At the start of this year, I entered an endless period of unraveling. I’d had a great summer, on paper, and I was entering into Junior year, which was to be representative of a beautiful and new time of growth for me, as well as the “make or break” period for my college applications. However, this didn’t turn out to be the case, I was “done” by October. I’m unclear on whether it was seasonal, or due to a sudden unknown shift in my brain. But I do know there was a clear spiraling that I experienced and it coincided with a week-long period where I watched a single movie 15 times. The movie I watched, I Saw The TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrun is one that very clearly visualized and depicted how trapped I felt, both in terms of my unlabeled queerness and within the step towards the future that I was supposed to take. The movie follows a trans child, teen, and then adult named Owen, under the frame of them rewatching their favorite show from their childhood: The Pink Opaque, a show that follows two girls Isabel and Tara who form a psychic bond and work together to defeat Mr. Melancholy who haunts them in the form of a monster-of-the-week. Owen is introduced to this show by Maddy, a girl two years their senior. They watch one episode of the show together, Maddy already being a fan and Owen quickly growing obsessed. They stay the night and then quickly flee the next morning, not speaking to Maddy for two years, even as she leaves recordings of the show in their locker, so that they can stay caught up. Later on in the story, once Owen is an adult, Maddy comes back into their life. She states that she is actually Tara, and that Owen is actually Isabel, and that they’re trapped in a nightmare realm. This is the first time in the movie where Owen’s transness is explicitly discussed, and where they are referred to by the name ‘Isabel.’ (Note: Owen never acknowledges their transness outloud, or even in their inner monologue, and this movie isn’t the story of them coming to terms with who they are. This is a story of suppression and hiding, both from the people and systems around you, and from the systems that have made you. Because of this I will be referring to Owen by the name ‘Owen’ and the pronouns ‘they/them,’ even though they’re exclusively referred to by masculine pronouns, I will not use those pronouns because they were not decided by them and were forced onto them in a weaponized manner instead. I will also not refer to them by ‘she/her’ which is a choice made in some discussions of this movie. I don’t disagree with this decision at all, but it feels wrong to force my own interpretation of their identity when they have not yet been able to make this decision themselves.) There is a constant underlying “trapping” of Owen, spiritually and physically, within this “nightmare realm” built by Mr. Melancholy. A way this was represented within the movie was through the series of service jobs Owen works though. Their misery is made apparent to us through how menial and unpassionate these jobs are. How the mere act of doing them feels like an added punishment by Mr. Melancholy. This aspect stuck with me, I don’t come from a rich family, and I’ve seen my parents grovel and kill themselves just to keep us afloat. Adding to this was the feeling of doom I had before the election. I’d been seeing the rise of conservatism, in my friends, my generation, and for a brief moment, myself, when I, for a brief conversation, stated that my pronouns were she/her and put on a ‘girl persona’. The feeling of being trapped that this movie evoked—in a gendered body, in a capitalist economy, in a right-wing world that’s tightening its grip—was not new. But its visceral depiction of this was very profound for me, bringing me into a psychosis where I had to check for the mutual understanding I felt between myself and the movie over and over again. To me, Owen’s story becomes clearer when examined through Plato’s lens of The Cave(tm) , where Owen lives in shadow—their life shaped by illusions projected by outside forces. TV, capitalism, patriarchy, all representative of and weaponized by Mr. Melancholy functions as both the shadows on the cave walls, and the philosopher king, telling Owen how to police themselves, to a point where their existence has to become truly internalized. I Saw the TV Glow uses horror in existence, surreal aesthetics, and oppressive realism to explore the horror of living in a body and world shaped by others’ expectations. Through the connection of queer dysphoria and late stage capitalism, the film reveals how oppression of thought leads to identity becoming a prison and reality a myth—until, perhaps, escape becomes possible.
