Spoiler ahead for I Saw The TV Glow, a 2024 transgender horror movie.
Media Representation
It is no secret that queer—and more particularly transgender people—are underrepresented in the cinematographic media, and are quite often casted away and turned into a joke for the uneducated audience to laugh at. From movies like Ace Ventura or Scary Movie to TV shows like Big Bang Theory or South Park, representations of “men pretending to be women” has been a classical comedy trope that has presented and used, attacking the existence of trans people in general. There have been productions presenting trans and other queer characters under a good light, but generally, the “unlikable” queer characters are often set aside and easily erasable for the world-wide release.
Written by a transfeminine and non-binary filmmaker, Jane Schoenbrun, and officially released in May of 2024, the movie I saw the TV Glow presents two characters who become friends over their love for a TV Show. The movie is filled with metaphorical analogies and symbolism, which is key to the understanding of this queer horror movie, which depicts the fear of transitioning into the person someone might really be.
Synopsys
While reading a book on her favorite show, Maddie meets Owen, the main character of the movie, who is curious about the show. Finally, because Owen is not allowed to stay up so late, they both agree to meet at Maddie’s house and watch the show together. The show, called The Pink Opaque, discusses the friendship of two girls who can communicate telepathically through the psychic plain. The main characters are Isabel, a young woman who is described by Maddie as a scaredy-cat, and Tara, a “super hot” woman who “doesn’t take shit from anybody,” Maddie’s favorite. Two years after watching their first episode together, Owen learns of Maddie’s plan to escape her abusive stepfather, and leave their hometown. Owen refuses, and only sees her again eight years later.
That is when Maddie tells Owen of what was truly happening during those eight years; she was inside of the show. In the last episode released, Isabel and Tara were tricked by Mr. Melancholy into drinking the Luna Juice. This is when we understand. Tara and Isabel were sent to the Midnight Realm, a wonderful prison by the main Antagonist of the TV Show, so that they could forget their reality, names, and powers. Forgetting the true world, Maddie and Owen accept their new reality, names and discover a love for the show and parallel world they were once a part of. Refusing to go back into the show, Owen leaves Maddie behind. Years pass like second and Maddie, now taking the name of Tara, never comes back for Owen. He grows up an unfilled life and feels as though he is suffocating—because maybe he truly is.
The Queer Horror Story
The most important symbol of the movie is, quite obviously, The Pink Opaque TV Show. Firstly, the world of the show is filled with many “monsters of the week,” characters who work for Mr. Melancholy and who try to fight Tara and Isabel, who both help each other to beat them through the episodes using the psychic plane, which helps them talk to each other from far away.
The way the main characters of the show, Tara and Isabel, are both buried by the end of the show is very telling of the way the writers see the idea of identities. Rather than telling a story depicting “a boy who wants to be a girl,” the writers tell the story of a “girl who was forced to be a boy all of her life.” The “real world,” Owen’s and Maddie’s reality, is in fact a prison, from which they can only come back from if they accept the truth—that they are queer—and get themselves buried back down into the dirt. They had to bury down their real identities to be seen as normal, and now they have to bury themselves back down in order to be their own true selves.
Being openly queer is a scary thing. Once you get used to the idea of the mask you have created for yourself—here, the young boy who refuses to think about what is inside of him, rather deciding to only describe himself as someone who likes TV Shows—it becomes difficult to accept what you have hidden away—the powerful and beautiful woman, who is waiting, buried deep underground. It starts to look like a silly fantasy, because people convince you that it is impossible. They might tell you that you will never truly be your gender, or that you will only be an uglier version of those born with the gender you identify with, or that too much time has already passed and that it would be easier to simply keep lying to everybody, including yourself… Whatever the reason that might be holding someone back from transitioning, these reasons are scary, because of all of the factors that surround the queer realities in our world. Owen states, after leaving Maddie behind, “I found myself wondering, what if she was right? What if she had been telling the truth? What if I really was someone else? Someone beautiful and powerful? Someone buried alive and suffocating to death, very far away, on the other side of the television screen? But I know that’s not true. That’s just fantasy. Kid’s stuff.” This is the reality of Owen; he feels as though it is impossible for him to transition into a girl. Early in the movie, Maddie advises Owen, “don’t apologize.” This is a crucial part of the story. Owen has to learn to be himself truly, and unapologetically. If he wastes time saying sorry to everyone he meets, or trying to please them, he will only find himself to be unfulfilled. Caring for other people’s thoughts on him means that he will never be happy, because he will only be happy if he transitions into his true self.
Time passes quickly in the story. Through the hundred minutes of the movie, we see Owen go from being a seventh grader (12-13,) to a ninth grader two years later (14-15,) to an adult working at a cinema eight years later (22-23,) and finally to a sickly-looking worker of the Fun Center, twenty whole years later (42-43.) The idea of time passing by is a crucial part of the story, because the writers of the story believe that whoever buries their true selves are doomed to see their lives go by in an unfilling and suffocating way. He says he has got a family of his own, but we never see any of them, and when he decides to watch his favorite show again, he suddenly sees how it was childish, and feels embarrassed that this was his favorite show.
There is a single line that particularly marked me while watching the movie for the first time. It is a simple sentence said in a horrific way that terrified me to my core. I found the cruel-sounding way Owen’s father asks him “isn’t that a show for girls?” when talking about The Pink Opaque, immediately tells the audience what they need to know about Owen’s upbringing and education. Men have to be a certain way, while women have to be a certain way. Boys have to play with their soldier figurines while girls have to play with their dolls. There is an expectation on gender roles that was taught to him, and that certainly influenced the way he acted later in the story.
There Is Still Time
This simple sentence is exactly what the movie is trying to teach the audience; there is still time. It is not too late to transition into your true self. Whether you are the twelve year old from the start of the movie or the suffocating forty year old adult from the end, you still have the chance to transition, because there is still time. But all of that does not mean that you can lie and wait. The sentence “there is still time” only means that it is not yet too late to transition. One day, you will have lied to yourself for too long. Years will have flashed in front of your eyes like seconds, and time is starting to run out. The key sentence is not telling you that you can always come out later, it is telling you that you can still come out.
