nothing against you la'ron grate vedeo btw. but "There is still time". to do what ? jump in a hole ? in the movie that is how you sove the problem. for us the people watching the movie that is definitely NOT how you solve the problem. please if you are thinking about it....... please don't!.. you can be trans in this world please.!
@@armouros I really don't mean this in a rude way but if you are being serious right now you really need to work on your media literacy. Transition. It's a metaphor for transition from the perspective of someone terrified by it.
@@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou i know im not very good at spelling i get told by people my hole life. have gone to special teachers the way my brain remembers words does not match up to how they are spelled. fernetick spelling its something i have to work on every day. i do spell check as good as i can to make the words like they are supposed to be. and also ask the computer to read it back to me to double check it sound as close to right as i can get it because when people find out im not good at spelling people treat me differently and its not a fun feeling. thanks for saying media literacy and not just your spelling sucks.
Hi trans woman here. When I watched this film I was a good 2+ years into transition, and found myself enraptured but shocked by how i had no tears during its events. It made me anxious, it made me horrified, it sent chills up my spine, it even made me very sad at times - like looking into a broken mirror, the film reflected parts of myself and my past I had hoped would stay buried. I felt so seen and captured by the film to the point of sheer transfixed terror. Like it wasn't safe to cry. When at last the credits rolled, and I started to reckon with what I had seen, I was overwhelmed with a surging sense of relief and gratitude. I had watched the film with my friends, and I couldn't stop sobbing to them how much I valued their support and influence on my life - that's when I found the tears wouldn't stop. They were the tears of someone who had survived the legitimate fear of encroaching literal death. I didn't need this film to tell me I was transgender, I already knew, but I do think I Saw The TV Glow has permanently made me a more grateful person.
I had a very similar experience. My partner and I, 1 year and 2 years past transition respectively, was very focused and personal i was incredibly uncomfortable. As you said, i was looking into a mirror, watching myself do everything i can to dodge who i was. By the end i was devastated. My partner and i just cried into eachothers arms for awhile, and to this day i cant describe this film without being pulled back and watching totally spies at my friends house so my dad wouldn't see me. I dont think ill ever watch this masterpiece again, but it has a place in my very soul
The real dread of watching this movie was the understanding of how deeply it reflected a closeted person’s experience. As an outsider looking it, it gave me soul pains like movies rarely do.
As a queer person who also probably has undiagnosed Autism, the main characters struggles hit so hard. I’m glad I’m living in my truth when it comes to identity but I’m still struggling to find constant motivation to make moves I’d like to in my life; along with using media to cope with that feeling. The ending terifies me but it’s morbidly motivating.
I'm queer and autistic too. For most of my life heard the advice to "be myself", so much that it lost all meaning. Sure, it's easy for those people to say. They were born interesting and charismatic. Whenever I tried to act naturally, I would be ridiculed. After a while I learned that "myself" was bad, the advice didn't apply to me, so my only option was to assimilate. I hated and loved this movie. It made me deeply uncomfortable. It reminded me of what's actually at stake when I deny myself myself. I thought unmasking was terrible, would ruin me socially, essentially destroying my life. But I was wrong. The mask IS horror in its own right. Deep down I knew it because I lived it everyday. I was haunted by the idea that I might look back in a few decades, full of regret trying to pretend I was what other people wanted me to be. It made me recognized I'd rather be hated by everyone around me doing something I loved rather than loved by everyone doing things I hated. Sorry this is so long, it's been rattling around in my brain TLDR. Be yourself
One aspect of Owen's dad that I thought was perfect was THAT is was rather understated, but entirely unambiguous. We get that ONE line from him, which clearly bad is a very "mild" kind of bad. But having him basically silent for all other appearances leaves the oppression without ever 100% confirming it, which is a special hell for many Queer people. The knowledge that it's not gonna be GREAT if you come out, but not knowing how bad it is. If it had more lines from him about "manning up" and "stop being a little b*#&$", there it very DIRECTLY villainizes the dad in a way cishet people would be COMFORTED by. "Oh, well, *I'm* not like that asshole, I love all my gay friends! All one of them!" Believe you've even spoken on similar aspects to how racism is often portrayed in media as the actions of an ignorant segment of people. Also, a master stroke in casting Fred Durst in the role as well. 90s icon of macho bravado, but who has his own personal story figuring out where he fit into the world. How he actually HATED a large portion of the culture and fandom around Limp Bizkit because HE always felt like an outsider nerd and was making his music in rebellion to that, only to become pure Dudebro Jock fodder. He is 100% in on the joke of his casting for this role. For the second question, it wasn't a Queer story that came to mind, but a very special run of Deadpool comics. The Daniel Way era of the title will always have a special place in my heart for showing depression in such a bizarre, visceral, and oddly FUN form while never mocking it. And it was reading these comics (and developing that parasocial bond with the character! Aaah!) that helped me through my own depression. And part of what I love about it is that it's so STUPID, but by god Wade would love it.
