Task 7

There have been numerous amounts of studies addressing the issues on the representation of women in media, leading to findings of countless evidence of stereotypical and narrow roles which play on effect the audiences perception of gender. However, the issues concerning representations of men in the media and research for it is limited and hasn't gained analysis to raise a generalised conclusion. This study will explore how different masculinity are presented, in award-winning movie 'Moonlight' dir. by Barry Kenkins, and measure the extent of "hypermasculinity-exaggerated and marginalised masculine qualities". Lughey states that ‘‘Ethnic minorities are continually misrepresented by racial (and racist) stereotypes.” which 'Moonlight' tries to do by subverting mages typically seen in film about Black men and the communities, but, Jenkins also reinforces these stereotypical scenes as stereotypes which can be "true and positive" (Perkins) are able to picture a realistic representation of people. This essay will go onto to explore the portrayal of the no-typical homosexual Black men seen in the movie referencing the hyper masculine images formed of Black males in Blaxloitation films and how such traits have been used for to create generic Black male roles and such movies focusing on the coming of age of a gay Black man are dissimilar in the face of a mainstream white Hollywood film. This study will also look at 'Queer Theory' and how this can be applied to 'Moonlight' as the theory would state how "representations of sexuality in mainstream pop culture continues to rampantly homosexual" which can be applied to the movie but does having a gay man directing change this view and depictions of a Gay Black man. Thus, this essay will outline complexities of the Black male image in film and using 'queer theory' to show the extent of subversion of hyper masculinity in 'Moonlight'.