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Because we live in a time where it has never been less possible to avoid the propensity for “pastiche,” it’s no wonder that Jane Schoenbrun’s latest film, I Saw the TV Glow, is awash in familiar aesthetics and storylines. But, more than that, a familiar theme: outsiderdom. What separates it from other “high school outcasts in a ‘throwback’ setting” narratives (including Donnie Darko, which it’s now frequently been compared to) is the trans nature of it. For never before has a film so clearly served as an allegory for what is known as the “egg crack” moment of transness (not even The Matrix). That moment, as Reverse Shot phrases it, “when the shell of denial, about your gender, breaks open [and] can’t be put back together again.”
Except that, unfortunately for one of the film’s two protagonists, Owen (Justice Smith), the enduring reaction is to deny the egg crack. To suppress it, to ignore that it’s happened at all. In order to convey this through the wonders of metaphor, Schoenbrun wields a Nickelodeon-esque TV show that Owen and his only friend (and fellow loner), Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), are obsessed with. A word that, in this case, is no overstatement. Especially for Maddy, who introduces Owen, two years behind her in school, to the show when he’s in seventh grade and she’s in ninth. The two first encounter one another during Election Day, 1996, when Owen’s mother goes to vote for “the saxophone man” again (on a side note, 1996 had the lowest voter turnout among white people, but there was a slight uptick in Black votes compared to the 1992 election). It’s there that he first sees Maddy, sitting beneath a sign that reads, appropriately, “Welcome to Void High.” That’s right, their school is called Void High (allowing for the fitting acronym “VHS”)—because Schoenbrun wants to make sure her viewers know just what an empty space this place is. For any outcast, sure, but especially one who must constantly stifle their form of “otherness” that is “too other” for even the weirdest kids.
But in each other, Maddy and Owen seem to find someone who actually “gets it,” and all with minimal talking required. Almost as if they share…a psychic connection. This is in part why Owen is so inexplicably drawn to Maddy in the first place, approaching her despite her steely, aloof demeanor. However, allowing her barrier to come down ever so slightly when he expresses an interest in watching her favorite show, she tries, in her way, to be less “rude.” So it is that, against the backdrop of a Fruitopia (RIP) vending machine, Owen listens to her intently when she asks him, “Election Night is cool, right? It’s like Colonial Day [yeah, that was a thing]. Or when they bring the inflatable planetarium into the gymnasium. It’s like the school gets transformed into something else, you know?” This, needless to say, has a couple of underlying meanings. On the one hand, she’s alluding to the idea that the very place they’re in is a warped transformation of something else—their original, or “true” world—and, on the other, she’s referencing the idea of transformation itself, as it applies to them. Or, in Owen’s case, doesn’t. For, despite all the urgings from Maddy, and all the signs (sometimes literally) around him, Owen cannot bring himself to make the transformation he so clearly wants to. Maddy, in contrast, has been waiting for something to really change for what seems like her entire life. Or at least since The Pink Opaque first started airing.
Although she has another friend named Amanda (Emma Portner, who plays a few other roles, too), it’s Owen she seems to have a real rapport with. Even though she can’t tell him things such as, “I like Michael Stipe” when she and Amanda try to come up with “gross guys” for some arbitrary list. It’s telling, of course, that she should gravitate to the then-recent queer icon, who had only publicly announced his fluid sexuality two years prior in 1994 (two years before that, he also responded to a rumor that he had HIV with, “I think AIDS hysteria would obviously and naturally extend to people who are media figures and anybody of indecipherable or unpronounced sexuality… Anybody who is associated, for whatever reason—whether it’s a hat, or the way I carry myself—as being queer-friendly”). In honor of the twentieth anniversary of his coming out, Stipe penned a short article for The Guardian in which he stated, “The twenty-first century has provided all of us, recent generations particularly, with a clearer idea of the breadth of fluidity with which sexuality and identity presents itself in each individual. Gender identification, and the panoply of sexuality and identity are now topics that are more easily and more widely discussed, debated and talked about openly. It’s thrilling to see progressive change shift perceptions so quickly.” For a teenager growing up in the 90s, however, there wasn’t quite as much hope for acceptance. Which is exactly why it was so significant that Stipe came out when he did—and, therefore, why it’s so significant that he’s mentioned by Maddy as someone who’s attractive, or “likable,” to her.
The significance of Stipe’s mention doesn’t stop there, though. The reference to him also further cements I Saw the TV Glow’s deep ties to The Adventures of Pete & Pete (not to mention cameos in the movie from the Wrigley brothers themselves), for Stipe makes a cameo in the very episode that Schoenbrun references with the Mr. Sprinkly character—very blatantly based on Mr. Tastee, the ice cream man that Big Pete (Michael Maronna), Little Pete (Danny Tamberelli) and Ellen (Alison Fanelli) all become fixated on befriending because he seems so lonely in his personal life. This much being confirmed after Ellen, who works at the photo stand, peeks into the envelope of photos he had developed to find that all of the images feature him alone. Just standing there in front of various landmarks (including the Statue of Liberty). The episode, called “What We Did On Our Summer Vacation,” allows Stipe an in as “Captain Scrummy,” a fellow ice cream man (albeit with less “luster”) who tells Big Pete (in what now feels like a suggestive line, as is the way with retroactive Nickelodeon viewings), “You seem like a bona fine sludgesicle man.” This in response to Big Pete asking if he has any of Mr. Tastee’s signature Blue Tornado bars. A sweet treat that becomes a Sprinkly Stick (and yes, it’s blue) in I Saw the TV Glow.