Saw the movie with my straight friend and we were both left so unsettled and sad. I was obsessed with it for weeks after. The vibe just weighs so heavy but in such a successful way
Bless. The straight guy in my film group just posted a meh review of this. Gonna go roast him and post this video. (Also, how did I not know Justice Smith was gay? Fantastic.)
2:43 on writing on the wall: the high school boards say things like carpe diem (seize the day) and the high school is Void High and their mascot is the vulture. Like I noticed that first off the bat and I hadn’t seen anybody mention it. Like there’s so much to this movie. Like people don’t even mention the puke in the bath 😭
I'd been meaning to watch I Saw the TV Glow for ages and this video prompted me to finally do it. I wholly bought into the idea not that Owen and Maddy were being taken over by Isabel and Tara, but that they *were* Isabel and Tara, trapped in the Midnight Realm. The idea that Owen was living an entire life over the course of however many minutes it would take Isabel to suffocate really turned the fact that Owen had asthma into some absolutely brutal foreshadowing. I realise it's all allegory but it still really got to me. Fear and the denial of self, presented as slow but inexorable suffocation. I took solace in the message that "there is still time".
thank you so much for this video!! as a trans lesbian, this movie has meant so much to me. it's so disheartening to see cishets completely misunderstand the allegory :( your videos mean so much to me and ive been waiting for you to talk abt this movie!!! thank you so much again
Hello. Queer non binary person here, and how anyone could be blind to the actual story here is beyond me. While I was disappointed by the marketing of this film as a horror story, I definitely enjoyed the film, and found myself crying through most of it because of how much of my youth it brought back up for me. Hell, I'm crying right now just writing this. Thank you LaRon for your excellent video essay.
Did I misunderstand then ending? It felt like such a heartbreaking depiction of a trans person essentially dying in the closet. I'm definitely watching it again! The ending felt very mournful and I wanted Owen to experience freedom. 😔
Here's my interpretation of the ending as a trans woman myself. The film leaves You (the audience) without closure to Owen's story. What did she decide to do after sheepishly crawling out of that bathroom? It's ambiguous. Without that closure within the bounds of the screen itself, with nowhere to look for closure and meaning but a black screen and your reflection staring back at you, the film forces You to look within yourself for closure and meaning. To ask how You relate to what you've just witnessed, and the film has primed You to do this by showing how Owen and Maddie struggle continuously with their identity as it relates to characters on a screen, and You are invited to do the same. If You want Owen to experience freedom, the only thing to be done is to experience freedom yourself (whatever that means to You.)
I saw the ending as being that horrific and frustrating so as to make the audience ACT. Don't become Owen. Its a date worse than death. Often we mistake a compromised closeted life for safety. But really you are still dying. And for what? For the sake of people who do not care about you beyond your compliance. It's terrible. So don't be like Owen. There is still time. ACT.
I saw in an interview that they filmed a more obviously hopeful version of the ending but went with this one instead as they essentially felt it was more effective.
Hardest hitting scene for me was when Owen walked into his co-worker getting a BJ and later on his co-workers was asking Owen if she wants to hook up with the woman. The way Owen clearly didn't want to have the conversation but his co-workers insist on having it made me think of all the times I had to deal with 'locker room' talk and pretend to be hyper sexual and homophobic. Seriously wish I had the strength back them to tell them all to STFU.
As a bi man who repressed for over 30 years beause of a fundie religious upbringing, this movie was very relatable. Even though the I'm cis, and the trans allegory is not perfectly relatable to my experiences, it still hit like a ton of bricks. When I first came out to a family member, I had responded to her invitation to a family gathering with undue hostility and I felt like I had burned whatever small amount of connection I had to them. I spent the evening screaming at the walls of my room until I passed out from exhaustion. When we talked later, it ended up being an hours long trauma dump where I came out. I was out to my own immediate family since my son had come out to me that year, but I was so estranged from my birth family that even though I had been back home in my birth city for a year, it was the first time any of them had reached out to me... and i bit her face off and then trauma dumped on her. Not great. Something about the thought of going back into the closet to spend time with my family had just broken me. That breaking point scene at the end where everyone around her does not acknowledge her pain while she screams at the walls. Finally having no choice but to look inside. Ya... painfully relatable.