I Saw the TV Glow initially seduces the viewer with its aestheticized nostalgia and dreamlike mood—but quickly subverts that beauty by revealing the horror of dysphoria in both body and reality. The movie is truly beautiful, the cinematography and texture is excellent, the colors captivating, and the soundtrack is gorgeous. I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t easy to fall into the romanticism of this movie, and that the aesthetics of it had no effect on why I watched it. However, this is often subverted with how viscerally ‘real’ this movie becomes as time progresses and Owen is broken down. The movie blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality, nostalgia and trauma, repression and liberation. As Owen is first introduced to us, in 1996, we are under the illusion that this is going to be a neon lit coming of age story, maybe with a horror twist coming in the form of the expected jumpscare, rather than a deeply rooted oppression of the soul. Owen, as a reclusive middle schooler meets Maddy, an older girl at school who introduces him to a late-night TV show called The Pink Opaque. She invites them to watch it with her and her best friend, but the show airs right after Owen’s bedtime, one of many instances where the world around them works to keep Owen away from specific freedoms . They lie to their mother, for the first time in their life, and secretly meet up with Maddy to watch it at her house. While watching the episode, Maddy gets increasingly emotional, she insists that it feels more real to her than the real world. Owen stays the night and leaves in the morning, and Maddy and them don’t talk for the next two years. However, Maddy leaves VHS tapes of episodes in Owens locker over this time. The Pink Opaque follows two teenage girls, Isabel and Tara, who are psychically linked and fight the villainous Mr. Melancholy who sends cartoonish villains after them. Maddy and Owen reconnect in 1998, when Maddy comes out as lesbian and says that she was abandoned by her best friend. She asks Owen to understand that there is no chance of romance between them, when they quickly agree, she is shocked and asks them if they like boys. Owen says that they don’t know, and that they like TV shows. When Maddy pries, Owen states that thinking about “It feels like someone… took a shovel and dug out all my insides. And I know there’s nothing in there, but I’m still too nervous to open myself up and check. I know there’s something wrong with me. My parents know it too, even if they don’t say anything.” This is the first verbalization of the “wrongness” that Owen very clearly visually feels. They wear oversized clothing, they walk hunched over; they’re soft spoken and walk through life apologizing for existing at all—the movie provides a reflection for a “prettified” dysphoria—the way queer suffering is often romanticized by the media. I’ve seen people romanticize this movie to a mind numbing point, editing it down to its beautiful actors, niche director, and gorgeous music and excluding the horror that haunts every breath these characters take— Maddy reacts to this with understanding, inviting Owen to watch the Pink Opaque again. Owen, of course, says yes and lies to their mother again. While watching the show, Maddy tells Owen that she plans to run away from home and wants them to come with her, claiming that there’s something wrong and evil about the town. Owen hesitates and ultimately refuses to leave with her; Maddy disappears shortly after. This is a period of time characterized by grief in Owen’s life, Maddy is gone without a word, leaving a burning TV and one last VHS tape for Owen, around the same time, Owen’s mother dies of cancer, and The Pink Opaque is abruptly canceled after five seasons. The movie skips to 2006, Owen drives now, the only big difference in their life. In their early 20s, their life has not changed, they still live in their childhood home with their emotionally distant father, Frank,—who only has one line early on in the film, replying “isn’t that a show for girls,” when Owen’s mom asks him if they can briefly stay up to watch the pink opaque— and works at a local movie theater, they have no friends and never speak unless its to deny or to apologize. Their childhood asthma has grown into a chronic, oppressive, wheeze, haunting every second of the movie. They rewatch the final episode of The Pink Opaque, where Mr. Melancholy traps Isabel and Tara in a pocket universe that looks eerily similar to reality and buries them alive, claiming they will slowly suffocate within his trap. Immediately following watching this, Owen tries to go through the TV, halfway succeeding before their father comes in to violently rip them out, as he wordlessly forces them upstairs, and holds their head underwater in the full tub Owen screams “This isn’t my home/you’re not my father.” This is the first time in the movie that the supernatural wrongness felt even through the beautiful visuals is made explicit. Soon after this, Maddy suddenly reappears, now radically changed in appearance and demeanor, and takes Owen to a bar where she says it is safe to talk. In a hurried monologue, where she looks the audience dead in the eye, she tells them that The Pink Opaque is not fiction, but reality, and that their current lives are an