I Saw the TV Glow (2024): A Tale of Transition
I Saw the TV Glow is an experimental, horror film that has audiences facing and exploring their identities. A personal tale of gender dysphoria, the film is heartbreaking and bizarre. Gabe talks about Owen's struggles with their identity, zipping yourself back up to conform to society, and why the sad ending isn't an ending at all. Kat talks about the millennial struggle for identity, how a generation raised by TV saw themselves on screen, and that it's not too late to find yourself.
Sources in this Episode:
Jane Schoenbrun's twisty horror film I Saw The TV Glow evokes trans adolescence in hazy 90s suburbia
Other Reading:
Media from this week's episode:
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
Two teenagers bond over their love of a supernatural TV show, but it is mysteriously canceled.
Directed by Jane Schoenbrun
I Saw the TV Glow: Leaving the Midnight Realm & the Infinite Battle Against Mr. Melancholy
by gabe castro
RED: Quotes, someone else's words.
Synopsis
Owen, a young, middle school boy meets the moody, mysterious Maddy during election night in 1996. He quickly bonds with this girl over a monster-of-the-week, sci-fi/horror series, The Pink Opaque about two girls who battle against monsters sent by the villainous Mr. Melancholy. Reminiscent of Are You Afraid of the Dark and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the series feels nostalgic and haunting.
While not exactly friends, the two hold the show in such reverence, clutching it as a liferaft in the sea of uncertainty and repression of their small, suburban town. After a few years of sparse, secret meetings to watch or discuss the show, Maddy asks Owen to run away with her; she feels this town will kill her if she stays. Frightened, Owen runs back home but later finds that Maddy has disappeared without a trace and their sanctuary show, The Pink Opaque is canceled.
After a handful of years with Owen growing and molding himself into the performative adult he is asked to become, he encounters Maddy once again. She’s older now, has a new name, and has clearly changed. She drops some intense news on Owen after asking him what he remembers of their favorite show, and more importantly, the events surrounding their watching. Owen thinks back on his history, his moments of happiness with Maddy only now, we see him in a dress, happy in his opportunity to be his true self. Maddy tells Owen that The Pink Opaque isn’t a show at all, but the truth. That the heroines he watched battle absurd villains were actually him and Maddy. Owen is Isabel and Maddy is Tara. They’ve been tricked by Mr. Melancholy and buried deep underground away from each other. The only way to return to their former lives is to bury themselves, to kill these Midnight Realm versions of themselves before they die in their real world. Hasn’t he noticed his own failing health, his inability to breathe? Maddy was right, this town was going to kill them.
When Maddy offers him one more chance to escape, to join her on the other side as his true self, as Isabel, Owen is once again frightened. He runs away from that opportunity and straight into the performative life that’s been killing him slowly. “It was time for me to become a man, a real adult, a productive member of society,” he shares before doing just that.
Time moves forward again and we see Owen, now a middle-aged adult though significantly worse for wear. Now working at an arcade, fun zone Owen moves through the space withered and wheezing. He has a breakdown moment during a child’s birthday party where he lets out an existential, heart-wrenching cry. The attendees around him pause, unfeeling and unattentive to Owen’s distress. He stumbles to the bathroom where, standing before a mirror, carves into his chest opening it to reveal the glowing static of a TV screen, confirming his otherness and the truth that he’s in the Midnight Realm. In an upsetting and heartbreaking ending, Owen seals himself back up and staggers back out onto the arcade floor. He mutters apologies to those around him, none of which acknowledge his presence.
A Tale of Transition
“Sometimes The Pink Opaque feels more real than real life.”
The first time watching I Saw the TV Glow, I was left absolutely speechless and numb after the ending. My heart went out to poor Owen but I was also angry at him. I questioned why he’d choose to ignore the call to adventure that so many of us wished would find us - to be told that the feeling of otherness you’ve experienced all your life was valid, that you really belonged somewhere else. As horrifying as the reality was with the truth of what Isabel and Tara endured in their “real world,” still that chance at being your true, magical self felt like an obvious answer. Every time Owen ran away from Maddy/Tara’s attempts to free him, in each stage of his life, I was disappointed to find him wrapping himself in the comfort of normalcy and status quo. But for all the disappointment, I understood why he did it too. I resonated with that primal fear of being an “other,” and that simply acknowledging that you are different opened a door to an unknown world that could hold even more horrors and discomfort. It’s about choosing the devil you know.