The fact that anyone couldn't pick up on transness when the opening scene features the protagonist WITH TRANS PRIDE COLOURS BILLOWING BEHIND THEM baffles me beyond belief
I watched this a few days ago and it affected me far more than I ever expected. Watching someone wrestle with their identity, being terrified of the potential effects on their life, and running from it was something I still haven't shaken.
“Pretty and problematic people that persistently need permission to exist” is a truly incredible turn of phrase. Like I have to shout out what incredible writing that is, La’Ron, wow. Amazing work, loved the video!
A recent example of non-queer people ignoring queer coding is Spider Gwen from the second spider verse movie. Her arc is coming to terms with her father about her true self and him initially rejecting it due to his position in society as a cop. There's the fact that captain Stacey hates spider woman because she "killed his son" in Peter, something trans women are accused of doing to their pre-transition identity. Hell, when Gwen confronts her father at the end of the movie about being Spider woman, the colors of her universe turn pink, blue, and white. But she's definitely not trans because cis people said so.
I'm a bi cis woman and I watched I Saw the TV Glow with my straight mother. It was an interesting experience because the entire time, I was thinking about what the film looked like through her eyes. We didn't have a deep discussion about it, I'm sure she missed a lot of the nuance, but she did ask me if Owen was a trans woman so she clearly understood the broad strokes. I enjoyed it a lot and I'm glad my mom watched it, I feel like she walked away from it with more empathy for trans people.
Gods bless SOMEBODY made this fuckin video thank. There was a couple I saw walking out, one of them literally called this a 'bad shitty suck movie' and the other was like 'well, I mean, no, it wasn't bad' (straight couple wow whoda guessed) and that was how I knew I had to see it. Sitting in the theatre, it wasn't even the halfway point before I started thinking 'she' and 'her' pronouns. That ending was a gut punch, but people forget that art is not just here to make us happy. It's here to make us feel. Sometimes, that feeling is unpleasant, hurtful, agony. I have the theatrical poster on my wall for a reason. For me, when I saw the tv glow as a child? It glowed blue for me. I'm glad I was able to break out of the static before I had myself hollowed.
It's also tantamount to people being incurious about the creators of the media they consume, because a simple google of Jane Schoenbrun and watching Any interview abiut the movie would have explained things 🤣
Idk if people are IGNORING it exactly, because this is one of those shows that more people have opinions about it than have actually seen it, but I'm a fierce fan of Sailor Moon, and I have had people try to explain to me that "Isn't it ridiculous how people these days think that, like, every single character in that show is queer? Like, obviously there's that one couple that aren't cousins, but seriously." No, no it really isn't ridiculous, yes, seriously. Lots of queerness in the original anime is just blatant and impossible to ignore, but even beyond that, there is SO MUCH that's not explicitly stated but that makes a whole lot more sense through a queer lens. Like, there are a ton of interactions Usagi has with women that, if you squint real hard, could maybe just be admiration, but that make a whole lot more sense as crushes. Hell, I think the straightest person among the inner senshi is Minako, and even she would 100% date Haruka if Haruka wasn't already with Michiru. For a while I thought Mamoru was probably also straight-ish, but then a friend pointed out that A LOT of absolutely GORGEOUS people throw themselves at him over the course of the show, and his reactions range from "politely disinterested" to "oh god how do I make this stop", which I couldn't relate with but made my ace friend feel very seen so... yeah.
Side Note: so would the people, the PROFESSIONALS, who looked straight (heh) past the allegory to try and dissect the supernatural plot line as if it was the core element be a case of "And they were ROOMMATES!" happening in real time?
So happy for this review. As a straight guy i could immediately tell the story was about queerness in some way but my girlfriend insisted I was reading too much into it lol.
I had an interesting discussion with my trans friends leaving the theatre and questioning how to discuss Owen, the casting and what pronouns to use. I argue that Owen would absolutely insist on he/him pronouns at his current state in the movie.
@@cfor8129 but then do you think Owen should have been played by Helena Howard? I think this movie really resonated with me because I have been Maddy in my life and been pushed down in fields and run away from when I see things in people they are not ready for. Since then I realize you have to meet people where they are at.
