FANS – Moonlight

“Fandom also constituted a kind of reading formation with its own reception norms that shaped what kinds of interpretations were seen as meaningful or valuable” (Ouellette & Gray 66).

When reading this quote from the keywords reading, I thought about the opinions that tend to go against the opinions of the those in any particular fandom. For example, with the film Moonlight, there were many people that enjoyed the movie, but there are also many people who did not like the basis of the storyline, which is a young Black man struggling with his sexuality and emotions in a toxic environment, specifically the hood of Miami, Florida. Those who are “anti-Moonlight” have their own ideas of norms of sexuality and masculinity, specifically in regards to Black men, and did not regard the importance of the topics discussed in the film.

I came across a video on YouTube of a Black man giving his personal review of the film. In the video, he refers to the movie as “gay shit” and discusses how it “makes [him] sick.” I used both of these clips from the video and a couple other clips, as the YouTuber discusses his feelings towards the movie being “gay” and not “masculine” enough in comparison to films such as the 2016 film The Birth of a Nation  about Nat Turner’s rebellion. I used instant replay and slo mo on some of the parts from the YouTube review, along with overlapping some of the audio from the video with clips from Moonlight that I had previously edited (rewind, slo mo, etc.). I felt this not only gave more of an effect to the content of the YouTube video, but also to the clips from Moonlight.