For director Jane Schoenbrun the film is a metaphor for gender dysphoria, an homage to the experience of living one life while knowing deep down you belong in another. Their depressing ending was intentional and honest. As we found at the end of It Follows, the lack of concrete answers or triumph feels far more realistic and inspiring. For so many of us, there is no final act or moment when the monsters we battle are defeated and we return to normalcy. Instead, it is a constant journey, transitions, and decisions that take us closer to being who we are and more importantly, comfortable with who we are. “Transition leaves you traumatized for the rest of your life,” director Jane Schoenbrun shares in an article on Vanity Fair titled, The Complex Ending of I Saw the TV Glow, Explained. “Trans people will be unpacking pre-transition for as long as they live, as well as many other things out of their control.“
When Owen opens himself up, revealing the truth he’s been running from his entire life (of this simulation in the Midnight Realm), he is forced to confront the truth - that he is different and that the act of forcing himself to conform is killing him. Schoenbrun explains in that interview that Owen has “seen something he can’t unsee. What’s he going to do with that? For me, you imagine people who are maybe figuring out that they’re trans watching this movie, and it’s literally true that if you’re seeing this message, ‘There is still time,’ then there is still time and you haven’t suffocated to death.”
Just as Jay and Paul walk away, holding hands at the end of It Follows isn’t the end of the story, only the end of the film - Owen closing himself back up and apologizing to the patrons is not the end of his story either. “The ending says something about the mentality where we, as queer people, and especially as trans people, were taught from the youngest age to think of our true selves as inconveniences to everyone around us, or as something to protect the world from. I think it’s a very understandable reaction, to close yourself back up and apologize for existing.” shares the director with Vanity Fair.
I appreciate bleak endings when they serve a genuine purpose. I felt this was very validating and though it weighed on me heavily, I understood why. I do feel concerned about the interpretation of the film as a whole. How easily it could be misinterpreted that the only way out of the Midnight Realm is to kill yourself. And there is some truth to that, Owen needed not to kill himself but that version of himself that the world told him to mold. Then, he could be free in the Pink Opaque, not free from horror and trouble - it’s not a perfect world, once out - but free to be themselves while in that world and while fighting those horrors. It’s not a perfect ending, because it’s not an ending at all. Owen isn’t dead yet, and his last moments of apologies, clearly in shock, may be the wake-up call he finally needs to push his way underground. To ultimately dig up who they were meant to be, Isabel.
There Is Still Time: Finding Yourself in the TV Glow Late in Life
by Kat Kushin
RED: Quotes, someone else's words.
Identity
This film was deeply emotional, and although a bit strange, had a lot to say about identity, self acceptance and the cost of existing in a society that does not allow for healthy self expression. The ghouls are well versed in the damaging impact of performing an identity that does not feel natural, and I Saw the TV Glow shows the impact of that performance in a very brutal and honest way. The tragedy of this film is Owen, and their rejection of self. The real Owen does not meet the social norms and expectations of the society they live in, so Owen performs what is expected as best as they can, but because they are not being themselves they always feel like they are failing. Deep down in Owen’s chest, they know something is wrong, or more accurately, different about them.
Unlike most of the other media we’ve covered for this series, I Saw the TV Glow focuses more on the inner turmoil of this performance, showing that the one’s most harmed by inauthentic self expression are ourselves. There was a weight to this story that I don’t think was as present in the other films, as well as a powerlessness that felt as emotional and chaotic as our teen years can feel. Similar to how Talk to Me showed the painful reality of withholding necessary context from our young people in a way that was uncomfortable but also so real, I Saw the TV Glow shows us a devastating but very honest perspective on the importance of self acceptance. This film impacted me even though at many points I didn’t fully understand what was happening because I related very much to Owen. Like Owen, there was a deep sadness that drenched all my words, my mannerisms, my way of existing when trying to perform what was expected of me in my youth. The actor that played Owen really delivered something that felt real and unique.
