Warning! This article contains major spoilers for I Saw the TV Glow. If you've yet to watch, and don't want to know anything that happens, turn back now!
"Do you like girls? Boys?" I Saw the TV Glow's Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) asks Justice Smith's lead Owen in Jane Schoenbrun's dark, dreamy latest, after she matter-of-factly states that she's a lesbian and, as a direct result, not into him romantically. "I don't know," he replies. "I think I like TV shows."
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The film begins in 1996, with lonely seventh grader Owen striking up an awkward friendship with older student Maddy, after he sees her reading the official episode guide of his favorite supernatural show The Pink Opaque. Given his age, how late the program airs, and how his father thinks it's "for girls", Owen has never been allowed to watch it live, so the pair sneak him into Maddy's house one night so they can tune in together; something that proves to be a transformative experience for the youngster.
Over the next two years, Maddy records random episodes of The Pink Opaque for Owen on VHS, which he devours in secret. The more he catches up, the more connected he seems to feel to Isabel, one of the show's psychic protagonists, often imagining himself in her place and wearing her feminine clothes.
But he's desperate to repeat the thrill of watching it while it's airing again. Maddy agrees, and the pair have another sleepover, which culminates in Maddy drawing a glowing pink ghost on the back of Owen's neck – just like the marks Isabel and her monster-fighting friend Tara have – and her telling him that she plans to run away from her abusive stepdad and start a new life. At first, it looks like Owen is going to skip town with her but he bails at the last minute; the first of a domino effect of decisions that cement him in a life haunted by unfulfilled potential.
Glow for it
Now, I like to think of myself as a Maddy, someone who found inspiration in the characters I obsessed over as a kid and was bold enough to step into my lady-loving authentic self. I probably wouldn't have been so courageous, though, if I hadn't found people like me in the fandoms of certain shows. While I'm a big horror girl now, I was a bit of a wuss when I was younger. The types of things I sought out on the sly, like Owen does with The Pink Opaque, weren't scary but sapphic. There was The L Word, Lost Girl, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6 – one of the show's most maligned but, you know, the one with the most Tara and Willow content...
Each of them consumed me, as I pored over stills and GIFs on Tumblr, did endless quizzes, chatted passionately with others online as to whether Bette Porter really did kill Jenny Schechter, and – I can't believe I'm admitting this – slept with a photo of Alyson Hannigan under my pillow. The communities I found emboldened me and gave me strength, as they opened my eyes to a new way of existing in the world that I might not have arrived at so soon or easily otherwise. I imagine it's much like how Owen feels about Maddy; he just doesn't trust himself enough to take that final leap of faith.
In the eight years that follow Maddy's disappearance, The Pink Opaque gets canceled, Owen's mother passes away, he gets a job at a movie theater, and has no further contact with his former square-eyed pal. That is, until she pops up again one day and agitatedly tells him that she's been inside the TV show, having suffocated and been reborn as Tara, one of its fictional leads. She goes on to claim that the world Owen is living in is "the midnight realm", a dark dimension controlled by The Pink Opaque's big bad Mr. Melancholy, and that the only way for him to escape is to be buried alive, like she was (and Isabel and Tara were in The Pink Opaque's final episode).
As before, Owen reluctantly agrees to Maddy's seemingly manic plan, but loses his nerve just as they're about to go through with it and, this time, he never sees her again. The idea that he's supposed to be living a different life gnaws at him through adulthood, with the film culminating in Owen breaking down at work, cutting into his chest, and smiling as he realizes there's a glowing TV inside.
Static status
Of course, I'm merely looking at I Saw the TV Glow through a lesbian lens, but the allegory deepens even more powerfully when you consider that the flick was made by a trans filmmaker.
It's undeniable that we are living in a depressingly dangerous time for trans people, who are often subjected to unspeakable prejudice and violence and whose rights are constantly debated on political stages, right now; to be yourself in today's society is a remarkable, radical act. We don't really know what Maddy is up against "outside" of "the midnight realm", but if her transformation into Tara is any indication, she spends her days battling ghouls and other evil creatures. It's not perfect or safe, but she's truly alive and living her truth. The alternative it seems, which winds up being Owen's less exciting fate, is to live a quiet, tortured half-life.
"TV taught me how to feel, now real life has no appeal," is a lyric from the 2010 song 'Oh No' by Marina and the Diamonds, and one I thought of often while watching I Saw the TV Glow. It's also a phrase I had in every one of my social media bios, from myspace to Twitter, throughout my late teens and early 20s… and something that Maddy and Owen would likely vibe with in a big way. But there comes a time when you have to put down the remote, and use what you've seen, liked, and connected with to navigate things away from the soothing light of a screen.
I Saw the TV Glow is in UK cinemas now. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.
