Published by Michael Wiese Productions

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Cover design by Johnny Ink

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Manufactured in the United States of America

Copyright © 2022 by Karla R. Fuller
First Printing 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permis-
sion in writing from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Fuller, Karla Rae, author.

Title: Do the write thing! : storytelling secrets of five screenplays that
embrace diversity / Karla R. Fuller.
Description: Studio City, CA : Michael Wiese Productions, [2022]. |
Summary: “Do The Write Thing! offers screenwriting strategies that focus
on diversity, equity and inclusion The goal is to teach an already
challenging writing mode that requires screenwriters to create complex
human experiences through visual storytelling. We are in a critical
historical moment where the importance of screenwriting can be of the
utmost usefulness in the observation of racism, inequity and inclusion
in all media. The screen representations of race, ethnicity, gender,
sexuality or class are not often explicitly addressed at the “front end”
of the film production process, specifically, during the creation of the
screenplay (whether original or adapted from outside source material).
The idea is to introduce and reinforce the importance of accountability
for what you write for the screen. This is not to limit the
screenwriter’s creative impulses, but rather to create and engage them
in consistent ways that reveal unconscious biases and instances of
systemic racism. We will use five case studies of commercially
successful and award-winning screenplays that resist stereotypes to
present multidimensional depictions of historically underrepresented
groups, such as LGBTQ, African American, Latino and Asian American. In
the discussions of each individual screenplay issues such as the
adaptation process, plot structure and devices, characterization,
setting, symbolism, and genre conventions are introduced and analyzed in
depth”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021045698 | ISBN 9781615933402 (trade paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Motion picture plays--Case studies. | Social justice.
Classification: LCC PN1996 .F85 2022 | DDC 808.2/3--dc23/eng/20220113
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021045698
Table
of
Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  ����������������������������������������������������������������vii

FOR EWOR D  �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������viii

INTRODUCTION  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������x
Doing the Right Thing: A Changing Industry

CHAPTER ONE ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������1
A Different Shade of Love in Moonlight (2016)
— The Universal from the Specific ������������������������������������������6
— Adaptation and Ownership ��������������������������������������������������7
— A Less Traditional Three-Act Structure������������������������������10
— Naming and Identity ����������������������������������������������������������16
— Upending Urban Stereotypes����������������������������������������������20
— Symbolism����������������������������������������������������������������������������21

CHAPTER TWO ������������������������������������������������������������������������������25
The Haunted Legacy of Slavery in Get Out (2017)
— Conventions of Horror��������������������������������������������������������31
— Four-Act Structure ��������������������������������������������������������������34
— Premise and Setup����������������������������������������������������������������36
— Symbols of Slavery ��������������������������������������������������������������38
— Reworking Elements from Classic Films ��������������������������40
— Critique of Societal Politics������������������������������������������������44

v
DO THE R IGHT THING FULLER

CHAPTER THR EE  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������51

Dueling Narratives and Races in Mudbound (2017)
— Revisiting and Revising a Historical Moment������������������57
— Dual Protagonists ����������������������������������������������������������������64
— Two Takes on World War II ����������������������������������������������69
— Embracing Inclusive Collaboration in the
Creative Process��������������������������������������������������������������������71

CHAPTER FOUR ������������������������������������������������������������������������������74
Memories of Childhood Revisited in Roma (2018)
— Short Story Structure ����������������������������������������������������������78
— Class, Gender, and Systemic Racism ��������������������������������83
— The Supporting Role in the Family Becomes the Lead������85
— Colonia Roma in Mexico City ������������������������������������������89
— Symbolism����������������������������������������������������������������������������91

CHAPTER FIVE ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������94
Not So Crazy and Not So Rich
Asian Americans in Always Be My Maybe (2019)
— Conventions of the Romantic Comedy ����������������������������97
— Playing with Structure ������������������������������������������������������ 101
— Breaking Free of Racial Stereotypes ��������������������������������102
— Asian Americans Are Americans, Not Foreigners ����������105
— Quirky and Multidimensional Characters����������������������106
— Inclusion of Tragedy and Resilience ��������������������������������107
— True Love, Not Romance��������������������������������������������������108

AFTERWORD  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 110

Get to Work on the Screenplay Only You Can Write

vi
INTRODUCTION

Doing
the
Right
Thing
A Changing Industry

H ow does an emerging writer break through with a feature

script that reflects a multicultural world? Through this book,
you will discover how complex, thoughtful choices made five recent
screenplays into successful films — and the principles that screen-
writers can use for similar results.
The criteria for choosing these specific five films rests in part
on these scripts as a group being representative of recent film proj-
ects that in some way advance a counternarrative to mainstream
filmmaking, with its all-too-often stereotypical and one-dimensional
characterizations. Films with a lot of buzz such as Crazy Rich Asians
and Black Panther, both released in 2018, were mainly noted for
their diversity primarily in terms of racial representation. However,
because of their status as mega-budget narratives, they are by neces-
sity crafted with the largest possible audience in mind to cover their
massive budgets. These types of mega films rarely, if ever, offer highly
personal narratives that capture underrepresented perspectives that
take us beyond the simple appearance of racial diversity. Their big-
money studio business model, at the end of the day, ultimately helps

x
 INTRODUCTION

reinforce the status quo. The cinematic narratives chosen for this
book prove that many different dimensions, not just age or race or
gender or sexuality, make a person who they are. Characters need
to be relatable, which doesn’t mean predictable or even necessarily
always sympathetic — oftentimes a big misunderstanding of many
beginning screenwriters.
Crafting a compelling screenplay that reflects diversity, equity,
and inclusion can pay off commercially as well as artistically. Chang-
ing demographics of U.S. movie audiences suggest the more diversity
— the more success! Nearly 50 percent of frequent moviegoers are
nonwhite, according to the Motion Picture Association (MPA) 2019
THEME Report.1 Mass media has to appeal to a more colorful
audience, an audience with a mix of races, ethnicities, genders, sex-
ualities, and countless untold stories.
This book is guided by specific foundational ideas — goals and
actions you can take to “liberate” your screenplay from clichéd and
formulaic approaches:

— Thinking about the meaning in the message of your screenplay.

