At the center of Berry Jenkins' film Moonlight stirs a volatile fusion of masculine aggression, low-class struggles, and homophobia. Perpetually looming over Chiron’s narrative arc and the social realities that the film explores is its poetic title, “moonlight.” The title of films often indicates where we might be able to derive meaning from their visuals or narrative themes. Moonlight is no exception; it is a hermeneutic compass that, with its multifarious romantic and sexually charged associations, guides us through the film’s intricate deconstruction of masculinity. The most radical subversive gestures that the film makes occur when Chiron is away from his impoverished neighborhood and is seeking solace under the ocean sky. 

 

The steadfast conceptions of masculinity and heteronormative sexuality that oppress Chiron loosen in the first chapter of the film when drug-dealer Juan, who at this point acts as Chiron’s only Father figure, recounts to Chiron how he was once told by an older white woman that all black boys look blue in the moonlight. Juan confides in Chiron through affirming to him that he is neither black nor blue; he ought to declare his own individuality and be his own man. While the white woman in Juan’s story may have commandeered the subdued glow of the moon as another means of disparaging black men, to young Chiron it becomes associated with Juan’s compassion and guidance. The rest of the scene has Juan and Chiron’s bodies move with a gentle but determined force against the waves of the ocean. Juan eventually picks up Chiron and, through comforting and calming him, teaches him how to float and swim. 

 

The semi-submerged camera angle allows us to better contrast the turbulent condition of the waves with the peace and serenity shared by Juan and Chiron. The waves may be unstable, but the ocean’s infinite depth and scope provide Juan and Chiron a sense of adventure and freedom that is denied to them in everyday life. This environmental aesthetics collapses rather than reinforces classic distinctions between self and world, body and mind. This collapse of distinctions is made more explicit later on in the film when Chiron tells his friend Kevin that when he cries his tears accumulate to such a degree that he feels he might transform into a large, single teardrop that will merge with the ocean. 

 

In our second seaside encounter, the film pits images of the ocean waves slowly climbing up the beach alongside the facial expressions and bodily gestures of Chiron as Kevin sexually pleasures him. A connection is made between the natural phenomenon of rising tides and sexual tension, specifically the act of a man’s hand slowly easing up another man’s leg. This combination of primal ferocity and loving compassion is found earlier in Juan, too. His rugged, masculine physique is intermixed with his tender care toward Chiron as he holds him in the ocean. The moonlight and ocean are presented as symbols of freedom, a space where the typical codes for masculinity and femininity are transgressed. 

 

In this way the film preserves Romantic idealism through presenting nature and darkness as an outlet from mundane cares. At night, the individual turns to the self and heaven, and liberates their soul. There is no reason at night; instead, we look at the moon and embrace madness (hence the connection between the Latin luna and lunatic). The moonlight represents the lucent transparency of clear thinking and open sexuality. With its insistence on normalcy, argues the philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault, society remains only "straight" and therefore hostile to alternative forces of life.

 

The moon last appears when Chiron is anxiously following Kevin to his apartment. The most resonant aspects of the scene are the long pauses that are interspersed throughout the calm conversation between Chiron and Kevin. We must be careful not to regard the pregnant pauses in the conversation as an absence of language; such pauses induce what William Wordsworth calls awkwardness, that is, intense emotion imperfectly expressed. The silence is not cold or lifeless; rather, it indicates the heat of their attachment. The scene is exceptionally tense because the pauses highlight the gap between what can be felt and what can be spoken. It is clear that throughout Chiron’s life he would have risked great humiliation and possible physical harm if he expressed his interest in men. We also sense that it is not only sexual gratification that Chiron seeks in his life; it is a feeling of intimacy and a refuge from the world that has so terribly isolated him. The final image of Kevin embracing Chiron in his arms is a powerful one because it incites our universal desire for shared space and warmth. We further identify with a queer black man from a poor background. 

 

The film’s title begs an affinity with Allen Ginsberg’s 1955 poem "Howl," which also deals directly with homosexuality and masculinity, albeit in a more politically charged manner, and from the perspective of a white man. Despite their contrasts in style and the differing historically determined social realities they confront, both allude to nature and primal gestures as metaphors of freedom. While “Howl” presented poetry as a thunderous recourse to social oppression, Jenkins' Moonlight, not unlike Chiron’s moonlight, throws us into celestial reverie and conjures a bond between existentially isolated individuals. The reflective light of the film screen casts a soft glow that does not wholly enlighten but rather solicits sympathetic imagination. Moonlight wonderfully raises our perceptual awareness to the real psychological violence that is inflicted on marginalized groups who are underrepresented on the big screen. It is this characteristic that defines socially engaged cinema.