Black filmmakers whose works visualize the worlds and lived experiences of black people-sometimes through characters who identify as LGBT-on the big screen or the Internet are overdue for public praise. Moonlight is but one example of the type of beautiful and transformative work black filmmakers have always created, and not just this year. It is also a reminder black men who fall in love with other black men, like the two main characters in Moonlight, are not necessarily best identified as “gay.” Yes, the film depicts two black boys-becoming-men discovering their love, but their expressions of intimacy are no queerer, no more profoundly liberating, than their blackness. It is an example of what is possible when black filmmakers specifically create art focused not on the Hollywood gaze, but on the worlds from which black people come. Moonlight’s well-deserved success is cause for collective celebration.
