Barry Jenkins, the director of the gay
drama Moonlight, told Reuters that Donald Trump is too “dense”
to understand race relations and LGBT rights.
In Moonlight, which Jenkins
wrote and directed, Trevante Rhodes plays an African-American man who
struggles to come out gay over three periods of his life while
growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.
Jenkins told Reuters that the antidote
to America's racial issues is greater awareness and visibility of the
types of people depicted in his film.
“If we had more representations like
this [in film], I think we might not be as far apart on some of these
issues as we find ourselves right now,” Jenkins
said.
“If there's any disconnect amongst
citizens in my country right now is the fact that we don't see each
other often enough. And [when] we don't see each other often enough,
we create interpretations … of who we think these people are.”
“You know, there's a candidate
running for president right now who probably doesn't know anybody
like the people he disparages quite often. I think if he could
actually see them … Well, him, he's very dense, so maybe if he saw
them it wouldn't matter, but I do think we need to fill the vacuum of
these people we talk about but don't actually really know,” he
added.