In other words, does it contribute positively to a more inclu-
sive worldview rather than repeat familiar tropes that reinforce
current social hierarchies and systems?
— Avoiding stereotypical depictions (dangerous black men; feisty,
hypersexualized black and Latinx women; perpetually foreign,
one-dimensional, or “model minority” Asian Americans).
— Revealing systemic racism through human stories.
— Remembering the interconnectedness of all human life and the
multiple identities that impact your own work.2

I have selected five screenplays that have broken barriers and

defined success in the U.S. film industry for analysis in this book.
These screenplays have given voice to those underrepresented
1
Motion Picture Association, “2019 THEME Report,” accessed February 4, 2022, https://www.
motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/MPA-THEME-2019.pdf.
2
Alan Jenkins, “Action! Ten Things Hollywood Can Do to Fight Racism and Promote Justice,”
LinkedIn, June 4, 2020, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/action-ten-things-hollywood-can-do-fight-
racism-promote-alan-jenkins/.

xi
DO THE R IGHT THING FULLER

narratives, depicting characters who are fresh, multidimensional,

and overwhelmingly relatable through very specific human experi-
ences. Whether expanding a genre, as in Get Out, or working within
a well-established three act structure, like Moonlight, these five films
are all remarkable for their unprecedented audacity in offering us
fully formed worlds that counteract historically stereotypical char-
acters and overly predictable storytelling.
In Chapter One, Moonlight (2016) depicts the drama of a young
African American man at three pivotal points in his life, as a child,
a teenager, and a young adult. The leading character contends with
an unstable homelife, a dangerous neighborhood, and a burgeoning
sexuality. In the end, he returns to an authentic self with the help
of his first and only lover. Moonlight won Academy Awards for Best
Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Chapter Two focuses on Get Out (2017), a horror film about a
young African American who visits his white girlfriend’s seemingly
politically liberal parents for the weekend. But during the weekend,
a terrifying plan to auction off his body and soul to the highest
bidder is shockingly revealed in ways reminiscent of the U.S. slave
trade. The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
In Mudbound (2017), the film in Chapter Three, two men
return home from World War II to work on a farm in rural Mis-
sissippi, where they struggle to deal with racism and adjusting to
life after war. One white, one black, they form a dangerous bond
of friendship that threatens their very lives and the lives of each of
their families. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards,
including Best Adapted Screenplay by Dee Rees and Virgil Williams,
making director Dee Rees the first African American woman to be
nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Chapter Four’s Roma (2018) recounts a year in the life of a maid
for a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early 1970s. Based on
the memories of writer/director Alfonso Cuarón, the character of the
maid is foregrounded as both the victim and savior of this troubled
family. The film won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best

xii
 INTRODUCTION

International Film (a first for a Mexican film) and was nominated

for Best Original Screenplay.
Always Be My Maybe (2019), available to most viewers only
on Netflix, is the subject of Chapter Five. This rom-com tells the
story of Asian Americans Sasha and Marcus, who met as children
and grew up together, and whom everyone assumed would wind up
together except them. When they reconnect fifteen years later, sparks
fly between them, Sasha now a celebrity chef and Marcus a working-
class contractor at his father’s company. But the differences in their
professional success threaten to pull them apart until they each learn
that mutual support, love, and family is what matters most. Variety
reported that the film was viewed by 32 million households in its
first four weeks of release.3
There is a new awareness of how diverse film content can be and
how audiences positively receive all well-crafted work — an awareness
that defies traditional expectations and assumptions. And the emer-
gence of “new” studios such as Netflix is shaking up the game with
diverse content. In other words, all five films, given their specialized
subject matter or small scale — Roma, with its focus on an indig-
enous maid character, the treatment of controversial themes such
as same-sex romantic relationships in Moonlight, the use of satire in
Get Out, the rare attention paid to working class Asian American
characters in Always Be My Maybe, and the so-called less commercial
period genre of historical fiction in Mudbound — would be expected
to attract very small audiences. According to the MPA 2019 Annual
THEME Report, home and mobile entertainment, which includes
streaming services, grew by 14 percent worldwide from the previous
year.4 Once only a small part of the business, the streaming indus-
try continues to transform content with its growing numbers and
increasing budgets. Indeed, that same report announced that as of
January 2019, Netflix had become a member of the MPA, the only

3
Janko Roettgers, “‘The Perfect Date,’ ‘Always Be My Maybe’ Draw Big Crowds on Netflix,” Variety,
July 17, 2019, https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/the-perfect-date-always-be-my-maybe-draw-big-
crowds-on-netflix-1203270482/.
4
“2019 THEME Report.”

xiii
DO THE R IGHT THING FULLER

streaming service to do so in the MPA’s nearly one-hundred-year his-

tory.5 The fact that three of the five films discussed here (Mudbound,
Roma, and Always Be My Maybe) were produced and distributed by
Netflix affirms that projects embracing diversity are being supported
by this new and thriving sector of the industry.
Further, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences
instituted in 2021 a set of requirements for films to qualify for the
Best Picture Oscar, with the sole goal of increasing diversity, equity,
and inclusion in future films. Academy President David Rubin and
Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said in a joint statement: “The aper-
ture must widen to reflect our diverse global population in both the
creation of motion pictures and in the audiences who connect with
them. The Academy is committed to playing a vital role in helping
make this a reality.”6
This book does not focus on tips so much as exploring stories
in a way that will hopefully help you expand your understanding of
stories — both your own and the stories of others — and help you
tell more complex stories. It is not intended to reinforce a restrictive
notion of identity politics that dampens the creative spark or sug-
gests who can tell which stories. Our five examples are diverse in a
number of significant ways. These films offer not only diversity in
terms of the expected on-screen representation of underrepresented
identities (i.e., queer, African American, Latino, Asian American),
but also in terms of genre and their diversely populated screenwrit-
ing creative teams. Each film offers a different genre: LGBTQ drama
in Moonlight, horror in Get Out, historical drama in Mudbound,
international drama in Roma, and rom-com antics in Always Be My
Maybe. Their successes demonstrate not prescriptive limitations but
room for exponentially more creative storytelling. As will become
clear (if it’s not already), meaningful and inclusive collaboration
produces great films.

5
“2019 THEME Report.”
6
Oscars, “Academy Establishes Representation and Inclusion Standards for Oscars Eligibility,”
September 8, 2020, https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-establishes-representation-and-inclusion-
standards-oscarsr-eligibility.

xiv
CHAPTER ONE

A
Different
Shade
of
Love
in MOONLIGHT (2016)

“I thought five people would see this film: my mom,

my sister, and maybe a few close friends. The fact that
it’s playing in one theater is a privilege . . . Nothing we
did was geared toward making the movie fit this box or
that box. There’s something to be said about how the film
can create the market, and create the campaign.”
— Barry Jenkins, director
and co-writer of Moonlight

W riter/director Barry Jenkins’ words in the quote above reso-

nate with so many filmmakers who have an urgent story to
tell but aren’t sure that there is an audience waiting to see their work,
their labor of love. I am struck by Jenkins’ humility in his expres-
sion of awe at the prospect of his film showing in even one theater.
And yet, he follows with the declaration that maybe, just maybe, a
film itself can create the “market,” and more directly can specifically