illusion. She refers to herself as Tara, and Owen as Isabel. In this monologue she describes her escape through burying herself alive, a symbolic act of death and rebirth, and offers Owen the same chance to leave behind their dull, suffocating world and finally live as his true self. Owen initially agrees but then pushes Maddy/Tara to the ground and runs home, locking themselves in. This is a tragedy,Owen is offered freedom and refuses it, bound by decades of internalized fear and shame. After this, years pass quicker than ever before, and Owen’s life becomes increasingly bleak. Still even after their spirit is broken Mr. Melancholy sends two guards after them, keeping watch at the front of their door. There’s a brief moment as we watch the years pass by them, where we see them come across a road titled “THERE IS STILL TIME” in chalk, they turn away from this. Their father, the first physical symbol of oppression in their life, dies. Nothing changes, they continue to work a dead-end job, live in the quiet void of a home, and struggle to make eye contact or feel anything at all. The movie theater closes and Owen’s boss moves them to a family fun center, they have turned from providing a means for others entertainment, to the entertainment itself. Their job is automated and dehumanizing, “restocking the ballpit with balls.” Owen’s life moves like wind out of their grasp, “years pass like seconds/I just try not to think too hard about it,” they say while stating that they’re happy, and that this was their decision. They claim that they’re a man now, their greatest achievement: buying a new digital TV, a wife and children are mentioned but never seen. They decide to rewatch The Pink Opaque, but the magic of the show, once a sanctuary, now feels cheesy and foreign to them, embarrassing that they even liked it in the first place. It’s been tampered with, Tara and Isabel look different now, nothing like Owen or Maddy. We are hit with a time skip, “twenty years later.” Nothing’s changed, other than Owen’s breathing, “the sound design is suffocating…a wet, phlegmy breath that feels inescapable” (Fearsome Queer), they sound as if they’re dying with every breath now, the sound of it is oppressive. Isabel’s buried body refuses to die, while Owen refuses to be Isabel. We can see that Mr. Melancholy has become less subtle in his statement about the unreality of the world. His name is everywhere in the Fun Center where Owen still works, as well as his face and voice. Owen suffers a breakdown during a child’s birthday party at work, screams that they’re dying, and begging for help. No one comes, and no one responds, everyone surrounding them goes limp, as if they’re all robots that have been shut off. Owen flees to the bathroom. There, they cut open their chest with a box cutter, this is a truly visceral scene, there is no blood but the noise of bone and skin splitting. In their chest there is a bright, and ever brightening glow, The Pink Opaque can be heard to be playing. Owen smiles faintly, there is still time, then returns to the work space and quietly apologizes to people around him—none of whom seem to notice or respond, they continue walking, numerous exit signs can be seen around them. The Pink Opaque offered Owen and Maddy an alternate world—an escape, but more importantly an identity. “The show [functions as] a lifeline…a glimpse into a self that might have been,” (Brody, The New Yorker), and could still be, at any time, if the leap is taken. The aesthetics are campy, comforting, nostalgic—but they’re also painfully unreachable. There is no ending to this movie, the viewer is denied catharsis; horror intensifies, you can feel your skin crawl as Owen has yet to choose to live. This is a body horror movie— the horror reflects in the terror of being stuck in a body that doesn’t feel like yours, without the language or permission to escape.
Owen’s adulthood could be defined by a graveyard of soulless, minimum-wage jobs; but the population and variety usually found in a graveyard is missing, there are only two jobs, both an extension of the other. They are ripped of the authority it takes to grow into adulthood, they claim that it’s time for them to grow up, but they don’t move on. They are still in the same job that they worked in as a young adult, well into their 40s. The job’s name and place has changed, but it has the same soul. I think it’s important to mention that this is yet another example of Owen being denied choice, they did not choose to follow their old boss to the Fun Center; rather, they state, “…my manager took me to the Fun Center with him.” Mr. Melancholy Babies Owen in the reality they’re trapped in, keeping them aware of any autonomy, as if it’s a drug and one ‘hit’ of true, successful, rebellion will make them realize their individuality and right to exist. The lack of self in these jobs, and the transition between them serve as a reflection of the false reality they are forced to live in. To us, these jobs feel like nothing, just another unnecessary point of torture that Owen feels themselves worthy of—“…her adulthood feels like a liminal space…her body walking through scenes she’s not meant to be in” (FilmColossus).But there’s a deeper horror that lies within this: to Owen, this is real this is their life, and this torture is needed