A Reparative Reading of the Atlantic Ocean in Moonlight

Abstract: This essay argues that Barry Jenkins's Moonlight (2016) is a reparative text about surfaces by specifically drawing attention to the Atlantic Ocean as a site of radical possibility. Jenkins offers a reparative framework to study how the film interrogates the harmful stereotypes about Black people on water by offering the ocean as a zone of surface contact. The film centers Black self-realization through intimacy and knowledge formation in the surface of the water to challenge stereotypes about Black bodies on water and on film. A reparative reading of the Atlantic Ocean offers an opportunity to revisit this surface characterized by traumatic histories of the Transatlantic slave trade and to challenge discursive violence by inserting Black joy and the process of becoming into the world. The essay first examines the many meanings and manifestations of surfaces. Second, it explores the significance of Black bodies on water. The essay then moves to discuss contact zones and their relevance for reparative studies. Finally, the essay proposes a general reflection on how film and media studies is generative for reparative readings of Black people and histories on surfaces.