1
DO THE R IGHT THING FULLER

produce an audience without checking off “this box or that box” of

a common set of expectations in the mainstream movie industry.
Barry Jenkins grew up in the economically disadvantaged Lib-
erty City neighborhood of Miami, Florida. He did not know his
father, and his mother struggled with drug addiction. In high school
he was a talented athlete who ran track and played football. He
attended Florida State University as an English major before chang-
ing to film by enrolling in the university’s College of Motion Picture
Arts, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003. Then Jenkins
moved to Los Angeles to make films. He worked as a production
assistant at Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. In 2007 he moved
again, this time to San Francisco, hoping to make his own movie.
Jenkins made his debut feature, Medicine for Melancholy, in 2008
while working at a Banana Republic retail store. Though made on an
extremely small budget, Medicine for Melancholy was well received
by critics who felt that the film, which “describes 24 hours in a
budding romance between two young people in a gentrifying San
Francisco,” effectively “raised issues in a spirit of exploration rather
than didacticism.”1
While working as a carpenter, Jenkins pursued two projects that
ultimately went nowhere. One of them was based on the 1974 James
Baldwin novel If Beale Street Could Talk, which was eventually made
after Moonlight, but he didn’t have the rights at that time. Then a
mutual friend of playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney gave Jenkins a
script that was set in the same place and same time that Jenkins had
grown up in. The film that resulted was Moonlight, which Jenkins
described as a “hood-arthouse coming-of-age LGBT drama” that
dramatizes three points in the main character’s life, as a child, then
teenager, then young adult.2
As it happens, Moonlight did play in just one theater (on one
screen) for many weeks, but that wasn’t the end of the film’s perfor-
mance. What Jenkins’ quote doesn’t reveal is the fact that this film
1
Patricia Bauer, “Barry Jenkins,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed October 31, 2021, https://www.
britannica.com/biography/Barry-Jenkins.
2
Bauer, “Barry Jenkins.”

2
 A D ifferent S hade of L ove

grew from one screen to four screens, and gradually all the way up
to over fifteen hundred. On a budget of $1.5 million,3 Moonlight’s
box office gross totaled $27 million domestically (in the United
States, Canada, and Puerto Rico) and, even more remarkable, $65
million worldwide.4 It won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best
Supporting Actor, and, most importantly for our purposes here, Best
Adapted Screenplay by Barry Jenkins from the story in the unpro-
duced play by Tarell Alvin McCraney.
McCraney’s original title — “In Moonlight Black Boys Look
Blue” — tells us an awful lot about the spirit and nature of this
story, even though it wasn’t used for the film. Moonlight, it suggests,
has the power to transform a stereotypical appearance of blackness
(and all the assumptions that go with it), of “Black Boys,” to some-
thing more poetic and as deep as the color of the ocean, dark blue
and filled with life.
In the film, our protagonist is given three names (Little, Chi-
ron, and Black), none of which say much of anything about his
inner life, his sense of self beyond visual appearances or how others
name him. His story, his journey, reminds us that a character’s inner
life, where often their authentic wants and needs live, is the most
important thing that they can bring to relationships. We see during
the course of the film how our embattled protagonist navigates his
world, filled with brief moments of love and caring yet also, much
too often, neglect, fear, and a lack of love. But in the end, he has a
serious reckoning with the authentic self that he (and we) thought
might be permanently lost. And even if we don’t know exactly what
will happen after this brief reappearance of profound vulnerability
and love, we know this: that all people, despite appearances to the
contrary, have the need for love and deep connection.

3
Barry Jenkins (@BarryJenkins), “Yes fellas by why on earth…,” Twitter Post, February 28, 2018, 6:06
PM, https://twitter.com/barryjenkins/status/968985836439052288?lang=en.
4
Box Office Mojo, “Moonlight – Box Office,” IMDbPro, accessed February 8, 2022, https://pro.imdb.
com/title/tt4975722/boxoffice.

3
DO THE R IGHT THING FULLER

Sy nopsis
This story takes place in the Liberty City section of Miami
in the 1980s at three different points in the protagonist’s life,
as a child, a teenager, and a young adult.
Part I. Little
A little boy runs away from a group of bullies who are out
for blood — life or death. The boy runs into an abandoned
crack house and waits until a man, Juan, comes in and res-
cues him after a bit of coaxing. Juan takes Little out to eat
and notices how hungry he is. He tries to get the boy to talk
but he is too busy eating. Juan then takes Little to spend the
night at his home with his girlfriend Teresa. When he takes
the boy back to his own home the next day, his mother,
Paula, is very angry that he didn’t tell her where he was.
Little starts spending more and more time with Juan,
who teaches him how to swim, or at least to float on his
back. They grow very close.
Little goes to Juan and Teresa’s house. He expresses his
hatred for his mother Paula, who is a drug addict, then asks
Juan what a faggot is. After Juan explains, Little asks if he
himself is one. He then asks Juan about his drug dealing
and selling to his mother. Little leaves, and Juan appears
tearfully remorseful.
Part II. Chiron
Little has turned into a teenaged boy going by the name
Chiron who looks lonely and lost. He is attending high
school, where he basically has only one friend, Kevin. Juan
has long since passed away. Chiron is harassed at school by
a punk named Terrel, who mocks Chiron in the middle of
class until their teacher kicks Terrel out. Chiron is shown
on his own, isolated and angry at his mother’s ongoing drug
addiction and at his classmates, who bully him even during

4
 A D ifferent S hade of L ove

class time. Kevin, who he’s known since he was Little, shares
with Chiron his sexual experiences with girls, which con-
stantly keep him in trouble at school. Chiron has a dream
about Kevin having sex from what he described and is dis-
turbed by it.
One night, Chiron goes out to the beach at night for
some peace and quiet. Suddenly, Kevin appears, seemingly
out of nowhere. They talk honestly about their struggles and
feelings, especially their dark ones. Kevin nicknames Chiron
“Black,” but when Chiron reacts negatively, Kevin inno-
cently asks him, “Don’t you like it?” This is the first time
anyone has ever asked Chiron what he wishes to be called.
Though Chiron simply responds by shrugging his shoulders,
the boys discover a mutual attraction during their conversa-
tion, ending in a kiss and Kevin giving Chiron a hand job.
The next day at school Chiron attempts to talk with
Kevin but is stopped by Terrel. Terrel, sensing a bond
between Chiron and Kevin, sets them up in a violent game
where Kevin is forced to hit Chiron until he stops getting
back up from being knocked down. Chiron continues to
get back up despite the blows, even though Kevin begs him
to stay down. The next day, an enraged Chiron hits Terrel
with a classroom chair so hard that he breaks it. Afterward,
Chiron is taken away by the police.
Part III. Black
The story jumps forward about ten years. Chiron, now
named Black, is living in Atlanta, Georgia. Black now
dresses similar to Juan, and he has similarly become a drug
dealer. He looks physically strong, with a muscular phy-
sique. Black taunts his criminal underlings with a cruel
sense of humor that instills fear in them.
One night, Black receives an unexpected phone call
from Kevin, who apologizes for what happened in high

5
DO THE R IGHT THING FULLER

school and invites him back to Florida to visit where he

works as a cook. On his way through Florida, Black visits
his mom, who is in rehab and wants to make amends. Black
accepts her apologies for not being a good mother to him.
She further hopes that Black can learn to trust somebody
despite all that he’s been through.
When Black arrives in Florida, Kevin cooks him a spe-
cial meal at the restaurant where he works. They go back
to Kevin’s apartment, where Kevin describes having a son
that he is committed to raising and asks about Black’s per-
sonal life. Black makes the admission that he has not let
“nobody touch him” since that night on the beach with
Kevin in high school. Shocked and saddened, Kevin takes
Black in his arms and strokes his head gently as we return
to an image of Little at the edge of the ocean.

