The
film Moonlight is about a black boy
named Chiron. The movie shows Chiron growing up, from a child to teen to adult,
and dealing with the struggles of his home life and sexuality. The novel Amazing Grace, by Jonathan Kozol, and
the film Midnight are similar in
topics and relate to one another. Amazing
Grace includes stories of the struggles black children and their families
face every day. In Amazing
Grace, there are many people, moms included, who struggle with drug
problems; 1000 of them are registered for the needle exchange (Kozol 65). There
was even a child, Sara, who “had so much cocaine in her when she was born it
could have killed a baby.” (73). In Moonlight,
Chiron, the main character, ran away and hated his mother for the majority
of his life because of her drug problem and what it did to her. It led to her
calling him names, taking his money, and forcing him out of the house.
Moonlight
is unique in its story; homosexuality is hardly ever portrayed in movies or
shows, so by including this aspect in the story of black struggle, there is different
side shown. Growing up with a drug-addict mother in a low-income home is
struggle enough, adding the factor of being bullied and confused about his
sexual orientation, Chiron’s story of massive struggle is one that society
doesn’t see often. When the media shows black hardship, it is usually generic.
There aren’t faces placed with their stories, which are usually sugar coated
and easily forgotten anyway. In Moonlight,
the audience sees an emotional story of a black, gay boy who has to grow up
hiding a part of himself. Chiron eventually allows himself to be who he is when he is an adult, but because of the hardships he faced while growing up, he developed into being someone he isn't to stop the bullying (to look more masculine: a muscular drug dealer).
Moonlight
shows a struggle that is less accepted in society. By including
homosexuality with being black and growing up in a poor neighborhood with a
drug addicted mother, the audience is shown another side to where struggle might come from, creating another perception about these kind of hardships.