Never seen this channel before but after watching 7 minutes of this video and looking through some of the other videos you've posted, you've gained yourself a new subscriber! The amount of thought and care that went into making this is amazing, this channel needs more attention 💜
I am a trans woman, I think I got more out of the using media to cope than I got out of the trans/queer plot. I remember when I was a 18 and I saw Scott Pilgrim vs The World in theaters 21 times (I worked in a theater lol it was free) I was OBSESSED But I wasn’t just obsessed cuz it was good, but because I needed that to be my life. They were cool, dating cool people, they liked video games and were in a band. It made me get really into music, be more open about nerd things I liked, and get my shit together with fashion. I spent the better part of a decade (18-26) trying to force my life to look like these fictional 18-26 year olds… and it also kinda led me to justify some of my worst impulses in relationships!! I Saw The TV Glow is the first media to explain that back to me. Like media as escapism or a roadmap to follow is fuckin dog shit. BUT ALSO I think it really plays into my trans experience! I had to let go of my weird fandom childish ways before I could embrace being trans. But when I finally made that transition it was actually pretty easy! I’m not saying I don’t get called the F-slur on the bus, or that my parents love me - but they already didn’t when I decided I was to the left of Bill Clinton lol. I’m sorry, bad gay alert, I just didn’t get much out of the queer story here. Even though I’m glad everyone else did
I'm a bi woman who figured out my sexuality in my late-20s due to trauma, and I went to this movie in theatres with three other people. We all came out with very different opinions on the movie-for me, it was one of the most visceral and impactful movies I've seen in my life. Of course, I can only imagine how much harder it would hit for a trans person, but the admission that coming out is terrifying and can come at great personal risk, paired with the sinking dread of knowing that failing to live as your authentic self will slowly drain the life from you... It's a type of extensial horror that has sat with me long after I left that theatre and the fact that my friends and I all came out with different feelings on the film (heck, the person who liked it the least wasn't even het-) just tells me that it's ideas are worth thinking about-that it has meat on its bones-and the message that there is still time to embrace who you are was so quietly affirming. I can't fully express how glad I am that this movie exists.
I hate the fact the algorithm decided to show me this video now instead of day 1. I haven’t watched the movie but now i’m going to. I’ve been having trans thoughts since middle school. But i only truly understood them during the pandemic and that really killed my ability to be productive.
I said this elsewhere and will say it in my own video on the movie once I finally get around to it, but as someone who has written specifically trans stories with the intention of having the readers experience the egg crack alongside the character, I Saw The TV Glow is the harsh, brutal version of what I wrote. While my first and most known work, Deviled Egg, was lighthearted cheese, I recognize that I could have made A Transformative Spark as harsh as I Saw the TV Glow. Where I picked up the reader and dusted them off, Jane yells in their faces, weeping There is still time. Honestly I feel robbed that people project on mainstream works and ignore the self published works of queer people. It also saddens me that the meat mallet level of bluntness this movie was was still not enough to get the Straights to see the queerness, but I'm not sure how to write a Monster Hunter Hammer level of bluntness for them to not notice it until they're smacked with it.
I loved the movie and cried at the ending. After I watched it I immediately knew that the story conveyed would be divisive in the critiques. Imo, best horror movie yet for 2024.
I like this movie and even though I am straight and cyst, I could relate to the characters on several levels, using art (in this case a TV show) as a form of escapism from one own life when your emotional needs are not fulfilled and you see yourself and an Other. The difficulty of finding people you could relate to. The underlying self-hate is because you don't fit. To suppress your true self to accommodate others, especially people you love. How time and conformity chip away your sanity bit by bit. However I felt while growing or right now, I know is 100 times harder for queer folks. This movie left me with a sense of dread because sometimes I think I will do that, I will scream bloody murder in front of people because I was not able to build the life I want for myself.
Yeah I was expecting a liminal space horror vibe. Which the movie did do, but as a queer person I did quite quickly identify the core of the film and what is was about. It fucked me up, I was going in for a horror film and exited sobbing at seeing what I and many other queer/trans people have had to go through before and after making the realization that we are in fact queer. I think what made me most emotional about this was the fact that Owen was so deep in masking who she really is it was coming to the point it was slowly but blatantly killing her. Even the way they chose to display this fact by the way Owen was becoming more dependent on an inhaler (I.e. denial or huffing copium), and heavily wheezing was spot on in my own feelings of trying to hide a part of myself. And what was heart breaking and all to familiar to me was the way that Maddie made their discovery and chose to come out and live their life, while Owen made her discovery but stayed closeted and how it will eventually take her life sooner or later if she doesn’t make her escape.