The Universal from the Specific

Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun and the first
African American female playwright to have a play produced on
Broadway, is quoted as saying: “I believe that one of the most sound
ideas in dramatic writing is that in order to create something uni-
versal, you must pay very great attention to the specific.”5 As stated
earlier, Barry Jenkins described Moonlight as a “hood-arthouse
­coming-of-age LGBT drama.” Whether he was partly joking or not,
his attempt to place this very distinctive film within preset indus-
try categories utterly fails. It fails because Moonlight doesn’t speak
to the unique mix of genres at play. The film does have elements
of hood, arthouse, coming-of-age, and LGBT themes, but signifi-
cantly those individual elements do not define it; the elements mix
to create a completely exceptional story. At the same time, the many
generic identifiers do tell us of some of the possible points of entry
5
Lorraine Hansberry, “Lorraine Hansberry discusses her play ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’” Studs Terkel
Radio Archive, WFMT Radio, Chicago, IL: WFMT, May 12, 1959, https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/
programs/lorraine-hansberry-discusses-her-play-raisin-sun.

6
 A D ifferent S hade of L ove

for audiences — in other words, some of the qualities that make

this film universal.
More so than classic Hollywood tradition, Jenkins has been
strongly influenced by international filmmakers from Asia, Europe,
and Latin America such as Hong Kong’s Wong Kar-wai (­Chungking
Express, In The Mood for Love), Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-Hsien, France’s
Claire Denis, Scotland’s Lynne Ramsey (Ratcatcher), and Argen-
tina’s Lucrecia Martel.6 For example, according to Chris O’Falt of
Indiewire, “The unique three-chapter approach Jenkins took in
Moonlight was directly inspired by Hou’s Three Times, in which
three romances —  stretching over 100 years —  feature the same
two actors.”7 Jenkins’ international influences speak to an open-
ness to different ways of not only viewing but also telling stories
through acknowledging and celebrating both the specificity of cin-
ematic experiences and the universality of emotion. O’Falt recounts:
Just ask Jenkins, who saw Wong’s Chungking Express as a young
film student and was immediately captivated. “I’d never really seen
a foreign film before; I wasn’t watching a lot of foreign films,” the
Moonlight director recalled in a 2016 video for Criterion. “I remem-
ber just being sucked in, and having a feeling of how big the world
was, but how small it was at the same time. Because I don’t speak
Mandarin or Cantonese, I’d never been outside of the state of Flor-
ida, and I’m watching this film, and I’m feeling all these things.”8

Adaptation and Ownership

For playwright Tarell McCraney, the author of “In Moonlight Black
Boys Look Blue,” the inspiration behind this story is autobiographi-
cal. The characters of Chiron, his mother Paula, and father figure
Juan are all based on McCraney’s own life, family, friends, and

6
Chris O’Falt, “Barry Jenkins’ ‘Moonlight’: See the Seven Foreign Films That Inspired the Oscar
Winner,” IndieWire, May 31, 2017, https://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/barry-jenkins-film-style-
wong-kar-wai-claire-denis-lynne-ramsay-1201834261/2/.
7
O’Falt, “See the Seven Foreign Films.”
8
Tyler Aquilina, “Why you should dive into the work of Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai,”
Entertainment Weekly, March 20, 2021, https://ew.com/movies/why-you-should-watch-films-of-
wong-kar-wai/.

7
DO THE R IGHT THING FULLER

foes. In other words, the subject matter is completely personal and

subjective.
McCraney thought about each aspect of the storytelling very
carefully. For example, in an article for Vice, Monica Uszerowicz
describes how choosing the name Chiron for the lead character was
an intentional reference to the Chiron of Greek mythology:
Chiron’s name is no coincidence. Deemed the Wounded Healer by
Carl Jung, Chiron the centaur is quite unlike his lusty brethren. The
calm hero trains Hercules and, upon receiving a fatal wound that
will never heal due to his inability to die, sacrifices his immortal-
ity, saving someone else. “There are parts of [Chiron] that will never
heal,” explains McCraney. “His job is to find ways to heal others. I
think it’s important, in understanding what we think of masculinity
— ­especially in the black community — to consider that when we
think of who’s been hurt, we often remember how they callous over,
not how they have ability to be generous.”9

Though McCraney’s story was originally conceived as a stage

play, McCraney’s friends believed it would make a great film and
that it was inherently cinematic. He wrote it quickly and kept it
short, resulting in just about sixty pages that “confronted his moth-
er’s decline, the brutality of the childhood bullying he experienced
— he was hit with bricks, lost several teeth — as well of moments
of grace he achieved with Blue (the real-life inspiration for the char-
acter Juan) and the transcendence of a solitary sexual encounter
with his only true childhood friend.”10 When the play reached Barry
Jenkins, it still needed a lot of work, but Jenkins has stated that he
thought he knew what McCraney “was going for” dramatically and
emotionally.
One might expect that McCraney would hesitate to hand over a
story that foregrounds the protagonist’s homosexuality to the straight
writer/director Barry Jenkins. But the two men had something else
9
Monica Uszerowicz, “‘Moonlight’ Story Writer Tarell Alvin McCraney on the Chaos That Is Memory,”
Vice, November 15, 2016, https://www.vice.com/en/article/nz4avz/moonlight-tarell-alvin-mccraney-
biographical-story.
10
Tim Adams, “Moonlight’s writer Tarell Alvin McCraney: ‘the story needed to be out there.’” The
Guardian, February 5, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/05/moonlight-writer-tarell-
alvin-mccraney-observer-interview.

