Social Fathering and Physical Nurturing: Why We Are All Moonlight’s Chiron

Moonlight is a movie that is perhaps before its time or is right on time. It has amassed a number of awards that prove the impact of the power and tenderness of the movie on its viewers. The movie is wound tight, frighteningly precise, and full of beauty. Critics focus on it because of its unapologetic discussion of black sexuality in a space in which anything outside of heterosexuality is reviled and deserving of violence. However, Moonlight is more than a treatise on black homophobia and down-low men (also known as on the DL)--a term used to mark black men who perform hetereosexuality publicly while secretly having homosexual encounters. It addresses an important need for affirmation, for physical touch, for love outside of lust. The movie could be placed alongside the literary icon, James Baldwin, in as he would say, “the cost of love.” In its conversation about homosexuality, there are intimate connections that are ignored because they lie outside of sex.   

These connections are expressions of nurturing unattached to sexual encounters. In a world in which sex is the paramount of love, physical nurturing without sex gets underemphasized. This movie does the opposite; it heightened the importance of physical nurturing in a way that allows sex to flow through, but not be the mainstay of people’s thirst for touch. Unfortunately, social programming feeds one truth: love comes through sex. The film’s intensity is built upon this premise and, for that, there is a quiet tightness throughout the movie. An expectation. However, the film takes the viewers in a different direction, destroying so many preconceptions about black intimacy, so many needs for a love story, and becomes a story about what we all need. 

Moonlight addresses nurturing in a complicated way, but it starts with the local drug dealer, Juan, taking the protagonist, Chiron, under his wing. He protects him and tries to connect with him. He is a social father. A social father steps in to guide and mentor children who are not their own. Social fathers shape their non-biological children through unexpected tenderness and consistent attention. In “Parentage at Birth: Birthfathers and Social Fatherhood,” Nancy E. Dowd states that social fathering and fathering in general has undergone a change in recent years. “A number of changes have moved parentage away from the marital/genetic/patriarchal model that valued the marital family above genes or social fatherhood. [ . . . ] Fathers have asserted a new, more engaged model of fatherhood. Nurture is valued rather than simple biological or marital ties, or actions limited to economic breadwinning” (910). Moonlight impresses on us the delicacy of social parenting, especially social fatherhood, and suggests that there is a long-lasting impression of a social parent on a child with negligent biological parents, as well as the importance of physical nurturing on these children. 

  The film is broken into three acts: a young Chiron called “Little” struggling with his isolation and a tenuous understanding of his burgeoning sexuality, an adolescent Chiron dealing with an awareness of his sexuality, and an adult Chiron known as “Black” who has locked away any sexuality entirely. Chiron through these slices of life struggles with feeling safe, with feeling entirely himself. He is a character that makes the viewers endeared to his quiet grace, to his pain, and want the best for him. Chiron lives in Miami, Liberty City: the part that is impoverished, violent, and obsessed with a toxic performance of masculinity in which homosexuality is reviled. His mother is an addict who sells sex for drug money, physically and verbally abuses him, and often abandons him for days at a time. He knows he is hated and subject to abuse, but until he meets Juan, he believes it is something he will have to survive alone. 

Despite his isolation, Chiron has a few emotional anchors in his world. There is Kevin, his childhood friend in act one, his first lover in act two, and his last hope in act three. There is Juan and his live-in girlfriend, Teresa, who operate as the loving family he never expected. Nothing good can come of this in the sort of black world Chiron lives in. And yet, every small bit of the movie brought a fullness. Small moments of joy. These moments of joy are reminiscent of James Baldwin. One of James Baldwin’s friends once said: “He is not a pessimist. He layers darkness upon darkness, pain, sadness, then he blasts you with light” (Price of the Ticket). Moonlight follows suit of Baldwin. 

James Baldwin often discussed his childhood and the presence of his stepfather. While his mother was a kind and loving presence, it was his stepfather who made an indelible mark on him as the only father figure in his life. His presence is influential and traumatizing. Unlike Chiron’s mostly positive experience with a social father, Baldwin’s experience was not supportive, but led to a similar outcome--the need to face and accept his sexuality. A powerful writer during the 1950s and 1960s, Baldwin was known for his conversations on race and sexuality. In his book, Another Country, the character that brings his motley crew of friends and family together, Rufus, a black man dealing with his complicated sexuality which is compounded by race, commits suicide in the first chapter. In one scene, Rufus’s white friend, Vivaldo, comforts and tends to him while he is on the edge. The rest of the book is a telling of our need for a nurturing space as the characters, living in the aftermath of his death, struggle with their own guilt regarding the nurturing they did not (or perhaps could not) provide for him. 

