Coming-of-Age Critical Analysis Blog Post

    In my essay, I talked about the idea of "coming-of-age as someone else" as it applies to Moonlight the film that I watched for this project. In Moonlight the main character, Chiron a young gay black man growing up in poverty, goes through the process of growing into himself, a process which is extremely hampered by his circumstances. Now I am not black or impoverished so it would be a little foolish to attempt to understand "what Chiron is going through" because I simply cannot, however, what I do see is the way that Chiron is not allowed by his circumstances to be all facets of himself at all times. He is very shy and soft-spoken, but these characteristics get him bullied by his peers and yelled at by his mother so eventually, he covers them up with a hard, cool exterior. Throughout the course of the movie which is told in three distinct parts, we develop a pretty clear understanding of Chiron's reasoning for building up a personality that really is not who he is to hide behind because his world does not want to see him. 

    This is what I mean when I say "coming-of-age as someone else." But obviously, it is not a true coming-of-age, and therefore not sustainable. People cannot be someone else all the time indefinitely, and so towards the end of the movie, when Chiron is an adult, this personality cracks, and with the support of one of his childhood friends with whom he then had a relationship during his teenage years he is able to finally be himself for just a little bit, and those moments collapse the carefully created persona entirely. Although to be fair that kind of thing seems pretty fragile anyway. 

    One of the things that people often praise coming-of-age stories for is their supposed universality, but the thesis statement of this film is very clear that this is impossible and naive. Coming-of-age is always a hard, awkward, painful process--I would wager this is why so many people write books, movies, and television shows about it--but it is undeniably easier when you are coming into an identity that is widely accepted. Chiron's story is about what happens when coming-of-age is both forced and not allowed. He is consistently filling adult roles in his life as his mother is a neglectful drug addict, but he is also incapable of having an adult emotional life because he was never allowed to explore what that would even mean for him because of his sexuality. This is purely because of the layers of Chiron's identity. He is already marginalized by his race and then further marginalized by his community that shares his racial identity, because of his sexual identity. 

    My initial instinct was to call this an "anti-coming-of-age story" but on further reflection, I do not think that this is a fair characterization. Coming-of-age is important, and in the end, it is what the movie is about, it just expands the struggle to come of age from just finding "who you are" to also having to fight to be that person--an element that most similar stories do not include. The essential question that Moonlight seeks to answer is that the idea of finding your place in the world makes an assumption that the world you live in is prepared to handle you--carving out a place for yourself is far more difficult.