I Saw the TV Glow has proven itself to be one of the most original films of the year, enriched using a complex allegory of gender dysphoria.
Jane Schoenbrun’s second film, I Saw the TV Glow was released on May 17 telling a story set in the 90s that follows two troubled teenagers, Owen and Maddy, who bond over their shared love for a TV show called The Pink Opaque. The show features a friendship of two girls, Isabel and Tara, who fight off a different monster each week.
Maddy claims The Pink Opaque feels more real than life and wants to run away, but Owen is too scared and stays behind in their small town. He continues his mundane life at the movie theatre where he works, feeling isolated.
Eight years later, Maddy returns home, insisting The Pink Opaque is real, saying she is Tara and Owen is Isabel. She believes they’re buried alive, suffocating inside the Midnight Realm living in false bodies where time moves quickly. Maddy urges Owen to bury himself alive to return to being Isabel.
Owen loses his nerve and doesn’t have the courage to find out if what Maddy is saying is true. He runs away from her and never sees her again. He continues to live his mundane suburban life, but he’s haunted by the possibility he is supposed to be Isabel—somebody different, beautiful, and great. Owen’s inability to feel himself within his own body and constant grappling with his identity speaks to the complex dissonance pre-transition causes.
Director, Jane Schoenbrun, began working on the film during their own transition. They wrote the film after experiencing a moment of un-repression that they called an ‘egg-crack’ moment, when they finally saw themselves so clearly in a way that couldn’t be undone. Schoenbrun has described transness and pre-transition dysphoria as something internal and intangible.
The film further explores these themes, revealing how humans find refuge in the media, especially around themes of presence and control. After Maddy’s second disappearance, Owen is left questioning his existence, with his constant doubt and lack of sense of self used as a metaphor for the unease caused by gender dysphoria.
As time moves 20 years forward, Owen is in worse shape, deteriorating due to his asthma while figuratively and literally suffocating in the life he was too afraid to leave behind as he immerses himself in the life that’s been assumed for him as a cisgender male.
I Saw the TV Glow features vibrant technicolor scenes with neon pinks, purples, and subtle trans flags with a soundtrack complementing the theme of disassociation employed throughout the film.
It’s a nuanced film exploring the universal quest for identity through a transgendered perspective. With its open ending, the audience is left questioning whether or not Owen will take the risk of embracing his fate. The film continues to be entertaining and occasionally humorous while simultaneously transcending the typical expectation of horror and coming-of-age films by proving itself to contain a much deeper and significant message.
I Saw the Tv Glow was very effective in creating a metaphor that would speak to those experiencing the complexities of gender dysphoria. However, in doing so, it opened up a broader conversation about how it feels to live a life that isn’t exactly right, successfully capturing the isolating experience of becoming trapped in one’s own life—whether that be through gender, relationships, career, or more—and the courage required to create change.
Maddy leaves Owen a lingering message written in chalk that says, “THERE IS STILL TIME” giving the audience a hopeful avenue that life is more than what we’re assumed to be and do. Life is what we make it out to be.
For those watching who might be experiencing a similar confinement to Owen within their own life, I Saw The TV Glow reminds us it’s never too late, there is still time.
Tags
gender dysphoria, movie, Pride
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