16:49 I guessed the source before you told me due to the shot of Tara (as an aparant cameo in this film) who what this bi chica's first seeing herself as a 20 something gen xer. Yeah, I and many of my friends (this show appealed to so many of us divergent peeps) lived for Tara & Willow and after the death of Tara into dark willow(I and other soooo identified with this pain of loss of someone who SEES you, ALL of you). Then you go later a decade of so (recall that in this era you were either gay or hetero, if inbetween you were just lying about one of them sort of pressures). Then you add in Xena and decade later with True Blood and Anna Paquins character and the actress herself where mething for many of us the parasocial aspect allowed us to see ourselves in ways we didn't know we could see ourselves as. These gave us a sort of self permission to allow us to see ourselves fully and lovingly without the societal (and familial) distrust/hatred. Didn't want to talk over other peeps just a tangent of emotions that you bring up (also thank you too, for showing me how to give myself permission to see & feel all of my with love, cuz dear person, your words in tangent help this intersectional disabled chica exist in a world that hates peeps like me, oh very ND too, but shows up differently in latino/indegenous adjecent peeps like me)
I'm straight, for the most part haha. I have no idea how anyone doesn't see the queer symbolism throughout the film, it's not even implicit it's fully explicit. Good film though, a lifetime of being eaten inside because of the profound stigma imposed by society is something I wish no one ever would face
As a trans man, this movie shook me to my core. I saw it in the theatre and the entire last 30-40 min, my arms were locked around my body (think the self hug you do when you're in the midst of a panic attack iykyk 🫠) holding back sobs that could have only originated from the depths of a person's body. I've NEVER seen a movie that immediately spoke to me so clearly, everything about it seemed to be specifically for me. I couldn't help but wonder on multiple occasions , "Is this how cishet people feel watching movies about them?" But no, I believe they take it for granted. What I was experiencing was validity. We exist. We have always existed. We will continue to exist. Much love to my trans and queer siblings. There is still time.
I was locked in to the movie. I was really hoping Isabel was going to find her way back at the end but we didn't see it happen, which is probably what the writer wanted but it was NOT what I wanted! 😭 I enjoyed the movie and I understand why it was released in spring because seasonal depression is about to hit and I need happy ending movies.
I completely get not interacting with anything associated with Joss Whedon now, but watching Buffy when it first aired was such a Gay Experience. It's different from the other WB shows you mentioned in the sense that courting a queer audience was very intentional, especially in later seasons. But even early on, being a slayer is used as a deliberate allegory for being queer. There was just nothing really like it on television at the time, particularly for queer youth. Watching I Saw The T.V. Glow felt like a love letter to Buffy the Vampire Slayer from queer kids in the 90s/early 2000s
I'm bisexual as well and I agree, to not see the message (especially if you're queer yourself) it's willful ignorance, it's BLATANTLY obvious what this movie is about. I could see heterosexual cisgender people not understanding to an extent but even still, if you know what a trans person is, you really should "get it"...
I'm going to adapt the 2nd question a bit to name several tv shows that set up for queer tellings before yeeting hard the opposite way, by bringing up the worst showrunner for taking thoroughly queer texts + aggressively hetronormalising them, Steven Moffat. He's particularly bad with "awakening" AroAce coded characters, his version of Sherlock Holmes & the 11th Doctor are the worst for this. But the BBC Dracula show was truly awful too, because it gave us an actively Bi Dracula, but then gender swapped Van Helsing, and the last scene is them effectively dying together in a scene that's meant to be romantic but is honestly the most horrific scene of the 3 episodes. I'll allow the exception of series 10 of Doctor Who + Bill Potts, but it still buried literally both it's queers so 😒 Hope this wasn't twisting the question too much. Thanks for another great video
My biggest issue with the film was and still is how hopeless it feels. I haven't seen anyone mirror my feelings on it either. Without the blink and you'll miss it "there is still time," message at the very end, this film is just a depressing example of never being true to yourself. The nightmare of realising far too late that yes, you did make the worst mistake of your life and you probably cannot fix it mentally and emotionally ruined me. The scene of the main character SCREAMING during a panic attack and no one able to listen is viscerally relatable and unnerving. When I first watched it, this was the only ending to the film for me. I was so disturbed that I never registered there was supposed to be a flimsy message of hope buried in there. I still don't like the film for the very reason it was a truly horrific experience to endure; it is an example of realistic hopelessness and regret wrapped up in a disturbing existential horror film.