The film highlighted the cost of the performance of a false self, and that cost is more than just a person's mental wellbeing, but their physical wellbeing too. To speak to my own experience, through necessity I have learned a lot about how trauma can impact the brain and body, and I think that deeply influenced how I took in this film and why I appreciated it so much. That appreciation took a bit to settle, as at first I didn’t really know how I felt after watching it. There was definitely an empathy drain that came from watching, and a sort of hopelessness, as a viewer you sit with at the film’s end. I think I for the most part appreciated the representation. With how devastating the end was, I found myself feeling somewhat similar to how I felt at the end of Talk to Me. I wanted Owen to get a happy ending, so badly, but I also understood why the writer didn’t give us one. Like Gabe I did feel a bit conflicted on how this film could impact the audience it’s trying to reach. In that the burying yourself could translate to encouraging unaliving, which I am pretty sure was not the intent, but impact is important. I’ll also be real though that I do feel conflicted that both Talk to Me, and I Saw the TV Glow had Black protagonists with such tragic endings written by white writers, and if I had any critique for either of those films, I’d say that would be the biggest issue that I had. The performances delivered in both films felt very visceral and real, and the actors did an amazing job, I just wish we got some hope at the end, or without hope some next steps for the viewer to take away. But other than that there were good pieces of representation here and I do think the story is important much like how I thought Talk to Me was important. Its honesty, although depressing, but relatable.
So what really resonated with me in this film was its honesty. In my neurodivergence and gender identity struggles I’ve witnessed first hand the cost of cortisol releasing itself into my body, and the weight of performing an identity that felt unnatural to me. What I witnessed Owen experience felt very true to how I felt growing up. Society unfortunately makes being yourself unsafe depending on where you are in the world. When you’re still in a place that is not safe, and you have no context or explanation of why, burying the part of yourself that doesn’t make sense in the context you do have feels necessary. When even your body is not safe to be within, when it reacts to your surroundings as if they are poison, it can be easy to wonder if you were not meant for this planet at all, that this reality is the wrong one, that you are in the wrong place, that you are wrong. When you lack the context for why you are the way you are, and when the people around you, the media you consume, and the history you learn withholds the experiences that you could relate to, being yourself logically feels unsafe. That is why representation matters SO MUCH. That is why banning books, removing important context from historical texts, and creating legislation that demonizes entire groups of people is so unbelievably dangerous.
This film provided a very honest showcasing on a scientific level how operating in a constant state of survival causes unhealthy levels of cortisol to be released into the body. When a performance is necessary for survival, the performer lives in a constant state of stress. The cortisol damages much more than the mind, and causes the body to deteriorate in other ways. As we see Owen struggle throughout the film, we get a window into how that stress has impacted Owen’s body. We see them shrink, suffocate, and deteriorate in real time. The way Owen felt throughout this film could be seen in how they stood, spoke and moved in the world. How they apologized CONSTANTLY for just existing. It is the way many are forced to exist in a world where anything deemed as other, is demonized, or dehumanized. Where a performance is necessary for survival, but at a great cost to oneself. What we see at the end of I Saw The TV Glow, is what many in this country deal with all of their lives, until they cannot take it anymore. It’s why representation and inclusion are so important, because what happens to Owen at the end of the film is the cost of oppression.
A piece of this film that feels deeply millennial is that for the bulk of the plot, Owen is without the words, or context to explain who they are. They are fed pieces of themselves across their many years of existence, and don’t have the full picture until they are so ingrained in the performance that it feels almost too late. Until they have sacrificed what feels like too much to turn back. They don’t remember who they were without it. At one point in the film I believe written in on the concrete it read “there’s still time”, or something to that effect, which to me felt like a call to other older viewers who may feel like it’s too late to accept themselves. Owen, and the tragedy of his pained existence a warning to us all of the cost of thinking it is too late. Of knowing the truth and having the context but choosing to ignore it. For many millennials who found themselves through tiktok videos, finally gaining access to the representation that was hidden from them until they were well into adulthood, I think the film's intent is to pull us out of our own false realities.
That’s kind of what therapy can do, in some ways, looking through the snow globe and trauma of our memories that have jumbled all together and picking up the pieces of the person we buried to survive. Finding our inner child and guiding them towards a better future. It makes me think of that trend where the older self is writing a letter to their teen self and assuring them that they are going to be okay, that it gets better, that their sacrifice that helped us survive this long was worth it. That we’re thankful. That’s something I’m personally working on myself. To those of us who didn’t have words to explain what made us different, and also what that difference meant for our safety.
