Barry Jenkins Gets Annoyed By Claims That ‘Moonlight’ Won Best Picture Because it Was a ‘Black Film’

The 2017 Oscars will forever live in infamy for the moment when “La La Land” was mistakenly announced as the Best Picture victor over actual winner “Moonlight.”

Appearing on an episode of the “Jemele Hill Is Unbothered” podcast, Jenkins recalls the terrifying experience of having to deal with accepting the Oscar after the ‘La La’ blunder. However, more intriguingly, is Jenkins’ biggest issue with the gaffe, that it kickstarted the narrative that “Moonlight” only won Best Picture because the Academy wanted to honor a Black film.

“In a slightly sinister way, the fuck-up confirms or affirms some people’s unsavory thoughts about why the film was awarded Best Picture,” the filmmaker said. “If you did the blind taste test of films and wrote down all the accolades this film achieved that year, whether it be the ratings, the reviews, all of these things, [then ‘Moonlight’ wins]. If we were at the NFL Combine, and I tell you, ‘This player has these measures and was drafted number one,’ you wouldn’t doubt it at all. And yet, when you get into ‘Oh, it’s because it was the Black film’…it’s like no, motherfucker. We ran a [4.2 second 40-yard dash], and we ran it barefoot because we didn’t have the benefits of all that private school Academy training.”

And yet, back in 2018 Spike Lee said the opposite — that “Moonlight” won not because “it was the Black film”, but because of an organizational need to refute #OscarsSoWhite. I agree, and I repeat, it is absolutely not a coincidence that Jenkins’ film, about a gay African-American man, was praised to the high heavens by critics and won the Oscar for Best Picture just a year after the #OscarsSoWhite movement occurred. You’d be a fool not to agree with that. The zeitgeist opened up and was Jenkins’ for the taking.

My own thoughts on “Moonlight” remain the same, five years later, and with a few more rewatches in the bank; The first two acts of the film are invigorating, and uncompromising, as they give eyes to the story of a young, shy, black kid that is looking for individual acceptance in a world where there is none to be found. However, this sets us up for a third act that fails to deliver on the promise that was built up in the film's first 70 or so minutes.

Now a drug dealer with an overtly muscular build and gold grillz, the vicious circle of black angst has been set for Chiron. After doing time in prison, Chiron has now become a big, muscular drug dealer, very much in the same way as Juan, his childhood father figure, whom he more than passingly resembles now. The way Jenkins delivered the transition felt almost too facile and his approach none-too-subtle. In the end, “Moonlight” fell flat and didn't deliver on its first two acts. Instead of being this deep, heartfelt resolution, “Moonlight” ended up feeling contrived and empty.