I Saw the TV Glow: A Horror Masterpiece About Repression

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Today I want to dive into a film that has stayed with me long after I watched it. I Saw the TV glow. This movie is so haunting and melancholic and just deeply personal. I saw the TV glow is one of the most important films to come out of this decade and it's a film that I come back to so often. But for me as a trans viewer, it's also a quiet kind of affirmation. It's a reflection of the way queer and trans people navigate repression and alienation and the horror of not taking the leap into becoming who you really are. I saw the TV glow doesn't present identity as spectacle.

[00:00:45]Instead, what it does is it threads queerness and transness through emotion and environment and through the quiet life of its main character. I remember seeing it for the first time in a theater by myself and I walked out kind of unsure of what I felt, but I just knew that what I was feeling was very overwhelming. But it stuck with me and I kept thinking about it so much that a week later I went back to watch it and it moved me in ways I did not expect.

[00:01:19]Everything about it felt so unique and tender, and it told a story that felt so deeply familiar, even though I had never seen anything like it before on screen.

[00:01:31]The world just felt so layered and symbolic and emotionally precise. It felt like it was something made for me.

[00:01:40]And the director, Jane Shoenbrun, has such a distinctive voice coming off their previous work, All the World's Fair, which is another mustwatch. Every shot, every lingering moment feels so intentional. They build a world that is both familiar and alien at the same time. suburban streets that feel like purgatory, claustrophobic interiors that feel intimate and nostalgic, and spaces that seem to hover between memory and reality. Jane captures isolation in a way that feel so intimate and empathetic and you can feel their understanding of longing and that ache of wanting to be seen. One of the most powerful things they do is how they capture nostalgia.

[00:02:26]The film really oozes a sense of a specific time and era that feels both familiar and kind of slightly distorted.

[00:02:35]There's so much warmth in it. The suburban streets, flickering TV light, quiet nights alone, watching something you're not allowed to. It really taps into that '90s emotional texture of comfort. And for me, as someone who grew up queer in a small town, this hit on a gut level. That feeling of being trapped, knowing the world is bigger than your surroundings, but still feeling unseen.

[00:03:01]That's what this movie captures. So Owen is the center of this film. He's quiet, withdrawn, and always moving through life like he's a little bit detached from it. Everything about him feels almost muted. his reactions, his voice, even the way he takes up space. He's the kind of person who apologizes before he's even done anything wrong. Like, he's learned early on that existing too loud is unsafe. But what defines Owen most isn't just his isolation. It's his relationship to The Pink Opaque, the TV show that he is obsessed with. So, the pink opaque is this strange, surreal teen supernatural series that feels bigger than the world around him. It's a place that feels more real than his actual life, where identity and emotion and meaning seem clearer than anything else happening in his suburban reality.

[00:03:59]And you can read it as escapism, but it also feels like recognition, like something in Owen is responding to something he can't fully name yet. And this is where Maddie comes in. So Maddie is the first person who really sees Owen. She carries this intensity about her that makes her feel like she already understands something that Owen hasn't fully reached yet. Their connection forms through the pink opaque, but it quickly becomes more than just shared interest. Maddie talks about it like it's real, like it's a place that you can go to if you're willing to let go of the life that you're currently living.

[00:04:38]and Owen can't quite do that. Batty represents possibility. She represents escape and she represents the idea that the discomfort that Owen feels. It's not random. It means something and it can lead to somewhere else. But Owen is also afraid of that possibility. Even when she tries to save him and convince him to go with her, there's a resistance in him and he literally runs away because something in him won't allow him to take that step. So the film becomes this slow emotional split between them. Maddie moves toward certainty even if it means destroying her old life in order to become who she truly is. She is willing to face the terror and liberation of that transformation. Owen on the other hand moves towards suppression and he stays behind and survives by shrinking.