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in common. Jenkins had also grown up in Liberty City, Miami (the

setting of the story), and was just a year above McCraney at elemen-
tary school, in fact, though the two never met. And this unexpected
background shared between McCraney and Jenkins turned out to
be more important to the playwright than the sexual orientation of
the film’s adapter.
There is now frequent discussion about who has the “right” to
tell a particular story, especially when that story is someone else’s.
The truth is that there are no simple answers to that question, as
this instance goes to show. The issue is not cut and dried, but rather
must be approached case by case, project by project, with a spirit of
respectful and creative collaboration at the forefront of the process.
In the end, Moonlight’s script was substantially reworked by Jenkins,
and ultimately McCraney felt that the film expressed all that he
wanted to say and more. In fact, at an awards ceremony in Toronto,
McCraney had an emotional moment with actor Mahershala Ali,
who played Juan. He recalled: “Mahershala was fixing my bow tie
backstage . . . and suddenly I started just weeping in his arms. He
must have thought I had lost my mind — which I probably had,
momentarily. I was back as a six-year-old kid: I think he found a
way to bring out something that I had not seen in so long.”11 This
is a touching tribute from the original storyteller to the adaptation
for the screen — quite an endorsement of the vision and execution
of writer/director Barry Jenkins.
It is critical to understand how film adaptations come about.
Material may spring from any source, and screenwriters should be
open to all avenues of acquisition. And though writers adapting
material may not be the original source, it’s more than possible
to find that personal connection to a story and make the adapta-
tion shine.

11
Adams, “Moonlight’s writer.”

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A Less Traditional Three-Act Structure

The most traditional structure in drama is the three-act structure.
Much has been written about the three-act structure, to an extent
that I hardly need to add my own explanation. However, a basic
understanding of this structure is essential for storytellers12:
The three acts of a book or script represent a beginning, a middle,
and an end. In most three-act stories, about 50 percent of the actual
storytelling occurs in the second act, with 25 percent of the story fall-
ing in the first act and 25 percent falling in the final act.
The first act typically starts with exposition — one or more
scenes that establish the world of the story. This act should also estab-
lish the ordinary world of the story’s main character. Before the act
is over, however, an inciting incident should occur — one that pulls
the protagonist out of their normal world and into the main action
of the story. The act concludes with some sort of turning point that
launches the action into act two.

Though the first scene features Juan and other drug dealers on
the streets of Liberty City, we almost immediately switch to Little
being chased by bullies out for blood. This is Little’s ordinary world,
where his rescuer Juan is a drug dealer and his hiding place a former
crack house — in other words, a hostile environment for a young
boy to grow up in.
The inciting incident occurs in a conversation that reveals Little’s
growing knowledge of the world outside of Juan’s house. Initially,
Juan and his girlfriend Teresa attempt to protect Little from not
only his environment, but also from his unstable and drug addicted
mother, Paula, in the hopes of creating a world of love and affec-
tion. But when Little asks what “faggot” means and if he is one,
the cruelty of the world comes into the caring domestic world
offered by Juan.
The final turning point in Act I is when Little follows up his
question about “faggots” with one that forces Juan to admits that he

12 T
he following explanations of the three-act structure are adapted from MasterClass.com: “How to
Write Three Act Structure,” accessed February 4, 2022, https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-
to-write-three-act-structure.

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is not only a drug dealer, but also a drug dealer who supplies Little’s
mother Paula with drugs. After that painful admission by Juan, Lit-
tle purposefully leaves Juan’s home, the only real home that he has
ever known, because his trust in Juan is broken. At that moment, in
that scene, Little has to grow up in his rejection of Juan’s deception.
A story’s middle act consists of a rising action that leads to a mid-
point, then devolves into a crisis. Act two will raise the stakes of
the protagonist’s journey. The second act typically ends with another
turning point that makes it seem as if the protagonist will fail. This
is sometimes called the “dark night of the soul.”

In act two, we discover that Juan has died and that a now teen-
aged Little is known as Chiron and is still being bullied relentlessly
at his high school. However, Chiron’s hope and trust shifts to Kevin,
a friend from childhood and currently his only friend in high school.
By the story’s midpoint, Chiron is fully immersed in his journey,
as depicted in the scene between him and Kevin at the beach when
their emotional and sexual connection is first made. The “dark night
of the soul” in Moonlight occurs the very next day in school when
Kevin is pressured by bullies into fighting Chiron, whose trust in
his newly found lover is broken. The following day builds on this
final turning point of act two when Chiron is taken away by police
for attacking the head bully, Terrel. At this moment, it seems as if
things couldn’t get any worse for our protagonist.
The third act begins with what’s known as a pre-climax. This con-
sists of events leading up to a climactic confrontation in which the
hero faces a point of no return: They must either prevail or perish.
This launches us into the actual climax. Finally, the story deescalates
in a denouement, where the events of the climax wind back down
into normal life.

Chiron, now a young adult, a drug dealer, is identified as Black

and trusts no one. However, when Kevin reaches out to Black, our
protagonist decides to reach back and visit his friend, who he has
not seen since high school. There, Black admits that he has not been
sexually (or emotionally) intimate with anyone since his high school

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encounter with Kevin. This is the actual climax of the story. The
denouement occurs when Black allows Kevin to physically comfort
him by gently stroking his head.
While the three-act structure is clear in Moonlight, it plays out
in the film in a most unusual way. In the first act, the character of
Little, played by ten-year-old Alex Hibbert, is introduced. In the
second act, a different actor portrays Chiron as he reaches a crisis
point in his teenage years. And in the third act, substantially imag-
ined by Jenkins, the adult Chiron has transformed himself into a
drug dealer named Black and is depicted by yet another actor. In a
review for The Observer, Tim Adams wrote: “Physically, the three
actors are very different, but Jenkins’ concentration on their interior
lives means that you don’t for a moment feel the disjunction.”13 The
first two acts are taken from the original play, but the third and final
act is a new creation by Barry Jenkins, a clear departure from the
reality of McCraney’s life (as he became a writer, not a drug dealer).
The foregrounding of the three acts using the different names and
ages of one character is a bold choice that could either take an audi-
ence out of the story, especially when the third act might be felt as a
separate piece, or draw them closer in. And yet, the interiority that
Adams so astutely noted ties that final piece together with the oth-
ers to tell a cohesive tale of a young man’s life.
The choice of the three-act structure and casting three differ-
ent actors in Moonlight isn’t the first high profile cinematic effort
to represent a protagonist with a number of different actors. For
example, in the 2007 film I’m Not There, six different actors play
six different aspects of the music icon Bob Dylan’s life and work.
Writer/director Todd Haynes took a creative risk that was in some
ways overshadowed by its unconventional casting (both male and
female actors played the male singer) and at times characterized as
a dramatic stunt. By contrast, Moonlight’s choice, rather than veer-
ing toward the sensational, actually unifies and expands the nature
of the story as memory and meditation so that it at once focuses
13
Adams, “Moonlight’s writer.”

