Moonlight (2016) depicts the life of Chiron, a young black male, in three parts: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Color and costume is used to show the development of Chiron’s perceptions of identity throughout his life.

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The main colors throughout the first part, “Little”, are blue, red and white. Little is first shown wearing a white uniform shirt and a blue backpack. The white represents innocence and the blue straps show his potential for power, which Juan, Little’s newfound mentor, sees as a reflection of himself at that age. Juan himself is wearing a patterned shirt with various colors during their first meeting, showing Little’s confusion about Juan’s identity (Jenkins 4:17-5:31). Red is also an important color and represents violence. This color is seen when Little and Kevin first interact. Little is in a red shirt and Kevin is in a blue button-down. The two wrestle, showing Little’s internal struggle with seeing power as something that one must achieve through violent means (Jenkins 14:36-15:08).

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In the second chapter, Chiron is dressed in a yellow, white, and blue button-down shirt over a white t-shirt. By wearing the button-down shirt over it, Chiron is trying to hide the innocent part of himself. The yellow represents transition and it couples with the blue and white to show his wish to transform from innocent to powerful. After his orgasmic encounter with Kevin, Chiron wears a white polo shirt with blue stripes which shows his comfort with himself, but it is soon stained with red as Kevin, dressed in all blue, attacks him (Jenkins 1:01:52-1:02:43). This proves to Chiron that power is achieved through violence and leads him to attack Terrel the next day, dressed in a similar blue polo shirt with a white t-shirt poorly hidden underneath (Jenkins 1:04:57-1:05:29). 

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The third chapter, “Black”,  focuses on the titular color in terms of Chiron’s costume. Black, in and of itself, is not truly a color but instead an absence of color. In the movie, Chiron uses black as armor, representing the walls he has built around himself since his youth. The first time Chiron wears anything other than black is when seeing his mother, while dressed in a navy blue polo shirt as he is trying to assert that she does not have power over him anymore— he is the one who holds the power now. However, the white name tag on his chest tells a different story, suggesting that Chiron is still innocent at heart (Jenkins 1:17:06-1:21:06). Chiron changes to meet with Kevin and wears a faded black shirt with a gold chain (Jenkins 1:22:15-1:23:01). The gold, like the yellow, signifies that a transformation is about to occur within Chiron. The faded black shirt also shows that his walls are crumbling, due to the emotional turmoil that brews inside of him after seeing Kevin again. After Kevin holds Chiron at the end of the movie while wearing blue, there is a shot of “Little” standing at the beach in white shorts, signifying that he is finally at peace with knowing that innocence and power can coexist (Jenkins 1:45:57-1:46:29). 

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Overall, the way Chiron perceives his identity throughout the movie is directly related to his costume and the colors he wears. A lot of his adolescence was spent trying to hide his innocence and appear powerful, but even as an adult he could not put up enough armor to hide his true self. He ended the movie feeling at peace with his identity.