The necessity of nurturing, especially as children, tends to fall on the mother. Chiron has an abusive and drug-addicted mother, so the expected course of nurturing does not exist for him. However, nurturing does not have to come solely from maternal figures, although in black communities, it is the standard. Within black communities, nurturing from fathers is generally unexpected. Fathers are meant to be providers and disciplinarians, not tender, supportive, or affectionate. The article, “The Good Father: African American Fathers Who Positively Influence the Educational Outcomes of Their Children”, Theodore Ransaw explains how trapped black fathers can be when faced with a limited way of engaging with their children. “Hegemonic masculinity rarely accords opportunities for masculine forms of childcare, such as male nurturing, the capacity for men to show emotion, or the ability of men to influence other child-rearing outcomes” (6). Limited expectations of black fathers leave children like Chiron isolated, hungry for love, and desperate. Chiron, in particular, has no connection to his biological father, so he does not receive even the expected notions of fathering. 

Then Juan steps in. In many black communities, absent biological black fathers are the norm. The narrative of the absent black father is ubiquitous, just as the strong black mother trope. Single mother households are considered the staple of the black community. However, for Chiron, this black female superhero does not exist. While that is outside of the constant barrage of media telling us that the single black mother who sacrifices everything for her children is the norm, what is also outside of the norm is the male figure who steps in to protect and nurture these children. 

What is absent from this narrative is the powerful presence of non-biological fathers. Termed social fatherhood, men often take on father figure roles for children who have absent fathers or abusive/negligent fathers. The persisting narrative of the absent black father, as discussed by Michael E Connor and Joseph E White in “Fatherhood in Contemporary Black America: An Invisible Presence,” is both a fiction and a truth. While there is a glaring disparity between the presence of black fathers and fathers of other racial groups, this narrative often leaves out the powerful and lasting influences of black men as non-biological father figures. “The demographic trends outlined above tend to conceal the variety of ways black men participate in the fathering experience although they may not be legally part of the nuclear family” (Connor 2). The term “social fatherhood” as coined by Gloria Wade-Gayle best explains this phenomenon. By a social father, we mean a male relative or family associate who demonstrates parental behaviors and is "like a father" to the child (Tamis-LeMonda 3). Black men often step in as surrogates for young black children, especially black males, providing a nurturing and supportive space that their biological father did not. They can be uncles, older brothers, grandfathers, men from the neighborhood. 

For James Baldwin, his surrogate father was his younger siblings’ biological father. His stepfather became the only father he had ever known. Baldwin’s father became the marker of what he (and his siblings) should aspire to become. In the case of Chiron, his surrogate father is Juan. This is telling as the writer of the Moonlight screenplay, Tarell Alvin McCraney used his stepfather, the biological father of his younger siblings, as the template for Juan. 

Juan is the local drug dealer, but when he sees Chiron being chased by bullies, he steps in to protect him. Juan then tries to draw Chiron out of his fear and isolation, but Chiron remains painfully silent. Finally, Juan decides to bring him home and with the help of his girlfriend Teresa, manages to open him up. Mahershala Ali’s character, Juan, embodies social fatherhood in his desire to protect and love young Chiron. He brings him into his home and, with the aid of his girlfriend, creates what seems like a healthy family dynamic made up of no biological family members. During a presser at the Toronto International Film Festival, Ali explains how he got into character, how he discovered Juan, and through his tears, how Juan needed to protect Chiron. 

Ali: Juan, from the moment he connects to Chiron, well, he sees a little bit of himself. He understands that this young man is a little bit of an island [ . . . ] [Juan is] at a point now where he’s a grown man now and he’s passed through so many things, and as we all do, no matter how old you are are still trying to process and to fit in your body in your own way. I think he sees and recognizes very early on that this young man needs help. (breaks down) So I love the character. (TIFF).

What Ali is suggesting is that social fathers recognize need in these lost children and feel compelled to step up. His character draws Chiron out of his shell and gives him a safe haven in his home. When his mother abuses him or throws him out, Chiron flees to Juan and Teresa’s place. Both Juan and Teresa realize the delicacy of the task they have accepted, Chiron is easy to run and retreat into himself, so they must create a safe space for him. Both Juan and Teresa know that any wrong move might make Chiron bolt, so they are gentle, truthful, and delicate. 

