The Movie Moonlight

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Moonlight, a poignant coming of age story, follows a young Black boy named Chiron as he navigates the relationships with his mother, his peers, and with himself. The movie is broken into three sections, each portraying Chiron at a distinct point in his life; I. Little (early childhood), II. Chiron (adolescence), and III. Black (adulthood). Chiron lives with his mother, Paula, a single-mother who struggled with drug-addiction, in a crime-ridden Miami neighborhood. Early in the movie, Chiron encounters Juan, a widely respected drug dealer, who finds him in an abandoned warehouse after Chiron is forced to seek refuge after being chased there by a pack of boys. As the movie develops, Juan, and his girlfriend Theresa, become parental figures in …show more content…
Keeping children safe generally involves a mother protecting her child(ren) from other adults who may harm them, but it can also involve keeping her child safe from other children. Because he appears feminine, or “soft,” to his peers, Chiron is often called a “faggot,” and is consistently picked on and beaten up throughout the movie. Although she is aware of the bullying, Paula is not able to protect her son from the other children, nor does she appear to make any attempt to do so. For Paula to be seen as a good mother, she would have to somehow prevent her child from getting beat up, even though she essentially has no control of the situation. However, Paula’s race, class, and drug-addiction, all set up Chiron’s bullying as a direct outcome of her failures as a …show more content…
Chiron’s mother is not alone in her struggle with addiction, as thousands of people became addicted to crack cocaine during this period of time. With the rise of drug-addicted mothers in impoverished neighborhoods, the role of othermothers became increasingly important. As Collins writes in Black Feminist Thought, “othermothers…traditionally have been central to the institution of Black motherhood” (Collins, 192). Grandmothers, extended family, or neighbors would step in to raise a child when the mother became addicted to drugs, perpetuating the idea that Black women cannot raise children on their own. The War on Drugs, and the classed and raced implications behind it, was crucial in shaping the belief that Black women are bad
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