The Secret to Never Growing Up: I Saw the TV Glow
I Saw the TV Glow (2024) is a psychological horror film written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun and distributed by A24. In the film’s boring suburban setting, a teenage boy named Owen (Justice Smith) and his friend Maddy (Jack Haven) bond over a TV show called The Pink Opaque about two girls with psychic powers. (spoilers ahead!) One day, Maddy goes missing and mysteriously reappears years later to tell Owen that their suburban life is a falsified reality and she knows this because she buried herself alive and woke up inside The Pink Opaque–they are the two girls in the show. Though subtle, this moment is where it becomes clear that Schoenbrun designed the film to be an allegorical “portrayal of the trans experience” (The New Yorker); Owen now knows that his current life and identity do not match his real, female identity in the show. Maddy tries to convince Owen that they should both bury themselves alive so they can wake up in the show and fight the villain who trapped them in their suburb, but Owen is too scared to do so. In the scene that directly follows the one where he refuses to bury himself alive (1:19:53-1:23:20), Owen’s monologue exemplifies his immaturity and carries the film's broader message about how being excessively risk-averse will cause aging that is unaccompanied by maturity.
Owen’s inability to interact with his friend Maddy at an age-appropriate level reflects his immaturity. The beginning of his monologue reveals that his first instinct after coming to terms with the fact that he would have to bury himself alive to re-enter The Pink Opaque was to hide: directly after running away from Maddy, he says, “I locked myself inside. I didn’t leave the house for days” (1:19:57-1:20:02). Since “the house” in question is his childhood home, the one he has presumably lived in since birth, this reclusive behavior also symbolizes an age regression into childhood. Usually, as children get older, they spend less and less time in the home; they get steadily busier with school, friends, extracurriculars, and part-time jobs until they eventually move out permanently to attend college or pursue other life goals. With this developmental pattern in mind, the fact that Owen runs away from his friend to go home is representative of his inability to deal with interpersonal conflicts maturely. As he hides away, Owen says, “I kept waiting for her to show back up to force me underground. But she never did” (1:20:04-1:20:16). His expectation that Maddy would “force” him to bury himself alive despite his refusal reflects his childish belief that others will make important life decisions for him; a parent might “force” their young child into decisions against their will, such as eating all of their vegetables or waking up early for school, but when they grow up, they are expected to know how to manage their own lives and choose their own path in life. The idea that Owen expects Maddy, who is only a couple of years older than him, to quite literally make a life-or-death decision for him implies that he views his friend more as an authoritarian parent figure than an encouraging peer. Accordingly, Owen “never [sees] her again” (1:20:16-1:20:19), demonstrating his inability to maintain friendships with peers.
As Owen reflects on his final encounter with Maddy, he undergoes a cycle of denial and doubt about his true reality–The Pink Opaque–that exemplifies his immature tendency to repress his fears instead of confronting them. He narrates, “I told myself I made the right choice” (1:20:25-1:20:27); in doing so, he outright denies that The Pink Opaque alternate reality exists, despite the fact that Maddie had previously told him a very convincing story to prove that it does. However, doubts sneak into his mind. He continues narrating that sometimes, “when [he] was working late at the movie theater, [he] found [himself] wondering...if she was right” (1:20:36-1:20:41). This sliver of doubt shows that he is self-aware; he knows there is a chance that Maddy “had been telling the truth” (1:20:42-1:20:44) about The Pink Opaque being real, and if so, he has chosen to remain imprisoned in his current reality. He starts daydreaming about the possibility that he is “someone beautiful and powerful…on the other side of the television screen” (1:20:50-1:21:01) as he sweeps the floor of a dark movie theater that has the words “Thank You for Watching” displayed on the screen. Clearly, Owen is not emotionally fulfilled by his minimum wage job at the movie theater, yet this is the consequence of him choosing this false reality over The Pink Opaque reality. His fear of taking risks has confined him to an unfulfilling life only made exciting by an alternate reality in The Pink Opaque, which is reflected in the way Owen is only physically illuminated by the projector’s glow (which symbolizes the alluring The Pink Opaque) in an otherwise dark movie theater (which symbolizes his grim current reality). He is not actually living an exciting life; he is only “watching” it through his television and his daydreams. However, he soon returns to his initial denial, stating, “But I know that’s not true. That’s just fantasy. Kid’s stuff” (1:21:05-1:21:12). He dismisses his own secret hopes that a better version of himself exists in The Pink Opaque by deeming it to be “kid’s stuff” (1:21:12), beneath him. Though this dismissal implies that Owen thinks of himself as mature, his earlier doubts show that he is self-aware enough to recognize there is a possibility that The Pink Opaque is real (and that it would be a lot more exciting than his current life) but is actively choosing to remain in the dark. He ends this section of his monologue by stating, “The movie theater closed the next fall” (1:21:35-1:21:37), bookending his reflection on The Pink Opaque with the image of the movie theater.