Juan appears to have no children, so his interaction with Chiron is mostly trial and error. “A man actively shapes his role as a father through improvisation, reformulation, and creatively piecing together bits and pieces of fathering behavior from personal history and social situations” (Connor 6). It seems that social fathers focus more on the needs of the child than nonresident biological fathers and this reality puts Juan at the forefront of Moonlight, despite the small role he plays. Social fathers tend to take children more frequently on outings, as Juan takes Chiron out to swim, and attune themselves more to the child/ren’s sensitivities because their relationship is more tenuous. Compounding that with the child/ren’s emotional traumas, the social father handles them with tenderness. We see Juan touch Chiron tenderly in the water, but even more tenderly as they walk back to Chiron’s apartment. While Juan has never been a father, but what he does know are the things he experienced as a child, which is why he endeavors to teach Chiron to swim.

However, when Chiron realizes that Juan is a drug dealer and provides the drugs that keeps his mother in a violent haze, he retreats from him. 

LITTLE: Do you sell drugs?

Juan's face? Crushed. He nods yes.

LITTLE: And my momma, she do drugs, right?

Again, something falling in Juan, hangs his head even lower. A nod yes.

Teresa comes over, places a hand on Juan's back.

Little rises without a word. (Moonlight)

The effects of Juan are long lasting. Juan offered Chiron a different type of family, but because Juan is not “upstanding” Chiron rejects him. However, it is too late. Juan has imprinted himself on Chiron, and, in the final act, Chiron becomes a drug dealer in Juan’s image. 

In the same way that Chiron follows Juan’s life path, as the only true male role model in his life, James Baldwin followed his stepfather’s, albeit for different reasons. James Baldwin became a boy preacher because his stepfather encouraged it and was a preacher himself. “I said I would never be a preacher, my [step]father always said I would, I always said I would not [. . .] but life outwitted me and corroborated him” (Price). The major difference between Baldwin and Chiron is that while both of them ended up in positions they never wanted, Chiron had a positive experience with his social father, while Baldwin did not. However, social fathers are there, more present than a biological father in their lives, and affect the outcome of the children they take under their wing. 

The presence of social fathers are often underplayed. Diminished. But for those who have experienced the joy of a social father in the absence of a biological father--he becomes everything. The writers of Moonlight discussed their childhoods, their mentors and social fathers, and how they conceived of Moonlight in an article in the New York Times, titled “From Bittersweet Childhoods to ‘Moonlight’.” In the article, both writers discuss how men in their lives have influenced them and more about how living in Liberty City (where Moonlight takes place) changed them and made them more vulnerable. 

Juan is modeled after Blue, the father of Mr. McCraney’s younger brother. As a child, Mr. McCraney looked up to him. Blue was Mr. McCraney’s defender, the person who made sure he had nice clothes, kept the boy’s mother from spanking him, and teaching him to make salmon croquettes (Hannah-Jones).

Once again we see the presence of a tender social father, the father we are told does not exist--if films, television, and music are to be believed. What does the presence of these men have on the lives of their non-biological children? Is it possible that these men are dismantling toxic masculinity simply by trying to father? Since the methods of their fathering are far more affectionate and intimate than the classic ideals of fatherhood, it is possible that their social fathering crushes children’s ideas of masculinity. “[Good fathers] provide opportunities for alternative and positive examples of African American masculinity to their families” (Ranshaw 17). Their affection reaches past just presence and into physical touch, safe spaces, and declarations of love. 

People often have a dearth of physical touch as we grow older. Psychology Today terms this “skin hunger”. Skin hunger is the need for physical touch both sexual and non-sexual. This movie is as much about discovering one’s sexuality as it is about discovering one’s need for nurturing. Nurturing and sex overlap, but are not the same thing. Men, especially black men, are told that physical touch only comes through fucking or fighting. Mark Greene, of The Good Men Project, in his article “Touch Isolation: How Homophobia Has Robbed All Men Of Touch” discussed the problems of this dichotomy of physical touch and the fear of shattering this binary. 

