Culture

The Teens Done Good: This ‘Moonlight’ Smooch Won “Best Kiss” At The MTV Movie Awards

"Moonlight winning best kiss is important for all types of reasons."

by Matilda Dixon-Smith  8 May 2017
MTV Movie Awards

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Never let it be said kids these days aren’t tuned in. At this year’s MTV Movie Awards, a people’s choice awards ceremony voted for by MTV’s largely teenage audience, the youths are making some impressively woke selections.

The coveted award for “Best Kiss” — which in the past has gone to on-screen couples like Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling (The Notebook), and to Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (the Twilight saga) for a disturbing four-year consecutive run — has this year been awarded to Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome for their tender smooch in Oscar winner Moonlight.

Let’s start with the obvious: that beach pash is EVERYTHING. Seriously, my brain is broken just looking at it.

The heart-wrenching Moonlight pivots around this formative moment in the lives of young Chiron (Ashton Sanders) and Kevin (Jharrel Jerome), who share a kiss and a feverish hand job on a neon-soaked beach together. Moonlight, which won the Best Picture Oscar in a controversial switcheroo announcement at this year’s ceremony, tells the story of Chiron’s sexual awakening and journey to hyper-masculinity in three parts. The film has been praised by many for its depiction of the awakening of a gay black man, an underserved subject in the media.

In the actors’ acceptance speech, they praised the Best Kiss win as “bigger than [themselves]… this is for those that feel like the others, the misfits”.

It seems the viewership at MTV certainly understand the story’s significance. The win for Sanders and Jerome isn’t just praise for their stunning performances; it’s also a celebration of Moonlight‘s radical subject via an award that generally goes to straight, white on-screen smoochers.

Twitter understands as well as the MTV audience how important this win is:

Something else of note: the MTV Movie Awards have just been made “gender-neutral”, meaning they are the first genderless acting awards to be presented in the history of awards shows. So far two women have taken the crowns for “Best Performance”: Emma Watson for the film Beauty and the Beast, and Millie Bobby Brown for the Netflix series Stranger Things.

Watson was up against Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Hugh Jackman (Logan), Hailee Steinfeld (The Edge of Seventeen), Taraji P. Henson (Hidden Figures) and James McAvoy (Split). She used her victory speech to praise gender-neutral awards categories, explaining “MTV’s move to create a genderless award for acting will mean something different to everyone. But to me, it indicates that acting is about the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. And that doesn’t need to be separated into two different categories.”

Watson’s award was presented by Billions star Asia Kate Dillon — the first openly non-binary actor on television, who has recently challenged traditional awards categories for their gender exclusivity. Watson, ever the congenial winner, thanked Dillon specially, gushing, “Thank you for educating me in such an inclusive, patient, and loving way.”

Maybe MTV can give lessons to the other awards shows on how to remain relevant in 2017?