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on one character and on a broader shift in representation of young,

urban, black males as a group. This approach, this creative choice,
helps elevate the film into the realm of high artistic skill.
Unlike how the story is framed in the synopsis, though, the film
doesn’t begin with a part one intertitle of “Little.” It begins instead
with the introduction of Juan and his first encounter with Little
in a prologue that precedes the naming of part one, particularly
interesting because this prologue not only establishes a primary and
definitive relationship in Chiron’s life, it also introduces the world
that Juan and Little exist in — one of drugs and violence, but also
of caring and nurturing. Viewers might expect that all these quali-
ties could not coexist in such a relatively short sequence, but they
do — and very memorably, as the time between Little and Juan
lasts only from the prologue through the first act but reverberates
throughout the entire film. It should also be noted that the jumps
in narrative at the two subsequent act breaks are consistent with the
first, the older version of the character appearing before the charac-
ter is “announced” with the intertitle of the name and part number.
In this way, the transitions move more smoothly, with a bridge of
sorts that prevents the act breaks from being too abrupt or poten-
tially becoming confusing.
Kevin appears in all three parts, as rescuer, friend, confidant,
and lover. Paula appears in all three segments as well, with mixed
characteristics. Basically, Paula’s relationship with Chiron is a subplot
(very important, but still a subplot), while Chiron’s relationship with
Kevin makes up the main plot. And I would argue that Chiron’s rela-
tionship with Juan is the most important subplot, even though Juan
is physically absent from the last two acts. Juan’s impact on Chiron’s
life is profound, as is clear in Part III when Chiron has made him-
self over physically to look like Juan in the same role of drug dealer.
Part one’s introduction of Chiron, in which he explains that he’s
called Little, is very significant in that we begin to understand this
is a world where identities are determined by others. The ordinary
world of the protagonist must be established right away in a script,

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first with character descriptions that are evocative but not too spe-
cific so as to limit casting choices. For example, Juan is described as
“30s, some sort of Afro-Latino thing about him,” Little as a “simi-
larly aged [to those chasing him] (adolescent, 12/13 years old) but
smaller, a runt.” At least in these two instances, the most distinctive
physical characteristics that the actors need to have — the things
that others would notice about them — are clearly stated.
The prologue further sets up the world of street drug deal-
ers and the danger lurking beneath the surface as Juan’s domain.
He’s the confident leader, but of a terrible enterprise. He initially
comes across as callous and heartless, especially to his underlings
and addicts, in a potentially stereotypical scene that audiences have
seen time and time again in the urban landscape. However, the film
switches to an adjacent scene, equally fraught with danger, that takes
its form in an all-out chase, with Little as the unfortunate target of
a group of toughs. The script description distinguishes this instance
of bullying as “not a game, more like a hunt.” Most cinematic chases
are saved for the second or sometimes third act, but we are still in
the prologue, the setup. Immediately, we are invested in this story
and shown the palpable terror of our young protagonist, as well as
the subsequent reassuring kindness of Juan that coaxes Little out of
the abandoned crack house where he finds temporary refuge. This
first meeting between Little and Juan begins the tender process that
allows the boy to begin to show trust and love.
There are a number of questions that need to be answered in
part two, in which Chiron is shown not in his ordinary world as
Little but fully immersed in the world of high school adolescence
after moving on from his childhood rescuer. And the answers to
these questions reveal Chiron’s vulnerability, his pain, and a loneli-
ness typical of a teenager who lacks any friends his own age. Will
Chiron return to Juan? Yes and no. He returns to Juan’s house, but
Juan has died. Will Chiron overcome the bullying at school, and
more specifically a bully named Terrel? Not really; he strikes out, but
must pay the price of incarceration as a juvenile delinquent. Will

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Chiron’s situation at home with his mother Paula get better? Not
in this act; his situation stays the same as in part one. Will Chiron
find at least one friend at school? Yes, and more, but it doesn’t last.
Chiron is intimate with Kevin but is also betrayed by him when
Kevin is pressured by bullies to beat Chiron up in a violent “game.”
Even though we begin the second act with several questions, and
even though they are all answered to some extent, the overarching
and most urgent question is whether Chiron will find someone to
love and trust. The main plot of this act concerns only the friend-
ship, attraction, intimacy, and betrayal between Chiron and Kevin.
Traditionally, act two introduces a romantic subplot for the protago-
nist. However, Chiron’s same-sex romantic longing for Kevin is not
merely a subplot, it exists at the center of his maturation and sense
of well-being. The rising action in part two introduces Kevin as a
love object, someone Chiron has known since he was Little, and
now someone who is described in the screenplay as being a “smooth-
as-hell-looking teen.” The midpoint dramatizes both the emotional
and physical intimacy between the teen boys. It is a rare moment of
safety and tenderness that is effectively framed between the numer-
ous attacks, taunts, and intimidation by the school bullies. We end
the act with Chiron striking out, fighting back against his main tor-
mentor Terrel, but the win is momentary when he pays the heavy
price of juvenile incarceration. Chiron doesn’t win in love or war.
But we empathize with his attempts to assert his needs and strength.
Part three begins with a resolution of a subplot even more
important in the screenplay than in the finished film: the relation-
ship between Chiron (now called Black) and his mother, and his
forgiveness of her. He visits her in rehab, and she tells him that she
is sorry for the way she treated him, that she loves him, but that
he doesn’t have to love her back after all that she’s done. But most
importantly, Paula addresses the issue of trust with Black in a way
that allows the subplot to reflect back on the questions of the main
plot: “I am your mother, ain’t I? You can talk to me if you want to?
Or at least somebody, you got to trust somebody, you hear?” This is

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still the central question for our protagonist: Will he find someone
that he can love and trust?
Another subplot comes full circle through Black, who has become
exactly what he walked away from with Juan: a drug dealer. But the
difference could be Kevin, and the fact that Black drives from his new
home in Atlanta, Georgia, back to Florida to see him. Kevin does not
approve of Black’s pushing drugs and reveals that he’s been married
and has a child. The conversation between them is a bit awkward, but
the subtext is of two men who have a great deal of love and affection
for one another. A key moment of the story is when Black admits that
he has never been intimate with anyone since Kevin. This both shows
that Black hasn’t let himself care for anyone since Kevin and that he
has continued caring for Kevin over the years. The climax addresses
the question of whether Black, in the new version of himself, can even
be reached emotionally, whether he can love and trust again. This is
where the screenplay and film significantly diverge. As laid out in
the script, Kevin and Black make love in the dark, the audience only
able to hear them. In the finished film, Kevin takes Black and gently
strokes his head. Each ending is somewhat open, but both the script
and film versions answer that yes: Black’s emotional and physical vul-
nerability is reawakened in this meeting with Kevin.
In many ways, the film version speaks more to Black’s entire
journey, as Little, Chiron, and Black, as Kevin’s gesture almost
evokes a sense of giving comfort to a child. And so the resolution
or denouement that rests in the lyrical final image of Little at the
edge of the ocean makes complete sense. It harkens back to the time
when Black as Little from the opening act was fully open and capa-
ble of trusting and loving, especially in the moonlight.

Naming and Identity

One of the more distinctive elements of Moonlight is the act of
naming — or perhaps a better way to put it is the act of being
named — as both a structural element and character trait. Chiron’s
self-introduction is telling in the way that it’s worded:

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LITTLE: My name Chiron. (and) But people

call me Little.
TERESA: I’m gon’ call you by your name.
Little shrugs.