By the time they are approaching puberty, many boys have learned to touch only in aggressive ways through rough housing or team sports. And if they do seek gentle touch in their lives, it is expected to take place in the exclusive and highly sexualized context of dating. This puts massive amounts of pressure on young girls; young girls who are unlikely to be able to shoulder such a burden. Because of the lack of alternative outlets for touch, the touch depravation [sic] faced by young boys who are unable to find a girlfriend is overwhelming” (Greene) 

And in this contemporary moment, “Netflix and Chill” is code for sex. Not to be physically close to someone, not to cuddle with someone, but to orgasm because to have sex is the only way most people get the physical attention they so desperately need. Starving to be touched, touch deprived in fact.  

Chiron is starving for physical affection. This is where Juan steps in as he fumbles through his role as a surrogate father. One of the most powerful scenes in the movie is Juan taking Chiron out one late afternoon to teach him how to float and then to swim. His promise to keep Chiron safe, his tender holding of this frightened, silent boy, his joy when Chiron learns to swim is exactly what Chiron needs.

Juan: Let your head rest in my hand. Relax. I got you. I promise you. I’m not gonna let you go. I promise. I got you.

Chiron floats, with Juan carefully supporting his body. 

Juan: There you go. Ten seconds. That right there? You in the middle of the world. 

This goes against the narrative of black fathers who resist such tenderness. Juan is holding Chiron’s head delicately, watching his expressions, trying to read Chiron’s fear and comfort him. Juan is in bliss after their encounter, feeling that father-son dynamic that he has never experienced, feeling their bond. Even Chiron’s silence seems to be lighter, more open, and there’s a powerful intimate relationship cemented. 

In a Kevin Hart skit, Hart tells his story of learning to swim, or rather his trauma about swimming when his dad didn’t believe he couldn’t swim. While funny in his delivery, the story is a sad retelling of the ways black fathers feel they cannot be affectionate. “My dad picked me up and threw me in seven feet [of water]. When I hit the water, I started to die immediately. This is what my dad said, ‘you betta not fucking drown!’ [ . . . ] ‘no don’t let me go Dad!’” The cries of laughter go up, from the audience that knows all too well this sort of experience. While this is a humorous take on black masculinity, it still reflects the trauma of how little most black boys get affection from their fathers--social or no. 

Juan does the opposite. He is intuitive and gentle. The very thing that black children need. Discounting his problematic profession, Juan is a good father figure. McCraney’s experience with social fathers seems to align with his depiction of Juan. He uses Blue along with the men in his neighborhood to create Juan. “Still some of his happiest moments were with Blue. ‘So, I wrote about the time a drug dealer got off his crate and taught me how to ride a bike’” (Hannah-Scott). These moments of nurturing from Juan to Blue express how important these father figures are to dismantling toxic masculinity. 

While this article does not seek to unpack sexuality in this film, the way that sexuality is presented is one of nurturing, which is the heart of this article. Physical nurturing does not only come through Juan and Teresa, but through Kevin as well. Not only through their childhood, but also through their exploration of sexuality and identity together. 

The music director of the movie, Nicholas Britell, stated that he was influenced by Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange for this film. Frank Ocean, an R&B singer and songwriter, is most notably the first black male hip-hop/r&b musician to announce his bisexuality. In a world in which black men are either straight or gay, Frank Ocean steps out to complicate these simplistic notions. If James Baldwin preceded these conversations, Frank Ocean is his musical successor. 

Frank Ocean’s musical influence on Moonlight is undeniable. His songs are poignant takes on his own journey towards his sexuality and his identity. The songs seem to speak directly to Chiron and Kevin’s relationship. However, I believe Frank Ocean’s second album, Blond, fits the movie even more seamlessly than Channel Orange. One of his songs, “Ivy”, reflects the quiet and powerful relationship shared between Kevin and Chiron. The song is poignant, frightening, and imbued with love. The scenes of Chiron with Kevin could be lifted directly from Ocean’s lyrics. 

Pressure and rhythm as Chiron’s breath catches in his chest, head fully leaned to Kevin’s shoulder, free hand grabbing at the sand as Kevin takes hold of him, a caressing and a pulling and a soothing as....

...Chiron comes, holding onto Kevin for dear life, choking on the sea breeze.

Kevin removing his hand, looks at the cum there before wiping it on the sand.

CHIRON: I’m...I’m sorry.

Kevin looking at him with the kindest, most open face:

KEVIN: What you got to be sorry for?