A similar premise appears in the first episode of The Pink Opaque that Owen sees. In it, Mr. Sprinkly is a far more nefarious version of Mr. Tastee, even though the kids in the episode initially wish that Mr. Sprinkly could stay all year-round, despite ice cream having far less clout in the winter. Likewise, Big Pete, Little Pete and Ellen wish that Mr. Tastee didn’t have to leave them either (even if, for the most part, it’s because it represents the end of the summer, and more passing of time).
While Pete & Pete did air on Saturday nights (like The Pink Opaque) on SNICK, it was never on that late in its first seasons to the point where someone like Owen couldn’t watch it. In I Saw the TV Glow, The Pink Opaque airs on the “Young Adult Network” (again, very Nickelodeon “coded,” but not shrouded in a code at all), which, just as Nickelodeon did, also gives way to black-and-white reruns after a certain hour (a.k.a. Nick-at-Nite). Unfortunately for Owen, he’s not allowed to stay up that late in order to be able to watch the series. Thus, Maddy hatches a simple plan for him to come over and “pop his viewing cherry”: lie and say that he’s going over to Johnny Link’s (a friend he no longer even talks to in his current state as an outcast).
After he watches it with Maddy and Amanda leaves, she asks Owen what he thought of it. All he can think to say to express his emotions about it is that it’s “interesting.” Surprisingly, Maddy doesn’t get offended by that flaccid “take,” telling him, “Isabel’s a scaredy-cat. She’s kind of the main character but she’s also kind of a drip.” In realizing that Owen is the “alternate reality” version of Isabel, the assessment definitely tracks. As for her opinion of what is her true self, Maddy remarks, “Tara’s my favorite. She’s super hot, and she doesn’t take shit from anybody.” She then breaks down the “Big Bad” character, Mr. Melancholy, the man in the moon who is “always messing with time and reality. He wants to rule the world. To trap Isabel and Tara in the Midnight Realm.” In many regards, it sounds like the proverbial government oppressor, also trying to do the same with trans people and their rights.
Just before Maddy goes to bed, letting Owen spend the night since his lie was that he would stay over at Johnny Link’s (the “Tino” from My So-Called Life of the movie), she tells him, “Sometimes, The Pink Opaque feels more real than real life.” Soon enough, Owen tends to agree, watching the episodes of the show he never got to see before thanks to Maddy recording them on VHS for him. Leaving the tapes in the darkroom of the school for him to pick up, Maddy writes little notes that say things like, “Isabel and Tara are like family to me.” This also fitting the common trans narrative of one’s family not being their “real” one, their chosen one. And for those who have ever clung to a show that felt so special because it was one of the few things on TV that was actually somehow relatable to one’s own ostensibly “weird” experience, Maddy’s intense connection is entirely understandable. And for kids who did watch shows as “off-kilter” and rare as Pete & Pete, Maddy’s enamorment is even more relatable.
Among I Saw the TV Glow’s first few scenes is the older version of Owen sitting alone in front of a campfire that absolutely screams, “Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society.” But far more than the errant nods to Are You Afraid of the Dark? with this campfire at night scene, I Saw the TV Glow pays homage to the storytelling style and “lo-fi” (a.k.a. it was just what the 90s looked like) aesthetic of Pete & Pete, which aired from 1993 to 1996. During almost every episode, Big Pete was given the omnipresent gift of narrating. Not just voiceovers though—there were also plenty of instances where he would look directly at the camera and speak to the audience. The same goes for Owen throughout the course of I Saw the TV Glow. Which leads Maddy to eventually ask him the question, “Do you ever feel like you’re narrating your own life, watching it play in front of you?”
Maddy’s role as the “elder” between the two of them is also Pete & Pete coded. Because she has that slight amount of extra years over him to “know better,” to have more wisdom. To see past and through the bullshit. Owen, alas, prefers to remain in his bubble of forced naïveté, echoing Isabel when she says of the Drain Lords (another riff on something out of Are You Afraid of the Dark?), “They can’t hurt you, if you don’t think about them.” That’s how Owen feels, essentially, when it comes to thinking about the life he should truly have. And even though The Pink Opaque tugs constantly at that urge, he still finds it to be a source of refuge rather than a “galvanizing force” for change within himself. And without.
