Exploring someone’s sexuality through film is vital for the capture of a variety of audiences. Appealing to sexuality, through the queer theory is essential. The Queer theory allows film makers to dive into the unknown world of human desire, that is not otherwise properly represented in today’s media; the homosexuality is not capitalize upon because it declares desires that are not widely accepted by most of today’s society. The film Moonlight assays to explain the difficulty of a black boy expressing his true sexuality in his life. Through the Queer theory, our main character changes three times throughout the film; signaling internal change along with lighting concepts and with how he sees himself and how others perceive him through three chapters.
Ambiguity is one of the many prominent points Queer films. It provides uncertainly within the audience and sets up a space of freedom and acceptance that is not otherwise seen in actual society. Nothing is off the table and everything is possible within a character’s sexuality. Moonlight expands upon this ideal in chapter one of the film; little. A few minutes into the film we see our main character Chiron as a child who goes by the name Little: running away from some bullies. The audience is left wondering why he is being bullied: He never talks, nor does he ever get into any fights with anybody. The question we are left with is “Why are they constantly after Little?” and “what is this taboo ideal about Little, that nobody wants to speak about in open air.?” The director of this film, Barry Jenkins, does not pinpoint the wariness of this situation, up until Little is at Juan’s dinner table asking, why his school peers are calling him a “Faggot”. In which Juan and his girlfriend, Teresa, explain to Little that the usage of that word is only meant to disrespect gay people. In Rated Q for Queer: The Legend of Korra and the Evolution of Queer Reading, Jake Pitre, discloses the subtle hints shows and films are incorporating lesbianism or in a way, extrapolating the unheard-of discussion among the viewers.
Doty also envisions this somewhat utopian idea: ‘In the context of a heterocentrist (Homophobic, sexist) culture, close reading often becomes a social and political strategy: perhaps through overwhelming details and examples we can make what is invisible to so many visible and what is denied possible.” (Pitre.26)Pitre illustrates animated series like Steven Universe and The Legend of Korra are making such implications to represent the Queer community. Jake Pitre uses this quote from Doty, to demonstrate the beginning to have these lesbian feelings with their characters to make it a norm within our communities, and not a taboo subject. In some sort, help take away the suppression the members of these communities and give them the representation they deserve.
In the REVIEW ESSAY New Directions in Queer Theory: Recent Theorizing in the Work of Lynne Huffer, Leo Bersani & Adam Phillips, and Lauren Berlant & Lee Edelman, Nancy Harding, expounds in her article that the general Queer theory definition “traditionally locates these oppositional positions in two separate individuals, the subordinate one cowed by the dominant other that depends on the objected other to sustain its knowledge of its self as normative (jagose, 1997).” Argues, that its genders doing the opposite of each other according to society norms. In Moonlight’s, chapter 2: Chrion, Jenkins shows Little now going by his real name, Chiron, in his young adult years. It is in this second chapter, where viewers begin to delineate the heterosexual values of Chiron’s neighborhood. The unstable camera movements shown in this stage of Chiron’s life effectively points out the rising action of the film; the unstable camera movements of the camera operator give off a menacing essence to the film; similar to the film Seconds (1966), directed by John Frankenheimer, where the unstable camera movements and awkward camera angles left the audience in a state of uncertainty and nervousness. Harding makes this point when further elaborating, that an individual can be either dominant or subordinate depending on what they see as normal. For example, Moonlight shows two closeted gay characters, Chiron and Kevin; although both characters are homosexual, only Chiron gets bullied beyond reason, while Kevin is widely accepted among their peers, because he has branded himself as a much more dominant character than Chiron.
The Queer theory illuminates an anti-normative way of living that can bring sorrow to those who believe in this Queer theory. In Haunted by the 1900s: Queer Theory’s Affective Histories, Kadji Amin assays to the political and social climate in the 90s because…
Queer theory has long celebrated queer as an almost infinitely mobile and mutable theoretical term that, unlike gay and lesbian or feminist, need not remain bound to any particular identity, historical context, politics, or object of study and, for that very reason, promises a cutting-edge political intervention.
With such advocations, Amin elucidates how people over 20 years ago were not going to give up their “queerness”; When others tried to normalize them into what they thought was right, which brought on much heat to the group and its participants. On the other hand, some communities are not trying to change people’s “queerness”; but are simply suppressing them as they come out or are suspected of homosexuality. Some of these tough neighborhoods do not try and change them: they chase them out through physical violence and verbal abuse, leading them to normalize themselves before the word gets out or move somewhere else. In the beginning of chapter 3: Black, Chiron is in his adult years, now known as Black, is currently living in Atlanta, Georgia. Because his reputation was now compromised with homosexuality, Chiron had to move, only to reinvent himself as a strong drug dealing man. Unlike the Queer Amin is describing, Chiron had to suppress his true desires in order to get by.
Rendering the true reality of living in an unaccepting community is imperative for a film’s audience to truly immerse themselves into the film. In Emma K. Russell’s Queer Penalities: The Criminal Justice Paradigm in Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Politics “In Australia, violence against lesbians and gay men captured little public or institutional attention outside of queer communities up until the 1990s, when the first major research on ‘homophobic hate crime’ was published, often with the involvement of police”. Russell reveals the places where there is an abundant amount of hate crimes against the Queer communities and it is completely unheard of because not many people are giving it much importance. Furthermore, having films read into the application of the Queer Theory with their movies allow viewers to see realistically what is happening in such places.
Such adversities buttresses Russell’s argument with Moonlight’s setting and lighting. To get back to the point, when Chiron was regarded as-Little. Many of the scenes with his mother were shot in cameo lighting; unfortunately for Little, his first encounters came from his drug addicted mother. When his mother yelled at him, the light would illuminate the mother, along with darkening her hallway, which she would make her way into and get lost in the pink light. It was in this low-key cameo, when the audience see Little watch his mother go into abyss, causing much desolation within Little. Although, Little sees his mother drown herself in drugs: the pink light in her room gives him the affirmation of her love for him. Little’s mother and community deleterious behavior is a stand in for the homophobic hate crimes, Russell intimates in her article.
In the final analysis, the Queer theory expands upon anti-normalize views of society and gives its member the sense of ambiguity that they are looking for. Following films like Moonlight and a variety of academic journals, the Queer Theory will continue to provide a more pliable view of society with its film’s everlasting interpretations in future cinema.
Works Cited
Amin, Kadji. “Haunted by the 1990s: Queer Theory’s Affective Histories.” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2016, eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=b2b05c08-cf8f-43d7-bc2d- 0fc59fc55cec%40sessionmgr4009.
Harding, Nancy. REVIEW ESSAY New Directions in Queer Theory: Recent Theorizing in the Work of Lynne Huffer, Leo Bersani & Adam Phillips, and Lauren Berlant & Lee Edelman. eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=b2b05c08-cf8f- 43d7-bc2d-0fc59fc55cec%40sessionmgr4009.
Pitre, Jake. Rated Q for Queer: The Legend of Korra and the Evolution of Queer Reading. Red Feather Journal Vol 8, No.1, Fall 2017, eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&sid=a30400b5-6d3c-488a-b5a0- 7c4622f5120a%40sessionmgr4007.
Russell, Emma K. “Queer Penalities: The Criminal Justice Paradigm in Lesbian and Gay Anti- Violence Politics.” Critical Criminology, no. 1, 2017, p.21. EBSCOhost, doi:10. 1007/s10612-016-9337-4.