Chiron considering that. Honestly so. (Moonlight screenplay)

Even through peer relationships, toxic masculinity can be dismantled. Unfortunately, Kevin and Chiron are ripped apart by the pressure Kevin feels to be accepted in the violent school they attend. The day after they have their sexual encounter, Chiron is more open than he has ever been. He is excitedly looking for Kevin in the cafeteria, only to find Kevin eating lunch with the very kid that has repeatedly bullied Chiron. He is heartbroken. 

Later that day, Kevin is pressured to attack Chiron in a game called “knock down/stay down.” Kevin is distraught, he doesn’t want to, but he is still trying to perform appropriate black masculinity. He punches Chiron repeatedly, all while begging Chiron to stay down, and their encounter finally leads to Chiron attacking the bully the next day and going to a juvenile detention center. He and Kevin exchange a glance as he is being put into the police car, and, somehow, it is clear that Chiron does not blame Kevin for any of this. 

I thought that I was dreaming when you said you loved me

The start of nothing

I had no chance to prepare

I couldn't see you coming

The start of nothing

I could hate you now

It's quite alright to hate me now

When we both know that deep down

The feeling still deep down is good (Ocean)

Kevin is Chiron’s first sexual experience. Kevin is Chiron’s first friend. Long before Chiron met Juan, there was Kevin. The first male that accepted him. The shared sexual experience, support, and physical nurturing in the final scenes are the few things Chiron clings to as he battles his identity. He may be unsure if Juan truly loves him, even as Teresa passionately affirms this, but he is more sure that Kevin does. The audience sees his eyes widen when he sees Kevin. Chiron watches him and talks to him more freely than any other person in his life. 

Arm around my shoulder so I could tell

How much I meant to you...meant it sincere back then

We had time to kill back then

You ain’t a kid no more 

We’ll never be those kids again (Ocean)

Ocean’s lines speak to the physical nurturing Kevin provides Chiron, a non-sexual nurturing, a kindness, that is what Chiron needs even more than he needs sex. Kevin is the type of man who keeps a photo of his child in his wallet, is unafraid of physical affection, laughs easy, and is even easier to love. This is the opposite of adult Chiron, who, in some ways, is even more closed and tight than he was as a child, and just like child and teen Kevin, adult Kevin can draw Chiron out with his ease, with his love. This connection pushes Chiron to drive all night from Atlanta to Miami to reunite with Kevin. 

Their first greeting is a lingering hug, probably the most touch Chiron has experienced in a decade and something starts to unravel. When Kevin makes Chiron dinner at his restaurant, it speaks volumes. He makes him a traditional Cuban dish--how could it not remind him of Juan?--and then pushes him to speak, just as Juan did on their first fateful meeting. “Grandma rules. You eat, you speak! (laughs)” (Moonlight). While harkening back to Chiron’s reclusiveness and the first man to draw him out, the vulnerability required of Chiron is immense. We see it in the moment Chiron is watching the door (sitting in a position where he can see everything, as trained by Juan), considering bolting for home. However, it is actually the final scene that reflects the nurturing and gentleness that Chiron ultimately needs. At Kevin’s apartment, he eventually takes the biggest leap of his life: to speak his truth. “You the only man that’s ever touched me. You’re the only one. I haven’t really touched anyone since” (Moonlight).

After a prolonged silence, the film cuts to Kevin comforting Chiron. Holding him. There is no marker of any sexual activity. This is just pure love and touch. Kevin is rubbing Chiron’s scalp, nestling him to his shoulder, being still while Chiron appears to be sniffling--perhaps from crying. It is an amazingly healing scene. They are beyond labels, beyond titles, beyond every black masculine requirement. This is just the space that Chiron needs, but did not know it could exist.

Chiron needs to have a space to be vulnerable, and Frank Ocean sings almost exclusively about vulnerability. Black men do not talk about being young, innocent, and definitely not vulnerable. However, he does so in a way that wrenches the heart. In the same way, Moonlight does. Layers of darkness. A blast of light. Moonlight is Blond. A blast of light in deep blue-black night. Moments to breathe without the menace of toxic black masculinity. “I've loved a few men, I've loved a few women.  And a few people have loved me.  That's all that has saved my life” (Baldwin). 

Moonlight is a film about saving Chiron’s life. In a space that is dangerous for a little queer black boy, Chiron finds deep intimacy and support from unlikely places. In the final scene, Chiron is held by Kevin, held tenderly, and it is apparent that what he has always needed was to be held. The importance of this movie is its ability to dismantle traditional ideas of black men. And that, may save our lives.