After briefly contemplating, then denying, the existence of The Pink Opaque reality, Owen directs his focus to his current life, but his conception and actualization of what it means to be “a real adult” exemplify his immaturity. After describing his time working at the movie theater before it closed, Owen states that his “manager brought [Owen] along with him to the Fun Center” (1:21:39-1:21:41) where he “restock[s] the ball pit with balls” (1:21:44-1:21:46). Owen’s new job of “restocking the ball pit with balls” is about as, if not more, unfulfilling than the one he had before. However, even if viewers can understand his decision not to bury himself alive, they will likely find it harder to justify the fact that he does not take even a single risk in his false reality. Even as an adult, he is still working with the same manager that he was as a teenager, and evidently made no effort to find a new job or a life goal that would actually give him purpose. On top of his job remaining relatively unchanged, he also narrates that he “decided to stay in the house” (1:22:08-1:22:10) after his father passed away. The film shows a shot of Owen’s childhood home as he says this, and it appears that it is a plain house in a quiet suburb. This setting exacerbates the horror of his unwillingness to change. As best depicted in Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017), suburbs sometimes serve as a visual representation of imprisonment–their sameness and eerie calmness is horrifying. Every house looks almost exactly the same, and nothing ever changes. Though Owen appears to have made some improvements in his life by saying, “It was time for me to become a man. A real adult…And that’s exactly what I did” (1:22:10-1:22:16), even claiming to have started his own family (though they are never shown in the film), it is unclear exactly what he did. If working the same job and continuing to live in his childhood home, as Owen currently is doing, is his definition of becoming “a real adult” (1:22:16), he is wrong. Though Owen has gotten older, he has not significantly changed his life since his teenage years and seems not to show any desire to do so, representing a lack of emotional development that should accompany adulthood. Though he claims to have a family, he sounds extremely monotone and looks almost solemn as he says, “I love them more than anything” (1:22:29-1:22:31), implying that he is not happy with his current life despite the “improvements” he has made to it by becoming a “real” adult. At the same time he is talking about becoming a real adult and starting a family, the film depicts him throwing out his old television set and carrying a new flatscreen TV into the house. It appears to represent a positive change in his life, with the box of his new TV displaying LG’s motto, “Life’s Good”, but the camera angle is aimed upwards at the black ceiling of the patio. This ceiling is a reference to a lyric performed by a singer in the bar where Maddy told Owen about her experience in The Pink Opaque: “I paint the ceiling black so I don’t notice when my eyes are open” (49:52-50:02). This lyric further reinforces the argument that Owen is not happy with his current life, but consciously remains in denial because he is too scared and immature to take a risk that will drastically change it. The song that plays during his monologue, “Riding Around in the Dark” by Florist, reflects this sentiment with its lyrics of “Stop dreaming, what’s your weakness? I’m not dearly loved by the hands that know me” (1:20:37-1:21:00). Though Owen technically has a family, Owen is not “dearly loved” by them, as evidenced by his sad voice and expression as he talks about them. At the very end of his monologue, he puts out the campfire that has been burning throughout the movie by pouring water on it, symbolizing that his spark has been extinguished. In juxtaposition with the first part of his monologue, where he only felt hope when he daydreamed about his alternate reality in The Pink Opaque, this final part of the monologue shows the fallout of refusing to make any changes towards a better life or even consider the possibility of it. Therefore, the visuals of the film as well as its words imply that Owen is not happy in his false reality, despite his claim that he has become a “real” adult. Although one could argue that Owen technically fits into society’s conception of a “real” adult as someone with a stable job, a family, and a home, I believe real maturity is knowing what you want and pursuing these goals even when your desires don’t align with what others expect from you, simply because the alternative–conformity–is too draining.
Essentially, I Saw the TV Glow is a case study on the horrors that result from being excessively risk-averse and Owen is the subject. The evidence of his immaturity in his monologue, from his inability to maintain friendships with his peers to his unwillingness to make major career decisions and start a meaningful family, proves that risk-taking is necessary to not just age, but mature as a person.
Sadie Cho is a senior majoring in English and Psychology in Columbia College.