for them to survive. This menial labor is how they pay the bills, how they provide for their unnamed and unscreened family, their representation of “growing up” and “becoming a man” is defined by what this job allows them to do, buy a new TV and pay for the streaming platform that hosts The [Fake] Pink Opaque. Paying to view the show, through streaming it, allows Mr. Melancholy into Owen’s space. The Pink Opaque was pure when it existed outside of capital, when it wasn’t something Owen could buy, but rather a gift from someone dear to them. Maddy’s VHS tapes provided a pure and true view of what Owen’s life could be, they’re beautiful and hopeful, where Mr. Melancholy’s paid-for versions only work to shame and belittle Owen for daring to imagine a world that could be better. Even as Owen’s life spirals, the visuals remain beautiful; they’re haunting, for sure, but if this were a different movie, or Owen a different girl, it would be a dream. The lights are bright, the music moving, and Owen is beautiful, and even their menial job could be beautiful in a “cool-but-miserable-teen” way. However, this isn’t the case, and Owen grows out of being a teen, and their life remains unchanging. So the beautiful aesthetics and lights feel like liminal spaces, places that should be filled with people but are empty. Funnily enough, the most common examples of liminal spaces depicted are ones of arcades and movie theaters, where Owen works. There are ‘people’ in these spaces that Owen lives in, but they’re only puppets made by Mr. Melancholy and they feel decidedly inhuman, their speech patterns feel generated to fit a pre-written script and they talk through Owen rather than talking to them. Owen’s life, without Maddy and The Pink Opaque has become one of fluorescent lights, and indistinguishable jobs. The camera lingers on lifeless spaces—reinforing that these jobs offer no narrative, no selfhood. And I am not writing this to claim that there is no self hood in working service, or entertainment jobs, but when watching this film through the oppressive lens of capitalism. This wasn’t a lot of work for me, this feeling of entrapment (under capital) has long haunted my every move; however, under this narrative, Plato’s allegory of the cave is brought up. Plato’s centers his allegory of the cave he around the topics of the nature of knowledge, reality, and human perception. Themes that are all individually explored within Owen’s story. In the allegory, prisoners in a cave are to represent humanity’s limited understanding of the world, and their potential to achieve true enlightenment. In I Saw The TV Glow, the prison (deemed midnight realm) Owen is trapped within functions as their cave, and the shadows on the wall (when they’re not yet interpreted by the philosopher king) function as the pure truth, we see a glimpse of them when watching the clips of the Pink Opaque. However, Owen is still chained, both unable to and unwilling to free themselves from their shackles. Over time they give up more and more of their view of these shadows, until they are unable to interpret them themselves. Owen holds themselves within the cave and under shackles, they try to find value in their meaningless work, and subsequent consumption under capitalism. Capitalism functions both as the cave and a reinforcement of the cave’s existence, Owen’s job drains all other meaning from their life while reinforcing the status quo of consumption— offering a false stability while keeping them chained. Further on in Plato’s allegory, a prisoner is freed and goes out of the cave to see the sun, the Pure Truth. Maddy escapes their town early on in the story, and moves away to a large city like she’d always dreamed. She also distances herself from the stable, daily work that Owen aspires to— she remains much more disconnected from capitalism, working odd jobs just long enough to survive on until it’s time to move to the next city. She’s beautiful, openly and visually queer and androgynous, nomadic, and assumed to be free by Owen. For a while she believes that she is free, “[her] illusion of escape is just that—illusion” (Pereira, Them). Her freedom remains fragile, she still feels trapped under the oppressive gaze of Mr. Melancholy (and by extension in this allegory, capitalism and heteronormativity). That is, until she takes the risk to escape Mr. Melancholy’s realm. To achieve this, she chases the suffocation she has been feeling all her life, buys a cheap coffin and buries herself alive, eventually suffocating and experiencing a metaphorical death in there. After her departure of the Cave, she wakes up as Tara, half buried in a shallow grave, she digs around to try to find Isabel as well, but the only way Isabel can be freed is if she takes the leap to escape herself. She enters the Midnight realm once again, to tell Isabel about her discovery. This is her, as the one who has escaped the cave to see the truth coming back to enlighten the ones still trapped. However, upon hearing the truth, Owen rejects Maddy/Tara, they have been blinded by the falsehoods that Mr. Melancholy has shown them, in Owen’s job-filled adulthood they work, breathe, and suffer in the shadows of a false reality. Their truth is never theirs; it’s what capitalism allows them to see and until they are willing to take the leap.