[00:05:32]And they represent two paths. one of transformation and self-recognition and one of refusal and survival through invisibility. Maddie escapes the midnight realm of suburbia and Owen stays inside of it. And that repression is so tragic and really the core of this movie. There's also something interesting about how the pink opaque starts to mirror Owen and Maddie in a more direct way. Owen starts to feel like Isabelle, stuck inside something that feels slightly off but never fully breaks open. And Maddie starts to align with Terra, the one who understands the structure of that world and tries to move beyond it. Even the imagery starts to blur when Owen is outside near the power lines and papers are flying everywhere. We get these flashes of text and fragments that feel like they're describing what's happening in real time. like the show itself is bleeding into the moment he's living in. It kind of raises this idea that what we're watching might not just be a show inside the film, but possibly an episode itself where Isabelle is trapped by Mr. Melancholy and Tara is trying to come back to save her. Maddie coming back for Owen is Tara trying to pull Isabelle out of that state, trying to save Owen from staying inside the version of reality that keeps him contained. And Mr. melancholy becomes less of a character and more of a force holding everything in place. It's the thing that keeps the loop going. So, the film starts to feel like it's sitting in two realities at once. Owen's life and the episode that reflects it. After Maddie leaves, Owen kind of starts to fade. The show gets cancelled around the same time Maddie disappears from his life, and Owen becomes less and less present in his own life. By the time we reach his adulthood, that distance has fully taken over. His heavy breathing, almost sickly voice, like he's literally suffocating within himself. Then when Owen finally revisits The Pink Opaque as an adult, it isn't what he remembers. It's changed almost like a playful children's show.

[00:07:46]It's flat in a way that he didn't expect. And the meaning that he used to pull from it doesn't land the same anymore. What felt emotionally alive in his memory now feels almost hollow. It's not a profound reflection of his inner world anymore. It doesn't feel like a secret language or a mirror of his soul.

[00:08:06]Instead, it starts to feel like a void, like it's stripped of the emotional weight he wants projected onto it. And that moment is really devastating in a quieter way because it feels like loss and eventually a break comes to the surface. He screams a blood curdling scream and it's a cry for help. Everyone and everything around him freezes and he's alone in that moment. It's such a devastating haunting scene and he's pleading for help. He's pleading to be saved and no one around him is listening. But the most moving part in the film is when he goes into the bathroom and cuts his chest open. And what comes out is static. It's flickering television light. Something that was always there underneath it all.

[00:08:53]Proof that the TV does still glow. And this is the moment where everything becomes clear. The suppressed identity, the buried version of himself, the thing he never allowed to fully exist. This is the egg crack moment where Owen fully realizes the true self that's been buried for so long. And yet, even after all of that, he puts himself together and goes back to work. He apologizes over and over again. Like, he's apologizing for existing. He's been so used to doing that his whole life that he continues doing it even after realizing he's dying from it. But Owen seeing the light could be a hopeful ending depending on how you look at it.

[00:09:35]I think that Owen felt like there was no hope at all. That the TV glow was completely gone. And when he opens himself up, he sees that it's still there and he can live it whenever he wants to. Maybe it's a glimpse of freedom. Maybe he does take that leap.

[00:09:53]It's this kind of will he won't he type of ending. And it all circles back to what Maddie once said, there is still time. I also have to note the cinematography is one of my favorite aspects of this film. Long takes really immerse you fully into the characterser's world. Sharp colors, intimate close-ups, and wide suburban shots create this kind of empty feeling of dread. And I really love Mattiey's written notes to Owen on the tapes that she gives him coming across the screen in pink. or even when Owen is walking under the school parachute that represents the trans flag. And even the moments where Owen is breaking the fourth wall, it's so touching and beautiful and it just hits you right in the heart. Also, the music in this film plays such a huge part in its identity.

[00:10:42]It actively shapes the emotional world of the story. The score by Alex G is really central to that feeling. The rest of the soundtrack builds that same atmosphere. It's fragile, surreal, and dreamy. It blurs comfort and unease into the same space. It feels like being inside Owen's emotions instead of just watching them. And I listen to this soundtrack so often now, and it's become kind of comfort, which feels fitting because even in its sadness, the film has something soft and human at its core. And that's why I saw The TV Glow matters to me and why it lingers so strongly. It's subtle and intimate and heartbreaking and beautiful in a way that feels so hard to explain but easy to feel. And if you've seen it, I'd love to hear what stayed with you. And if you haven't, it's a film worth sitting with and letting it unfold in its own quiet way. If you enjoyed this video, go ahead and give it a like and subscribe to my channel. And I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.