Another piece of this film that felt very Millennial is the use of the TV as the main context our characters have. Millennials in many ways are the “raised by TV” generation, as we discussed in the It Follows episode many parents were too busy participating in capitalism to authentically be there for their children. So to compensate, many millennial youth turned to screens to learn about the world. As an added layer, although it’s not explicitly stated, from my perspective I think Owen’s neurodivergence pushes them to rely on TV even more to provide context for the world they live in. The obsession with the Pink Opaque is much deeper than just enjoying the show, it is a beacon of light to feeling less alone. Looking to the screen to explain what they don’t have the context or words to understand fully. In an article titled Jane Schoenbrun's twisty horror film I Saw The TV Glow evokes trans adolescence in hazy 90s suburbia | ABC NET AU they describe this moment, stating: “For trans people, this immediate sense of intense identification — colloquially referred to as an "egg crack" — is the moment that sets in motion a journey of gender discovery. Schoenbrun, who had just started transitioning when they wrote the film, set out to articulate not just the tumult of dysphoria, but "the experience of slowly pulling [themselves] out of [a false reality] and beginning the process of work … working up the courage to come out into transition." The Pink Opaque was that “egg crack” moment for Owen, but the fear of the unknown of what that would truly mean kept Owen in the false reality. The safety that the glow of a TV provided for many millennial youth is deeply relatable. The nostalgia we feel towards the shows that raised us had dinner with us, and showed us how to be a person in ways our parents never did.
Unfortunately, because much of our media was drenched in the biases of those in power, we only sometimes would get gems that provided that pillar of relation, the one character that was coded queer or neurodivergent, but was not explicitly labeled as such. Or the representation on screen was not played by an actor that represented that community, so not necessarily accurate to the experiences they were trying to represent. Degrassi acts as a great example of this, having actors play LGBTQIA identities that they did not authentically represent. Thinking specifically of Adam, and Riley’s characters. Or thinking of Connor’s character who was autistic but was not played by an autistic actor. Similar issues can be found in shows like Ugly Betty, where trans representation is performed by an actress who was not trans in real life. The early 00s that many millennials grew up in were filled with performances of representation that were not entirely authentic, so they could only do so much in providing the context we needed to know who we are.
Representation in Media:
A lack of representation in media can have lasting impacts on people as they form an understanding of their own identities, as well as how accepting they are of others. The media we see holds an important mirror to our own understanding of self. When unpacking identity and who we are in relation to the world, media can be a beacon of hope that can make us feel a sense of belonging, and give us the language and tools to explore who we are safely. The ghouls have talked about this a lot over the years, the media acting as a cue to who we are as we grow as people, and a screen being the pathway to information about the world, and providing context to who we are as people. Truths about ourselves that cannot be unseen, and both a fear and acceptance surrounding that. Thinking back to the characters you may have related to growing up, and how they shaped your understanding of yourself. Or characters you emulated in your life, that became a piece of your performance. In the article I mentioned earlier, Schoenbrun speaks to how media impacted them in their understanding of self. The article says “As an adult who now proudly identifies as nonbinary, Schoenbrun's relationship with the media that once provided a lifeline has grown more distant. They recently revisited Buffy for the first time since early transition, a process they liken to meeting up with an ex.
"I could immediately return to everything it had meant to me, how much of myself I poured into it … [All] those moments that just meant so much to me, they were my definition of being in love at one point." While the characters in Schoenbrun's films grapple with the dissociative sensation of watching themselves on screen, the filmmaker can perhaps now glance back from the other side, where their life has "better kinds of love in it than a relationship with a TV show". "It felt painful to remember," they say. "I felt a lot of sympathy for the kid who needed [Buffy] that bad."
We are also the nostalgia generation, pulled to the familiar in a way that has been highly commodified by corporations that know the dopamine-deficient among us will spend money to see the pieces of our childhood, our safety shows & movies replayed. The film plays upon this nostalgia obsession in a deeply millennial way when Owen rewatches the Pink Opaque and it’s totally different from what they remember. It’s no longer a beacon of hope, but a reminder of how lost they were growing up.
To close my section I’ll leave us with Schoenbrun’s words on what they hoped the film would do. “Since its debut at this year's Sundance Film Festival, I Saw the TV Glow has inspired a range of fervid reactions. The film can alienate as much as it comforts, offering few straightforward answers for screen gazers, queer audiences, and all others who succumb to its enigmatic allure.
"The kind of cinema that I really believe in is a cinema that lingers — that says something that's not as simple as like a moral," Schoenbrun explains — an ethos they've inherited from "so much of the art that held [their] hand through life".
"I try to make sure every movie isn't wasted. It's such hard work to make something, and the only way I know how to do it is to make something incredibly personal that people can engage with in a very deep and, hopefully, visceral way.
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