“Stay Down”: Moonlight and Negative Affect as an Analytic

Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Antonia Randolph, “‘Stay Down’: Moonlight and Negative Affect as an Analytic,” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 9, no. 1 (2022): 67–74. ISSN 2327-1574. All rights reserved. Violence can be intimate and revealing. People reveal much about themselves when they give or receive a beating. So it was when Kevin hit his lifelong friend Chiron in a Miami schoolyard in the second act of Moonlight.1 They shared another type of intimacy the night before when they confessed feelings of despair and loneliness to each other on a beach. These vulnerable emotions created a space to risk touching, leading to a kiss that melted into Kevin slowly masturbating Chiron to orgasm. Chiron and Kevin had always created space for each other, finding ways to be alone and talk even in a larger group of neighborhood boys. Thus, every punch that Kevin landed on Chiron’s jaw resounded with betrayal and remorse, not just physical pain. Kevin urged Chiron to “stay down,” his eyes pleading forgiveness for what bullies had pressured him to do. Instead, Chiron jutted his chin out and held Kevin’s gaze, as though he wanted to sear the scene into his mind: his beloved friend’s punches and the jeering faces of the bullies urging him on. The beating showed Kevin, who had a confident social ease throughout the movie, to be a creature of social approval, turning on his friend when his peers demanded it. The beating also showed Chiron’s mettle; he did not turn away from his friend’s betrayal or from the cruelty of the boys who goaded him. F O R U M