Summary
Juan returns home one night, finding Little sitting in his backyard, refusing to go home again. Juan takes Little to the beach and teaches him how to swim, letting him struggle and succeed at keeping his head above water.
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Afterward, Juan explains to Little that he’s from Cuba; black people live everywhere, he says, and they were the first on the planet. Juan admits he was wild as a kid, just like Little. He recounts one night of play with his peers, when an old woman nearby told him that “in the moonlight, black boys look blue,” giving him the nickname “Blue.” Little asks if Juan’s name is “Blue,” but Juan says no. He explains that, at some point, a man has to decide who he’s going to be for himself.
Once again, Juan takes Little home to a furious Paula; this time, she has a boyfriend at the house. The boyfriend halfheartedly attempts to connect with Little, but Paula drags him into her bedroom, leaving Little alone.
In dance class at school, Little seems to unwind and enjoy himself. In secret, a few boys—including Kevin—meet at school, comparing penis size and shape. Little enters the room, and one boy expresses annoyance that Chiron was able to get in. Kevin swears he thought the door was locked.
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Little comes home from school to find his TV gone. He heats a pot of water as large as him on the stove and pours it into his bathtub, along with blue dish soap. He takes a bath.
One night, Juan pulls up to the same corner on which we met him, approaching Terrence to ask him about business again. Juan sees a parked car nearby and seems annoyed by its brazenness. He approaches and realizes that Paula and her boyfriend are inside, smoking crack openly. Paula, high, gets out of the car and sarcastically asks Juan if he’s going to raise her son while continuing to sell her crack. She lights a pipe full of crack and blows the smoke into Juan’s face. “Don’t give me that ‘you gotta be gettin’ it from somewhere’ shit, nigga,” she tells him. “I’m gettin’ it from you.”
Juan seems affected by this, and Paula continues laying on the guilt. She asks if Juan plans on telling Little why he walks differently or why the boys at school beat him up, implying that he’s gay.
Later that night, Little stares at Paula as she yells at him, bathed in the pink light from her room. Even as she yells, we hear no sound and watch her in slow motion.
At Juan’s house, there is a knock at the door. Juan comes to the door carrying a gun and peeks out from his window, relaxing when he sees that it’s Little. At the dinner table, Juan tells Little he saw Paula the previous night. Little answers that he hates his mother, and Juan agrees that he also hated his mother when he was young, but misses her now.
Little asks Juan and Teresa, “What’s a faggot?” and asks if he is one. Juan and Teresa answer that it is a cruel word to call gay people, and that he doesn’t have to know if he’s gay yet. Little then asks if Juan sells drugs, to which Juan answers that he does. Little asks if Paula does drugs, and Juan answers yes. Little nods, seemingly upset, and leaves.
Analysis
As we watch Chiron’s relationships to the various adults in his life deepen in this section, we are introduced to themes of fatalism and identity, which run through the veins of the entire film. This is made clear especially in Paula’s poignant words to Juan during their confrontation in the street, where she implicates him in her own addiction, saying, “Don’t give me this ‘you gotta be gettin’ it from somewhere’ shit, nigga. I’m getting it from you.” In doing so, she introduces the notion that Juan is personally responsible for hurting Little even as he serves as his role model, a powerful outlook on how individuals in the film help and harm each other at the same time. In the grand scheme of the film, nearly every character shares this moral ambiguity, including Chiron himself. Although Juan tells Little he has to decide who he plans to be on his own, we also feel Juan, Teresa, and Paula shaping him into a young man.
Indeed, one of the everlasting images of the film comes in the form of Juan helping Chiron learn how to swim in the ocean. The sound of waves will also provide the aural imagery that haunts Chiron well into his adult life, rhyming as it does with his night with Kevin on the beach in the next chapter, “Chiron.” Water will also serve as a symbol of redemption and cleansing in the film, whose characters often seek forgiveness for injuring each other physically and/or emotionally.
We are also introduced to one of the film’s major themes, the vulnerability and beauty of the black body, in this section. Juan teaches Little to be proud of being black as they sit on the beach, telling him, “No place you can go in the world ain’t got no black people. We was the first on this planet.” Later, Juan tells the story of the time an old woman gave him the nickname “Blue” because “in moonlight, black boys look blue.” Embedded in these statements are pride in the beauty of the black body, but also the fragility of such a body in the context of 1980s Liberty City. We also consider the particular vulnerability of the male black body in this section when Little’s male peers at school compare penis size.
Tied into such fragility is the motif of the color blue, which seems built into the notion of black skin here. Of course, Juan directly refers to the color after he teaches Chiron to swim, admitting that it used to be his nickname. Juan seems to consider this name a symbol of his soft side, adding that he shed the name so he could forge his own harder identity. Chiron aspires to capture such softness, however, when he uses blue dish soap to draw a blue bath for himself. Jenkins’ portrait of Miami likewise dwells on the color blue and “Miami teal,” portraying it as an alive yet decaying, or soft yet hard, place for Little to grow up.
Color as a whole is intensely connected to character in this section, where each color seems to work as a leitmotif symbolizing a particular character or set of characters. The color blue, for example, is a symbol of black male vulnerability and beauty. On the other hand, pink and red seem to embody Paula’s temper and frustrated love for her son. This comes most poignantly in the image of her yelling at Little in slow motion, imagery that will haunt Chiron into adulthood.
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