The disconnect for Chiron between his given name and what
the people in his world call him is clear, his identity lying somewhere
in between, somewhere unknown. And the shrug that is indicated
in the script is proof that he has given up, at least momentarily, on
asserting himself even on something as basic as his name.
In a subsequent scene with Juan, Little comments that he rec-
ognizes Juan’s name as Spanish but is confused by his father figure’s
African American appearance:
LITTLE: Okay . . . why your name Juan?
JUAN: How you mean?
LITTLE: Juan is like a Spanish name. (and
after a thought) But you black just like
me.

This amuses Juan, who then uses this moment to teach Little
about the fact that “it’s black people everywhere, you remember
that, okay?” and also explains that he himself is from Cuba. But
that scene also goes even further into the act of being named by
others. This time, a nickname comes from an old lady Juan knew
when he was a little boy in Cuba. Juan recalls: “Then she smiled
and she say, ‘Running around catching up all this light. In moon-
light,’ she say, ‘black boys look blue. You blue,’ she say. ‘That’s
what I’m gone call you: Blue.’” Juan and Little’s conversation about
Juan’s given name inspires Juan to become a benevolent teacher
about his race and share the story about his nickname, Blue, from
a personal childhood memory, indicating a growing vulnerabil-
ity and strong identification with Little. In other words, the act
of being named in these instances reveals character as well as the
nature of relationships.

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DO THE R IGHT THING FULLER

In fact, one of the most powerful and memorable scenes that

involves naming comes at the end of part one through a major plot
point, a loss of innocence that moves Little into the next phase of
his young life:
LITTLE: What’s a faggot?
JUAN: A faggot is . . . a word used to make
gay people feel bad.
LITTLE: Am I a faggot?
JUAN: No. You’re not a faggot. (and) You
can be gay, but . . . you don’t have to let
nobody call you a faggot.

It is important to note here that Jenkins’ prior characterization

of Juan as both black and Cuban as well as Little as black and gay
effectively introduce the concept of intersectionality. People rarely
identify with only one characteristic, but rather as a combination of
personal traits and qualities. The most successful characterizations
in film often offer depictions where multiple identities intersect in
unexpected ways (such as the Asian female martial artists in Crouch-
ing Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000), in addition to other qualities that
make them more complex and multidimensional). And in rejecting
the name “faggot” on Little’s behalf, acknowledging Little’s multiple
identities, Juan gives voice to an expression of love between the two.
However, this leads to another question about Juan being a drug
dealer (an additional aspect of his identity) and Little’s mom being
on drugs. Little puts these two things together as if for the first
time and leaves his surrogate parent’s home with the painful truth
in another major turning point. He is growing up and away from
Juan. The next time we see Little, he is no longer Little but Chiron
the teenager, and Juan is dead.
When Chiron returns to Juan’s house at the beginning of part
two, he and Teresa spar about his name. Initially, she calls him Chi-
ron. Yet in conversation she refers to him as Little, almost as if
nostalgic for their shared past with Juan, to which he responds,

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“Don’t call me that.” Teresa jokes that he’s “grown now” so the name
doesn’t fit anymore, but that he has to earn the right to be something
different with a new name. She says, “You gotta make your name
true, understand?” This scene functions as a bridge between the
first two acts of the story, helping the viewers shift their focus from
Little and Juan to Chiron and Kevin. In fact, the last scene before
the part two intertitle introducing Chiron shows Kevin becoming
a more dominant character, as indicated by introducing another
name for Chiron, affectionately calling him “Black” when he says
goodbye at school.
Nicknames work to great dramatic effect to reveal how charac-
ters feel about themselves or identify, as well as how characters feel
about one another. Because Chiron says Little is what “they” call
him when we first hear that name, it’s clear how Chiron feels about
that name. “They” refers to everyone in the community who doesn’t
see him for who he is. Similarly, Juan shares how he got the nick-
name Blue through a story about his childhood in Cuba when he
was just a boy like Little. The nickname reveals the title of the play
on which the movie was based, as mentioned, but more than this,
Juan is sharing that he, too, was named by others. And sometimes,
Juan calls Little “lil’ man,” as when teaching him how to swim, for
encouragement and strength.
But Kevin’s nickname for Chiron, “Black,” confuses him. Chi-
ron even asks at one point why Kevin keeps calling him that. Kevin
explains simply that it’s his nickname for Chiron, not really explain-
ing at all. “You don’t like it?” he asks. Chiron responds with a simple
shrug. It seems like another instance of being named by someone
else, but it is qualitatively different because Kevin cares whether
Chiron likes it or not. In this way, Kevin seems to be offering a nick-
name rather than imposing an identity, like the community did with
Little. Ultimately, as noted in the script, Chiron accepts the name
Kevin gave him and even has a vanity license plate with the name
“Black.” This license plate is also an indication that even though he
would at first glance appear to have moved on in the third act, he

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is still very much attached to Kevin and appreciates that Kevin gave
him a name and an identity that suits him.

Upending Urban Stereotypes

The setting of Moonlight is very unique, particularly in the context
of other urban African American male coming-of-age film represen-
tations. Moonlight does contain elements of the archetypal urban
landscape, with its inclusion of pervasive poverty, neglect, crimi-
nal activity, and drug use. And yet, the specificity of Liberty City, a
low-rise housing project in north Miami, contributes to the unusual
elements, such as brightly painted homes that capture the feel of the
1980s. In fact, Barry Jenkins, after being questioned about recreating
the economically depressed look of the projects at that time, states
how this wasn’t difficult at all because “it still looks exactly the same
now.”14 Usually the idea of the city of Miami conjures up images
of glamorous beaches with much wealth and generally opulent sur-
roundings, which stands in stark contrast to the poverty-stricken
housing project in Liberty City depicted here, a location that both
Tarell McCraney and Barry Jenkins know very well. Tarell McCraney
in an interview from Deadline reflects:
Barry’s only nine months older than me so we’re in the same schools
at the same time. We were certainly under the same moon, so the
same moon that I was talking to as a kid was shining on him playing
football in the same lot that I was running away from bullies. A lot of
other mothers were suffering from addiction pretty much at the same
time that we were both living in the same projects three blocks away.15

McCraney’s mention of talking to the moon as a kid when he

describes his life in Liberty City perhaps was an indication of things
to come with this project, where key moments in the narrative and,
of course, the title refer back to the transformative power of moon-
light. Jenkins uses an exceptional combination of elements (both

14
Adams, “Moonlight’s writer.”
15
Amanda N’Duka, “Tarell Alvin McCraney on ‘Moonlight’s’ Message: “I Think People Were Hungry
for That,” Deadline, February 17, 2017, https://deadline.com/2017/02/tarell-alvin-mccraney-moon-
light-barry-jenkins-a24-oscars-interview-1201915105.

