron’s dashboard, just like Juan’s car had.
Chiron’s car has the license plate: BLACK305, Chiron’s nickname with the Miami area code. Juan’s license plate exhibited the same message.
Adult Chiron tells us that he did what he had to do to survive in jail. He had to rebuild himself from the ground up, but in the back of his mind, he knew there was more to life than how he was living. He saw it in Juan.
Juan was a drug dealer, but he wasn’t your typical “thug” hustling in their Miami streets. Juan was the only person to ever “see” Chiron as a young boy, to give him a chance, to take the time to show him a life worth living.
We don’t get too much backstory on Juan or how he came to be the way he was, but we do notice that Juan was a loving, caring, and wise man despite his chosen profession. Juan is street-smart and hard when he needs to be, but he also has the heart and courage to venture outside of a cultural norm.
When Kevin reappears in Chiron’s life towards the end of the film, it symbolizes that Kevin is in a place now where he has broken free from the hard lifestyle:
“Now I got lil’ Kev, got this job, another 18 months probation. It’s a life, you know? I ain’t never had that before. Like, I’m tired as hell right now, man, and I ain’t making no more than shoe money, but I ain’t got no worries man. Not them kind what I had before. That’s the real shit.”
Kevin’s newly christened perspective affirms to Chiron that there is more to life than the troubled, poverty-stricken world where they grew up. When Kevin calls up Chiron out of the blue (no pun intended) to invite him back down to Miami to reconnect, we can assume that Kevin is no longer ignoring his feelings about Chiron.
He does not feel ashamed anymore. While he may not be living an openly gay lifestyle, he does not deny what he wants or who he wants to be, just like Juan’s testimony.
The movie ends with Black in Kevin’s arms, being free, accepted, and loved in their private moment together.
Final Thoughts
The film is vague about the full details of Juan’s character, so it gave me plenty of room to read between the lines.
It made me wonder if Juan held a fancy of another life in his heart, but was unable to carry it out to fruition. For whatever reason, Juan stuck to his hard lifestyle to survive.
But if it wasn’t for Juan seeing something familiar, special, in young Chiron, if he hadn’t shown the quiet little boy that someone can accept him unconditionally, Chiron’s future would have been trapped in despair.
It is because of Juan that Chiron chose to go back home to Miami, to be brave enough to choose love and to fight back. Because of Juan, Chiron has hope.
Moonlight is a deeply emotional and powerful movie. I believe much of this has to do with the significance of Juan’s role in Chiron’s story.
Juan may not have had the chance to live a life without worries as Kevin was able to discover, but I’d like to think that Chiron can now live freely and stay afloat for the remainder of his life because of Juan’s lasting legacy.
Amen to that.
