why "I saw the TV glow" is the most important trans movie right now
&& thoughts about running
A longer substack to talk about two things that have been on my mind ♡ ´･ᴗ･ `♡
If you’re planning to watch “I saw the TV glow” then skip the first section! <3
“What if I really was someone else? Very far away on the other side of the television screen” - Maddy
Amber and I saw I Saw the Tv Glow (ISTG) recently and I left the alamo drafthouse thinking that it was one of the best movies I had ever seen. I saw it with my friend, Rebeca, the week after and I left feeling even more distraught at the thought of what my life could have been had I not changed. Looking back, and after reading so many interviews and post-movie analysis essays, I can totally see why. This is a queer movie meant for a queer audience. This isn’t to say that only queer people can watch it because that would defeat the whole purpose. Ideally, this movie’s goal is to make queer people struggling with their identity or sexuality find something that they can hold on to; something that makes them feel seen. I also feel that this movie’s goal is to provide a trans-queer allegory to an audience of people who might understand what it means to be in conflict with your physical self.
If you haven’t seen the movie yet but just want spoilers, here they are! Maddy introduces Owen to a horror-type young adult show called “The Pink Opaque”. Although they seem like an unlikely pair, they bond over the supernatural aspect of this tv show and the idea of being able to transcend the spaces of their physical self; their suburbia. On the surface, magical realism explains a lot of the movie. They cannot discern what is real and what isn’t and their obsession shapes their lives and their friendship with each other. Their friendship is surface level and awkward and weird and it works for them. They find solace in knowing someone who is just as obsessed with this thing as they are and they both use this tv show as a way to dissociate from their reality. As I told Amber and Rebeca, I think that if you go into this not knowing anything about this film (or if you don’t have identity issues), you might not see that on the first watch and I kind of would like to believe that’s the point. This movie feels long. There are a lot of times where nothing is happening and you’re just watching Owen and Maddy on the screen with an uncomfortable silence in the air. You sometimes watch the TV with them and for the entire movie you’re forced to just be in this uncomfortable environment and I think that’s one of the points that Jane Schoenbrun, the director, tries to make. There are many reviews out there that can put together the themes of the movie much more eloquently than me, so I just want to mention some things that left me with a lump in the back of my throat.
To me, this movie explores the psychological aspect of liminal spaces. The “backrooms” of our minds that is protected by our dreamy nostalgia for our childhood loves. Owen gets told, “Isn’t that a show for girls?” by his father when he asks his mother for permission to stay up to watch “The Pink Opaque” and he quiets down, not wanting to answer or argue for what he wants to do. This suppression of his identity is gradually exposed in the movie from not truly knowing his own sexuality to feeling like someone “dug up his insides and replaced it with nothing”. There are some flickers of hope here and there from Owen as Maddy tries to convince him to “bury himself”, but he doesn’t take it and in the end we see a withering image of Owen as he is forced to be “a man” and work on his own. Maddy and Owen both express sentiments that the years are going by like seconds and that is given to us by the amount of time that passes between Owen and Maddy seeing each other. 2 years, 8 years, 10 years, it doesn’t matter; Maddy at the end is not Maddy and they proclaim to Owen that it isn’t their name. Owen is stuck trying to be the same person and he suffers through it.
The whole message of this movie at its core is representation and the two ways that life can continue on each side of the spectrum. This movie creates possibility through Maddy and it creates a decaying end through Owen. It’s a horrifying coming of age film because through Owen’s eyes, he never came to fully realize himself while Maddy eventually did. Queer liberation, especially for trans people, isn’t as easy as saying “Fuck it, I’m just going to transition and I’m not going to care”. If anything, this movie is trying to convey the weight that comes with choosing that freedom; not knowing what is waiting for you on the other side when you bury yourself, but doing it anyways because it’s better than what you’re doing now. This movie is important because it’s a raw look into how some queer people struggle with their identity, the tools they use to comfort themselves, and their eventual liberation from their limiting thoughts.
It’s also important because the soundtrack is amazing and Phoebe Bridgers makes an appearance <3
“what I talk about when I talk about running”
Ironically enough, I haven’t finished that book yet (on it), but I’ve been thinking a lot about running and have lots of thoughts about the next year as I prepare to train for my next half marathon or marathon.
I ran a lot in high school. I feel like that’s very much a “has-been” sentence, but I’m really proud of what I accomplished then (everything from this moment until 2022 is before the start of my transition). I picked up running because I was no good at any other sport. I hated baseball, wasn’t interested in football, and was mediocre at soccer. In middle school, I started running because of a friend of mine and I fell in love with the sport. There are a lot of cliches about running and I feel that once you’re in the thick of training, it’s such an incredibly rewarding thing to do. Your success is dependent solely on you and although city-wide runs are considered “races”, there are very few runners who actually care about the person next to them. Most runners run to beat their personal best, to just finish the race, or to prove themselves wrong.
Fast forward a few years and my love of running peaked in high school. I got to be fast in the 5k (16:10), 800m (1:53), and the 400m ( 0:49s). I think I ran like 48 out of the 52 weeks of the year during my last two years of high school and it led to burn out. I didn’t run in college because I wanted to focus on my studies and I just let it go. My mental health also contributed to me not wanting to do much and for about 3 and a half years I just gave it up. I picked up it during graduate school, but injury sidelined me multiple times and I was never able to get back to the same consistency as before.
I started transitioning June 2022 and started running again, with purpose, late July 2022. My goal at the time was to run a half marathon. With knowledge from my cross country days and the Runna app, I nursed my injury back to health and started training on a consistent basis. I trained for 5 months and was able to finish the half marathon in February 2023. After missing the February 2024 marathon due to sickness, I’ve started training, yet again, for the Philly Marathon/Houston marathon (not sure yet).
Something that has stuck with me throughout this whole time has been the high requirement for discipline. I may not always have the innate motivation to lace up my Hokas and go for a run at 6:00 am in the morning, but I do it because the work needs to be done and because my body needs it. I’ve never used running as a way to punish myself or get skinny but instead as something that I can get lost in and I’m so grateful for that. When I tell people that I run, some immediately respond with something along the lines of, “I hate running, I don’t know how you do that” and although there probably isn’t much depth behind those words, it makes me sad because it must mean that at some point they were either forced to run and hated it or they tried to run and didn’t have the right information to continue doing it. Of course, if someone simply just doesn’t like running or can’t run because of physical ailments then that’s okay. But for those who wish they could run or have felt discouraged, most errors come in the following ways:
Running too much too soon and not giving your body time to recover
Running too fast when it’s just supposed to be an easy run
Not fueling your body well enough to run the next day and you feel lethargic
Treating it like a punishment instead of a privilege or something to help you relax
Running in the extreme heat (if you’re in Texas, run in the AM or late PM)
Limiting their body on what is even possible for them
I’m not trying to be “holier than thou” or convince you to run. I just would like people to experience at least one good run that makes them happy and at peace. There is something so pleasant about walking out the door to a crisp morning with empty roads. I wake with the sun and when I see other runners on the trail, it feels sweet. There’s an unspoken language shared on the trails; a language intertwined with the chirps of the morning birds, the whispers of the wind, and the crunch of your feet striking the dirt under you.
There are moments when I’m not fond of running. I don’t like >85% humidity when I’m already heavily sweating. I don’t like playing hopscotch around the mud on the trail when I’m just trying to do a recovery run. I don’t like the elitism that comes with some runners or the barriers to entry for POC and LGBTQ+ people. There are a lot of possible fixes for the running community, especially here where I live, but at the end of the day, running is just between the trail and I. As it has been since I was 14; as it forever will be.
Thanks for reading <3