The glow from a TV playing the young adult channel at 10:30 p.m. is where we connect with our truest selves.
Or at least, that’s the case for Owen and Maddy in Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow: a horror-drama whose themes of identity and gender are hauntingly stirring.
Schoenbrun’s style lends itself to both nostalgia and modernity. Their 2021 film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair follows a lonely teenage girl whose reality bleeds into an online role-playing game — an allegory to the all-consuming power of media.
In TV Glow, Schoenbrun bridges the power of modern media with 1990s fandom nostalgia of tapings and episode guides. That aura is seamlessly paired with Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Owen’s (Justice Smith) contrasting arcs: the relief and liberation of finding yourself, and the disastrous emptiness of not being allowed to do so.
TV Glow opts for chilling uncomfortableness instead of evoking outright fear.
Schoenbrun, who is transgender and non-binary, said that TV Glow could be interpreted as “the egg crack moment,” when a trans person realizes they’re trans.
Transgender pride colours appear everywhere: school windows and empty hallways, simple costumes, sidewalk chalk and Eric Yue’s soft cinematography are laden with hues of pink and blue.
Maddy is thus that liberating “egg crack” realization, whereas Owen demonstrates the terror of living without transitioning.
Owen first meets Maddy when her nose is buried inside an episode guide for The Pink Opaque — a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque young adult TV show that follows teenagers Tara (Lindsey Jordan) and Isabel (Helena Howard) who use their psychic powers to fight monsters sent by Mr. Melancholy (Emma Portner).
After one episode, Owen is intrigued.
Thus emerges Owen and Maddy’s mutual obsession, before the era of streaming made TV watching an easy experience. Owen’s curfew threatens his ability to continue watching episodes live. As a result, Maddy tapes them so he can catch up.
For the duo, The Pink Opaque is more than just a TV show. It’s an escape to find themselves in a world outside their own.
Lundy-Paine’s sunken expressions depict Maddy’s plaguing troubles. One of their most devastating scenes is when Maddy, transfixed by The Pink Opaque, allows a lonely tear to stream down her cheek: a rare and vulnerable moment for their character.
After this moment and when The Pink Opaque is cancelled, Maddy decides to run away.
This leaves Owen by himself. His parents — the terminally ill and caring Brenda (Danielle Deadwyler) and the terrifyingly insensitive Frank (Fred Durst) — don’t understand the allure of finding something to connect with.
“Isn’t that for girls?” Owen’s father says of The Pink Opaque, in one of his only lines of dialogue in the film.
In constant fourth wall breaks, Smith spine-chillingly delivers Owen’s thoughts and fears directly to the audience. It’s as if our screens are the same as those in the film, beckoning us to explore a world of possibilities. His monotonous delivery and deepened sulks reflect Owen’s hollowness and sense of unfulfillment.
When Maddy returns nearly a decade later, Owen realizes he is more tied to The Pink Opaque than he could possibly understand.
“Time wasn’t right. It was moving too fast. And then I was 19. And then I was 20. I felt like one of those dolls asleep in the supermarket. Stuffed,” Maddy tells Owen with eerie precision. “I told myself, ‘This isn’t normal. This isn’t normal. This isn’t how life is supposed to feel.’”
Maddy insists she’s disappeared inside The Pink Opaque. Owen isn’t able to do the same — he’s trapped and haunted by the possibility.
“What if she was right? What if I was someone else?” he says. “Someone beautiful and powerful? Buried alive and suffocating to death on the other side of a television screen?”
Liberation taunts Owen throughout the film. In its eeriness and embrace of mystique, TV Glow is a radiant success in depicting themes of identity, and the power of finding yourself. In the real world or otherwise.
Featured image by IMDB.