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emotional and material) taken from an impoverished community;

the natural beauty of the moonlight and the ocean in particular is
accessible to all, regardless of income level or social status. The char-
acters in Moonlight are drawn to the “endless stretch” of the ocean.
It’s where Juan gently teaches Little how to swim (and trust) by hav-
ing him float on top of the water as he holds and guides him. After
Juan and Little sit on the shore and talk, the description notes “the
moon making its first appearance on the horizon — sound of the
waves running back and forth, to and from shore.”
The vivid description of the setting in the screenplay suggests the
overwhelming splendor of nature in the face of so much hardship
for these characters. In this way, Moonlight breaks with the stereo-
typical cinematic depiction of a relentlessly claustrophobic urban
setting made of concrete, where any element of nature is suppressed
or withheld. So, too, does the scene of intimacy between Kevin
and Chiron break the typical depiction of urban African American
males. The natural beauty of the moonlight, ocean, and beach all
conspire to create a most romantic setting for the couple. The very
distinctive setting adds a welcome dimension and respite from the
more familiar elements of the drug-filled neighborhood that allow
Chiron no rest, no joy.

Symbolism
Symbolism is used to great effect in Moonlight to establish or rein-
force character traits, reveal relationships, and provide powerful
metaphors at key points in the plot. Some incorrectly think sym-
bolism is just a literary device, not to be used in screenplays, but
Moonlight makes it clear this is not the case. Films can be filled with
symbolism that seeks to immerse the audience more deeply into the
narrative. For example, the element of food appears at particular dra-
matic moments in the film to tell us more about what characters are
needing and giving. In the scene with Juan and Little at the first res-
taurant they visit together, a local diner, Juan tries to find out more
about this young stranger who he rescued — his name and where he

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lives, to begin with — as he voraciously eats his meal. The descrip-

tion reflects the depths of Little’s hunger:
Little just eating, not a single care in
the world but this meal.
JUAN: You not gon’ tell me what you’ name
is?
Nothing. Little finishing a drumstick,
dips a biscuit into the gravy there. He’s
hungry.
Unsuccessful, Juan finally pulls Little’s tray of food away from
him to try and get him to talk, but he immediately apologizes when
he sees Little reaction “just looking down at the empty table before
him.” Juan suddenly understands the depth of his hunger and the
neglect of a child’s basic needs. His dramatic response is about much
more than food. It’s indicative of Little’s past and present state of
mind and body.
Not coincidentally, Kevin has become a cook in Part III, a mas-
ter of what Black hungers for in more ways than one. When he
offers to fix him a meal, “a chef ’s special,” he is offering much more
than food; he is offering a gift of affection and love. Just as with Juan
and Teresa, Black accepts and cleans his plate. By now we know his
hunger is both internal and external, extending to both body and
heart. How appropriate that the scene right after we first meet Little
running away, he is eating ravenously. And so, with the final scene
he consumes a meal made especially just for him. In both cases, he
is cared for and nurtured through food.
Water is also a crucial element and symbol of rebirth, self-care,
and communion. The swimming scene with Juan in the ocean could
be said to be a rebirth of Little. Juan guides Little almost as if he
were an infant, with great gentleness and care. The image of Juan
holding Little in the water has become iconic and representative of
the closeness and trust in the relationship between these two char-
acters. This moment is recalled in the final image of the film of
young Little going into the ocean alone, though not before we see

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 A D ifferent S hade of L ove

his gaze of openness and trust, a gift from Juan. The final moment
is described in the screenplay thusly:
Little turning from us, his form and
movement slowly, steadily melding into the
flow of light and waves as he heads out
into the ocean and we . . . FADE TO BLACK.

The ocean in this moment is love, which Little first learned to

experience at that time in his life, and because this image comes after
his encounter with the adult Kevin, we see how the later experience
reflects that love, signaling both depth and endless possibilities.
Earlier in the film, Little gives himself a bath using dishwashing
liquid. The scene is an extended one, showing how Little methodi-
cally gets hot water from a five-gallon pot on the stove and then
pours it into a bathtub that’s already about a quarter filled with
water. His movements are sure and solitary. We can tell that he has
had to do this many times, taking care of himself when his mother
is unavailable because of drugs. This scene underscores Little’s peace-
ful feeling in the water and yet contrasts the scene with Juan because
here Little seems so alone.
Finally, the water provides both the subject leading up to and
the backdrop for Kevin and Chiron’s sexual encounter. They talk
about how good the ocean breeze feels, how they can sometimes
feel it in the hood, how everybody there just wants to feel it. The
sound of the ocean is indicated in the screenplay as important for
the seductive nature of the scene. It calls for the “sound of the ocean,
sound of the wind running through the reeds, the night.” The waves
moving in and out also provide an externalized emotional push and
pull for their first intimate encounter. It is the dominant element of
this memorable scene in which the two are overtaken by their own
emotional and physical natures as well as by the surrounding sensa-
tions of this natural environment.
There is so much at work in this film that comes together to
make the origin story profoundly deeper and richer through the

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DO THE R IGHT THING FULLER

inventive use of story structure (particularly the choice of a fore-

grounded three-act structure), unusual settings (for an urban drama),
and impactful symbolism. These elements produce a story that needs
to be told, that adds to our understanding of humanity in an inno-
vative and untraditional way. It’s diverse not only in the choice of
subject matter of an underrepresented group and the layering of
diverse identities but also in the creative ways that the story was
realized. And we are all the better for witnessing the end product.

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A BOU T T HE AU T HOR

K arla Rae Fuller, MFA, PhD, is currently

an Associate Professor in the department
of Cinema and Television Arts at Columbia
College Chicago, where she teaches Cinema
Studies and Screenwriting to undergraduates
and MFA students. She received her PhD from
Northwestern University, MFA from Colum-
bia University in New York City, and BA from Amherst College.
Prior to teaching at Columbia College, Fuller held the posi-
tion of Director of Feature Film Evaluation at Vestron Inc., which
produced the hit movie Dirty Dancing. She was also a freelance
script reader for New Line Cinema, Miramax, and other produc-
tion companies.
Her research interests include racial and ethnic representa-
tion in Hollywood films, postwar Japanese cinema, and authorship
studies. She has presented her work at film and media conferences
both nationally and internationally and published in numerous film
journals. Fuller has published an essay in the anthology Classic Hol-
lywood, Classic Whiteness on the representation of the Japanese in
Hollywood films during World War II.
Her book Hollywood Goes Oriental: CaucAsian Performance
in American Film was released by Wayne State University Press in
2010. She edited and introduced Ang Lee: Interviews, a compilation
of interviews of award-winning director Ang Lee published by the
University Press of Mississippi in 2016, with Korean and Chinese
translations published in 2019 and 2022, respectively.

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