The Film Moonlight depicts a young black man named Chiron growing up in a poor neighborhood in Miami. He struggles with his sexuality of being gay at a young age, with homophobic bullying. Other issues that added to his being a hardened young man were poverty and his mother’s abuse of drugs. His friend and lover hit him at a young age due to bullies making his friend Kevin do it. He was constantly called a faggot, he faced extreme poverty due to already growing up in a poor neighborhood, and his mother being a drug addict selling everything to buy drugs added to the issues on hand. He loved his mother even though they didn’t develop a loving connection because it was simply his mother. The physical contact between them wasn’t loving. She touched him and demanded money so she could buy drugs eventually, though she apologized eventually at an older age in rehab for emotionally abusing him, and he forgave her. His saving grace in the film was a sympathetic drug dealer named Juan, who took a liking to him. The moral dilemma Chiron faced was he wasn’t able to be himself as a gay young man. The neighborhood and environment he lived in were homophobic and did not give him an environment to grow in; he didn’t know what to do and didn’t have an outlet, so he hid and suppressed his feelings. As an adult, he did what he had to do not to be seen as “little” anymore; that was his nickname as a kid. He grew up to be a Big, strong Drug dealer. He wasn’t able to do what made him happy. He seemed happy and at peace when he was on the beach with Kevin, and they kissed, but mediately after Kevin was bullied into hitting him and started depressing his feelings after that. By becoming a drug dealer, he didn’t do what was right but did what he had to do to survive in the drug war area of Miami. Luckily, Juan took a liking to Chiron and taught him some valuable survival skills; he even led him to be vulnerable by teaching him how to swim. Eventually, Juan did what was best for himself and told Kevin how he felt as an adult. He could be vulnerable with him, and they shared a warm embrace.
The decision I would make would vary based on the period of my life, to be honest. As an adolescent or teenager, if I was faced with the dilemma of being Gay, I would honestly suppress my feelings because I’m a black Caribbean American growing up in Brooklyn in the 1990s and early 2000s. I would have been faced with ridicule and bullying. The Caribbean culture I grew up in is very homophobic and unapologetic. I’m a straight man, and because I was more into school, books, and action figures and not girls, I was even asked by my older cousins if I was gay so I could sympathize with people who suppress these feelings. As an adult, I provide an environment for my kids to be whoever they want to be, so as an adult, I would say be yourself and do whatever makes you happy. No matter how much you suppress those feelings, they will never go away, and you have given up embracing yourself for many years and will regret losing out on those years.