At its core, I Saw the TV Glow is not just a horror film—it is a body horror film, where transformation becomes torment, and puberty becomes grotesque. Owen’s own horror lies in their own body as well, since it has become a representation of their entrapment. The horror that I saw the TV glow is depicting is spelled out to us by Owen: they ‘know’ that something is wrong with them, they think they’re less than, a nothing. And claim that they know this as a sure thing, but refusing to look deeper into themselves in fear of proving themselves right. Through this avoidance they also refuse to prove themselves wrong, continuing to believe that there is something deeply wrong within them. This idea is reinforced as they grow up, where the true [body] horror of the story is visualized. Body horror is an especially sore spot for many, it disorients the viewer by making the body unfamiliar, grotesque, unlivable. We all exist within our bodies, thus body horror extends to the wholeness of a being. The horror extends past the flesh into one’s very existence. This is a point that is very easy to misinterpret, often the body horror analogy is used to villinanize transness, I strongly disagree with this and see it as a shifting of the narrative. In fact, I think the act of transitioning as a rebuttal of the body horror that lies in dysphoria. See Susan Stryker’s “My Words to Victor Frankenstein”: “I am a transsexual, and therefore I am a monster… and this body is the product of a war with the world,” transness has been long depicted as monsterous; there is a whole horror trope dedicated to the villainization of trans women. This is a false ideal that has no basis in reality. I Saw The TV Glow, on the other hand, is made by a trans woman about a trans woman, and the journey of repression they face. There isn’t a present horror in being trans, which is beautiful, the horror is the lack of autonomy and entrapment one feels under dysphoria in cis-normative societies. This is something that I can really relate to, I suffer from severe body, as well as gender dysphoria. This is on and off but the patterns in which it comes and goes have ingrained themselves in my life. I remember being younger and being terrified that I do not have full power over my body, it was (and in all honesty, still is) impossible for me to imagine that my body could ever do something I didn’t want it to. Of course, this isn’t true, I don’t have super powers and I can’t pick and choose what features I want, or need. I’m also chronically ill (and I believe that in a way, Owen is as well; her asthma becomes a chronic representation of her dysphoria), I have muscular degeneration which means my body can and will fail me, often; this is yet another force of dysphoria for me. And dysphoria is the body horror that this movie focuses on. Mr. Melancholy has taken Owen’s true body, as Isabel, and shifted it. They reside in a body that was made to oppose them, Mr. Melancholy has weaponized their shame to keep them trapped. Transness is often interpreted through this lens of bodily alienation, and you don’t need to have dysphoria, but I do, and so does Owen. Over the course of the movie you see Owen grow up, and you watch their bodily dyscomfort worsen. They seem to be in a forever crossroads: their asthma worsens, their voice cracks but doesn’t deepen, their walk stiffens—everything about her seems off, unfinished. They cannot fully fall into the cisgendered, male, prison that has been set up for them— because that is just not who they are, and there is nothing they can do about that— but they are also systematically held back from being who they truly are. To add to the horror, Owen doesn’t have the words to understand or describe the wrongness they feel; “Owen is a trans girl trapped in a horror film where no one says the word trans,” (Fearsome Queer, Fearsome Queer), additionally, no one knows that this is a possibility at all. Owen has been so miserable for so long that the very idea of being someone they see as ‘good’ is non-existent. They state this in what I think is the most devastating line of the movie, “What if she was right? What if I was someone else? Someone beautiful and powerful? Buried alive and suffocating to death on the other side of a television screen?” Here Owen ponders the possibility of being who they’ve known themselves to be in their soul, they don’t ponder being a woman, the issue resides in being ‘good.’ The horror of this movie lies in just the existence of Owen’s reality. I find it lovecraftian, there’s a greater indescribable force in the form of weaponized dysphoria. The film lacks jump scares or monsters—it’s terrifying because it shows a life without authenticity to self.
