Moonlight — A Powerful Lesson in Identity and Vulnerability

Moonlight. You may know it as the film that beat La La Land in controversial fashion two years ago. But as much as I love the latter, Moonlight deserves a tremendous amount of praise for its portrayal of a life that is not often shown in Hollywood.

The life in particular is that of a gay, black boy growing up in the rough neighbourhood of Miami, California. He deals with homophobic bullying, a drug-addicted mother, poverty and many other issues that have hardened him into the man we see later in his life. His story is divided in three chapters; his childhood, his adolescence and as a young adult. Each of the chapters are titled by a name he is given by others (‘Little’, by his bullies/’Chiron’, by his mother/’Black’, by his love interest).

In my eyes, Moonlight is nothing short of a masterpiece, for the reason that it completely absorbs you…even when it is saying little.

For a film of few words, Moonlight has an incredibly strong voice, Moonlight talks about sexuality and race. But Moonlight is not merely about a film about minority representation. It is, above all else, a film about coming of age and identity. This, everyone can relate to.

People Call Me Little

We often tend to see identity as a name, a label that we stick on other people. A…