When Maddy asks him, “Do you like girls? Boys?,” Owen decides, “I think that I like TV shows.” She says nothing in reply, allowing him the space to finally say, “When I think about that stuff 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 [a foreshadowing image]. I know there’s something wrong with me. My parents know it too, even if they don’t say anything.” As for the running motif of one’s family not being what they want or need, even The Adventures of Pete & Pete touches on that a few times, particularly in the first episode of season one, when Big Pete says things like, “For the next twenty-three and a half hours, it’s just me…and the family.” Or when he’s subjected to the torment of his father, Don Wrigley (Hardy Rawls), shouting from the front seat of the car, “You can stay back there until you learn what it means to be a member of this family!” For trans people, what it “means” to be a(n accepted) member of their biological family is often denying who they are for the sake of other people’s comfort.
Ultimately, in that same episode, Pete decides he is a Wrigley. For Owen, the torture of pretending that his “father,” Frank (Fred Durst, of all people, adding even more 90s cachet), is really that only continues to be a heavy burden. Not unlike putting away all sense of “fantasy” once Maddy disappears without a trace after telling him that he should leave this town with her. “I’ll die if I stay here,” she realizes. But the death, in this case, is a metaphorical one sprung out of stagnation and denial. In other words, suburban bread and butter. (No wonder Owen responds to Maddy about her confession that the “real” world isn’t real, “This isn’t the Midnight Realm, Maddy. It’s just the suburbs.”)
Although something inside Owen knows that he should follow Maddy into the abyss of wherever, his phobic, self-hating part rats her out as he tells Johnny Link’s mom (not coincidentally played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Amber Benson) of the plan. Soon after, not only does his mom die, but The Pink Opaque is canceled. Eight years pass and little has changed in Owen’s dull, unglamorous life apart from the fact that he now works at a movie theater instead of going to school.
In the middle of the grocery store one night, Maddy reappears out of nowhere, taking him somewhere that is highly reminiscent of The Bang Bang Club from Twin Peaks: The Return. To be sure, the vibe Schoenbrun ends up going for is “Nickelodeon if David Lynch were the sole programmer, director and writer” (which rather suits the retroactive taintedness of the network considering Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids’ TV). It is in this strange, on-the-fringes-of-town venue that Sloppy Jane and Phoebe Bridgers perform “Claw Machine,” perfecting what Schoenbrun was going for with the soundtrack: curating “the greatest 90s mixtape that didn’t exist yet.” With the help of Sloppy Jane featuring Bridgers, along with artists like Caroline Polachek and yeule, Schoenbrun gets pretty close. And, of course, she gets more than close to nailing the style and feeling of the 90s-era Nickelodeon TV shows that so many millennials grew up with. This also extends to fare like Clarissa Explains It All and The Secret World of Alex Mack. In the case of all these shows, the thing that made them so special to kids of the time was that they tapped into the feeling of how separate the adult world felt from the world of kids and young adults. Or how separate someone “othered” can feel from the “normal” world.
In describing a forthcoming book series she’s writing, Schoenbrun makes it sound like the crux of I Saw the TV Glow when she says, “…it’s about transition, becoming, and truly closing that gap between self and screen until you feel like you’re approximating some form of real life.” Maybe, for some, that might take an entire lifetime, but as the film reminds in childlike, chalk-drawn script, “There is still time.” If you don’t squander it.
Beyond the trans allegory, Schoenbrun crystallizes the understated yet glaring disappointment that comes with adulthood. And reckoning that the magic you once saw as a child can no longer be seen or experienced as an adult. Hence, even further into Owen’s adulthood, he narrates, while watching a show that doesn’t square with his memory of it, “I started The Pink Opaque again. And it was nothing like I remembered it. The whole thing felt cheesy, and cheap. Dated, and not scary at all.” Of course, that’s not the case with The Adventures of Pete & Pete, which still holds up. Especially for the millennials it was made for. Indeed, while some have called I Saw the TV Glow a “Gen Z Donnie Darko,” everything about it feels catered to the millennial sense of nostalgia, and loss. Loss of a time when things were tangible, and not so complicated.
What’s more, where I Saw the TV Glow has to go twenty-eight years back in time to find the sinister in the pure, Donnie Darko need only go back thirteen years, from 2001 (when it was actually released) to the Dukakis-Bush election year of 1988, in order to find the retroactive sinisterness that was already so clearly there while living through it—Irangate, anyone? To boot, it seems pointed that both movies are certain to play up that it’s an election year, the political always infecting the personal.
As for the disintegration of magic as one gets older, at the same time, there was once a veneer of “magic” (or perhaps denial) over everything—before the curtain was fully pulled back around the post-Empire 00s (though baby boomers will say it was pulled back with ‘Nam, and the 60s in general). In this regard, it’s no wonder so many people want to keep revisiting the “old” TV shows they used to watch as children. No matter how dated or cheesy they might seem. Because, sometimes, it’s important to remember the last time you felt comforted by the familiar. Even if, with that familiar comfort, comes the associated memory of total alienation.
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Genna Rivieccio
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