The film’s horror is enforced by faceless oppressors—Mr. Melancholy (and by extension Owen’s father and capitalism)—representations of systemic control through fear, shame, and silence. Mr. Melancholy and Owen’s father are both rarely seen or heard through the movie, only existing in brief scenes where they face Owen/Isabel with extreme violence. They are not seen often, but they are ever felt. They work as systemic forces, further working to push Owen down. It becomes harder for Owen to show any rebellion because there isn’t one thing to rebel against, their oppressor is the reality they live under. “He’s the villain, yes—but he’s also the world” (Pereira, Them), it’s hard to rebel against something that you can ‘t touch, or see, or really know that it exists. There is a religious aspect to this as well, Mr. Melancholy has trapped Owen in a dimension where they are God, and he looks down on and judges them; they have taken Isabel, and turned her into a creation of their own: Owen. In the real world, Isabel and Mr. Melancholy can be equals. Because Isabell knows who she is and she is given the option to fight back. Owen’s oppression is so deeply rooted that it’s impossible to know where to start. This is a reflection on how impossible a change in the status quo might be to even envision. Mr. Melancholy has become the status quo of Owen’s reality. He’s not always seen, but always felt—like patriarchy, like capitalism. Mr. Melancholy is everything wrong within Owen’s life, thus, he not only ‘like’ the patriarchy and capitalism, he ‘is’ both of them, because he is everything that makes up this poisoned world, tailored specifically to punish Owen. His [Mr. Meloncholy] name is telling: he doesn’t just punish, he depresses. He keeps you too tired to fight. Owen has a few brief moments of rebellion, during which they are immediately punished. These punishments are usually in terms of emotional harm; when Owen asks if they can stay up to watch The Pink Opaque they are immediately shot down. They never ask again. Owen’s father is an extension of Mr. Melancholy’s quiet control. He doesn’t scream; he represses. He works like a weight upon Owen’s soul, he’s the fluid slowly filling their lungs, he’s the first slowly crushing Isabel. It’s never explicitly stated, but it is heavily implied that most of Owen’s actions (the meaningless job they work) and repression can be traced back to a need for their father’s approval. He is the patriarch—the human extension of Mr. Melancholy. He’s one of the many societal guards serving the purpose of “keeping Owen in their place.” There is very little outright violence depicted in this movie. Only three scenes stand out on this topic. First, when Mr. Melancholy ambushes Tara and Isabel in the Midnight realm with the help of his two lackeys, Marco and Polo. The second comes when Owen, immediately following their rewatching of The Pink Opaque’s finale, tries to escape from their ‘reality’ into the TV, as they’re halfway into the TV the fire alarm starts ringing and their father, Frank, rushes down into the Basement and rips them out. This is a horrifying scene, and the quick succession of both violances leave you overwhelmed. Owen is screaming for help, that this place they’re in isn’t their reality; they deny that Frank is their real father. They don’t get any response to this, rather, Frank shoves their head underwater in the bathtub (the first thought you get while watching this scene is; “Frank is trying to drown Owen,” which may be right; however, upon a rewatch, it also seems like Owen‘s hair may be on fire). Frank remains completely silent throughout the movie, apart from his single line. These first two violences are extensions of each other, one to trap Isabel, and the other to keep Owen in. The last scene that I view as truly violent takes place at the end of the movie, long past the point where Owen has given up on freedom. They repeat their father’s unspoken rhetoric, “it was time for me to become a man,” and they live out the next 20-something years fully suppressed. Often, it’s not outright violence but soft, inescapable denial that kills slowly. Just as Isabel’s body in the real world starts to whither and die, Owen’s spirit is broken accordingly. This culminates past Owen’s breaking point and they break down openly at their work, screaming for help (no one comes) and that they’re dying. This is, apart from within the altercation with their father, the loudest Owen has gotten in their life. Their breakdown breaks the world, and they flee to the bathroom where they cut open their chest to see if they are truly hollow inside like they’ve always thought they were. They find that they’re not, and that they can still choose to leave, the means to escape has always been within themselves. The first revolution happens in one’s mind. In the allegory of the Cave, Owen’s father functions as the shackles, he’s not the cave itself [the midnight relm], nor the darkness [their self suppression], he’s only a tool used by Mr. Melancholy as a vessel. But he is real to Owen, they truly do see him as their father, even as he is unreal (and they know this deep down) they’re still deparite for his approval and love. They try to perform masculinity for him, at the cost of themselves. Their body and soul warp under his expectations, becoming unrecognizable. They lose Maddy. They lose time.
I Saw the TV Glow captures the layered horror of being trapped in a body and world not your own—of living under falsehoods crafted by patriarchy, capitalism, and media. However, I still find it deeply hopeful. In fact, I think that idea is the one that upsets me the most, the reason why I had to compulsively watch it over and over again. What I take away from the movie is the line: “THERE IS STILL TIME” because even as Owen turns away from it, the writing doesn’t disappear. There’s always time to go back and be happy, to be yourself. Throughout this movie every aspect of Owen’s existence becomes weaponized against them: their job, their family, their self expression, even their favorite show is used against them. Like I stated earlier on, this movie is not a journey of overcoming, “…the film doesn’t offer answers—but it does offer recognition” (Brody, The New Yorker), it holds space for those who still need time, and reassures them that they do still have it. Yes, the horrors are real, so is the possibility of escape. I Saw The TV Glow gives hope that even shackled within the deepest caves, even after years of shadow watching, one can still turn their head. And maybe, recognition is the first step toward revolution.
