“That Ain’t You, Chiron”: Representations of Queer Black (Hyper)Masculinity in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight

Abstract

[eng] Hegemonic discourses of masculinity impose fixed patterns of behaviour upon individuals’ lives. As a result, queer black men often experience social ostracism because of their race and non-normative practices, which makes them resort to hypermasculine performances to vindicate their masculinity. Moonlight (Jenkins 2016) is a film that focuses on Chiron’s marginalisation as a result of his homosexuality, and the later construction of his hypermasculine identity. Adopting an intersectional approach, the aim of this paper is to analyse the traumatic episodes and moments of queer kinship in Chiron’s life, as represented in Moonlight, that influenced the construction of his hypermasculinity. This analysis demonstrates that Chiron’s hypermasculine performances were prompted by the rejection he suffered from his social environment due to his non-normative sexual preferences. Likewise, it is argued that the queer experiences of friendship and sexuality with those who showed the protagonist appreciation and respect, based on non-normative kinship, were significant factors in the protagonist’s process of identity formation.