Reaching Across the Gap: I Saw the TV Glow Provides Connection Across Identities

By Izzy Hamann, Edited by Joseph Green

“There is Still Time” was the message Maddy drew in chalk on the tar outside Owen’s house in I Saw the TV Glow, and that was the moment the movie hit for me.

I came out in my rural conservative town in Maine in 2020, and it was a defining moment in my adolescence. A few years later, after I’d founded a Civil Rights Team with one of my only queer friends at the time of my coming out, the younger kids felt a little safer leaving the closet. The number of gay kids in our school of 186 students seemed to triple overnight. But they were always there; they just didn’t have the right encouragement. I think I always had a sense I could be gay, but it wasn’t until I stepped back and realized why I craved validation from the cool girls in school just as much, if not more, than I did from the guys, that I grasped I was bisexual. And sure, it could’ve been way more difficult for me. To the naked eye, I don’t “look gay,” but in a town of 4,000 people, word travels fast, and before I knew it, there were boys behind me on the ski lift yelling, “Hey, you’re bisexual right?? That’s really hot!” Not exactly the kind of attention I wanted as a high school girl. I didn’t want to be objectified or sexualized because of who I love; so yes, I was myself in high school, but there was always a part of me that held back a little until I was with the people I was truly comfortable with.

So as a kid who grew up queer, and a self-proclaimed “film kid” since around the time I came out, I’ve consumed a lot of queer media. (And no, I don’t know what ‘holding space for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity”’ means. I’m with you, Ariana.) But movies like But I’m a Cheerleader, or shows like Glee, were more entertaining than validating to me. While Call Me By Your Name is one of my favorite films, and Moonlight deserved all its accolades, they weren't relatable to me as a woman. They didn’t connect to my experience, and while that’s okay, queer women have been pushed aside for decades, especially queer women of color, and it’s time that Hollywood recognizes that and does something about it.

I Saw the TV Glow was the first time I felt a connection to the transgender community. Sure, I struggled with body image issues when I was a teenager, but an eating disorder never made me feel as if I was born in the wrong body. I’ve tried many times before to imagine what it must feel like to have imposter syndrome in your own skin, but it wasn’t until watching Owen rip himself apart in the mirror that I felt connected to the trans community. In a world of instant messages, videos, and films seen by millions across the world at the same time, we are not truly connected to one another until we attempt to understand somebody experiencing life differently from ourselves. I Saw the TV Glow uses technological symbolism to perfectly encapsulate the queer journey and what it means to not only see your truth, but to accept it, and be willing to show the world.

[SPOILERS AHEAD!] The film begins in 1996, when Owen and Maddy are teenagers, and Maddy introduces Owen to The Pink Opaque: a surreal TV series about two teen girls, Isabel and Tara, who have a psychic connection and use it against their time-warping antagonist, Mr. Melancholy. While they are both obsessed with the series, it is clear that Maddy feels a deep, personal connection to the show and its characters. In 1998, Maddy tells Owen she is going to run away, and Owen stays behind. Cancer then causes Owen’s mom to pass away; Maddy goes missing, and The Pink Opaque is suddenly cancelled. Ten years later, Owen is still living at home, working at a movie theater. One day, Maddy suddenly reappears, and tells Owen that she has been living inside of The Pink Opaque for the entire time she’s been missing. Owen decides to rewatch the final episode that was aired of the show, in which Isabel and Tara are buried alive, and then imprisoned in a universe called “The Midnight Realm.” Owen breaks down, and the next night, Maddy tells Owen that she paid somebody to bury her alive, and woke up as Tara from The Pink Opaque. She claims that Owen’s true identity is Isabel, and offers to bury him alive so that he can see, but he won’t let her—and he never sees her again. 

In 2010, Owen’s father dies, and Owen gets a new job. One night, he decides to rewatch The Pink Opaque on a streaming service, and he discovers that it is nothing like the show of his memories, but instead, it is childish and not frightening in the slightest. Thirty years after we originally meet Owen, we watch him have a screaming fit while working a child’s birthday party as he goes into the bathroom, cuts himself open, and sees The Pink Opaque playing on a TV screen inside of his body. He smiles, but then returns to work and apologizes for his fit.

In the end, Owen is unable to accept his identity, even in the year 2026. He is afraid of what he knows to be his true self but cannot find the strength to admit it. While we do see queer people come out all the time in the 21st century, not everybody is in a position to undergo a transition like that. When it comes to sexuality, some people may find it simpler to come out. Since we are not technically born with an “assigned attraction,” expression can be explored in smaller ways as one discovers who they are and who they love. But telling the world that you do not identify with the body you were born in and the gender you were assigned at birth is not exactly a simple task—especially in today’s political climate when the newly elected president of the United States signs an executive order recognizing only two sexes: male and female (Arkin et al.). The State Department is also halting transgender people from changing their sex on their passports (Sampson), which can put trans people in danger when travelling with a passport that does not match who they are. If the leader of the free world believes it to be a priority to invalidate millions of Americans' identities, then we must connect as both community members and allies through the best way we know how in the modern world: art and technology.

Jane Schoenbrun, the creator of I Saw the TV Glow, is nonbinary, which gave them a certain authority on what exactly signified being transgender within the film. When asked about the Trump administration and whether Trump’s decisions would have any effect on their filmmaking, Jane told Variety, “…whether you’re an artist or not, queer people just need to be living and loving and being themselves. That’s probably the more important thing than trying to react” (Minton and Malkin). Jane understands what many filmmakers don’t: that sometimes queer people want to see media that is about themselves, not about what other people think. We don’t always want to see conversion camps, hearts being broken, or marriage laws restricting everlasting happiness.

I Saw the TV Glow is the kind of story that resonates with everybody: a personal journey to discover one’s identity—especially with the use of The Pink Opaque, a metaphor understood by anyone who has ever felt so obsessed with a television show, movie, play, song, or other piece of media that it consumed your very soul and made you feel so recognized as a human being that you did not think anybody else could feel the way you do. That is what this film means; connection, identity, and a feeling that technology is constantly reaching for togetherness, even when we are alone.

Works Cited

Arkin, Daniel, et al. “Trump signs executive orders proclaiming there are only two biological sexes, halting diversity programs.” NBC News, January 2025, 

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/trump-sign-executive-orders-p roclaiming-are-only-two-biological-sexes-rcna188388. 

Minton, Matt, and Marc Malkin. “‘I Saw the TV Glow’ Director Jane Schoenbrun Says ‘Queer People Just Need to Be Living’ Under Trump Admin, Justice Smith Proclaims ‘We’re F—ed.’” Variety, 24 February 2025, 

https://variety.com/2025/scene/news/i-saw-the-tv-glow-jane-schoenbrun-queer-people-ke ep-living-trump-1236316896/. 

Sampson, Hannah. “‘I don’t feel safe’: Trump’s passport gender policy sparks fear for trans travelers.” The Washington Post, 10 March 2025, 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/03/10/trans-trump-passport-hunter-schafer/. Schoenbrun, Jane, director. I Saw the TV Glow. A24, 2024.