@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou Yeah but like. The experience of the movie itself is kind of pointedly shaped in a way where Owen Seeming to not Know that word is the point, yeah?
had a hard time enjoying this beautiful movie. the mesage of k111ing yourself to go to the reall world "the pink opaque" was just to hard for me to get past. please. you can be trans in this world.
I don't think the movie was trying to say trans people should literally kill themselves. Instead, kill their old identites to live authentically. I'm sure for a lot of people, that's just as scary.
You don't think that was intended to be understood on a symbolic and nonliteral level? That's not messaging, that's a plot point. Transition can feel frightening, outlandish, self-destructive from the perspective of someone yet in the closet.
Meh... I'm straight. I went into this knowing nothing except that there was a lot of buzz. I'm not sure when I figured out it was a trans allegory, but it was during the viewing experience... And I still think it's a disappointing film because I can't relate. Have you ever seen 'Eagle Eye'? It's a stupid sci-fi espionage action-thriller from 2008. And I like it way more than it deserves, because it takes the idea of cutting off the entire head of the US government and starting over seriously (or at least as seriously as a dumb action-thriller can). Anyway, the point is that I know it's not really that good, and that I'm just giving it extra credit for playing towards my biases. And I would suggest that's what's happening here, except that since "political revolutionary" isn't core to my identity in the way "queer" is to yours, it's a lot harder for you to admit that the part that speaks to you doesn't make the rest of the movie any less half baked. To use your analogy, I ate the greens. I get how it tied the rest of the meal together. And I still think it was an unsatisfying meal... Like every other thing I see that clearly strikes me as a trans allegory, it just reinforces how foreign and unrelatable the trans experience is to me. Which only makes me like the surrounding material less, rather than wanting to give it a pass for providing a space for a message I find worthy of working through the chaff to receive. Trying to make me empathize with trans-ness is like trying to make me accept blue-and-orange morality (check TV Tropes if you're unfamiliar). It's so alien that the more specifically you try to explain it, the more alienating it becomes.
It seems like you kind of...failed to recognize that the core of your complaint being your disconnect from what the film seeks to communicate completely invalidates any claim of objectivity. You can't argue queer people give the film too much credit for connecting to them while saying you explicitly value you it less because the portrayal was alienating. Its a bizarre way to torpedo your own argument. Not enjoying the film is understandable, but don't claim unearned perspective.
@@MrMrprofessor12345 - What are you talking about? I clearly said THIS film is obviously trans coded. Then I compared it to 'The Matrix', which was mentioned in this video, which I don't think is nearly as trans coded as queer people like to insist. You're conflating statements about 2 completely different movies.
@@errantnomad - I enjoy plenty of media that doesn't reflect my experiences. It's specifically trans metaphors/allegories that I find completely alienating. The idea of not grounding identity in the reality of the physical body strikes me as madness, and I am viscerally opposed to anything advocating that idea. I reject it in exactly the same way I reject religion and the idea of the supernatural soul.
@@JCPRuckus You compared it to your experience with Eagle Eye. The Matrix wasn't ever mentioned by name, so I'm not sure what you mean there. Your next paragraph talks about eating the greens, which I took as "I didn't ignore the text of the film". Where exactly is what follows *not* referring to your experience of this movie?
There is still time. ❤
nothing against you la'ron grate vedeo btw. but "There is still time". to do what ? jump in a hole ? in the movie that is how you sove the problem.
for us the people watching the movie that is definitely NOT how you solve the problem. please if you are thinking about it....... please don't!.. you can be trans in this world please.!
@@armouros I really don't mean this in a rude way but if you are being serious right now you really need to work on your media literacy.
Transition. It's a metaphor for transition from the perspective of someone terrified by it.
@@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou i know im not very good at spelling i get told by people my hole life. have gone to special teachers the way my brain remembers words does not match up to how they are spelled. fernetick spelling its something i have to work on every day. i do spell check as good as i can to make the words like they are supposed to be. and also ask the computer to read it back to me to double check it sound as close to right as i can get it because when people find out im not good at spelling people treat me differently and its not a fun feeling. thanks for saying media literacy and not just your spelling sucks.
Hi trans woman here. When I watched this film I was a good 2+ years into transition, and found myself enraptured but shocked by how i had no tears during its events. It made me anxious, it made me horrified, it sent chills up my spine, it even made me very sad at times - like looking into a broken mirror, the film reflected parts of myself and my past I had hoped would stay buried. I felt so seen and captured by the film to the point of sheer transfixed terror. Like it wasn't safe to cry. When at last the credits rolled, and I started to reckon with what I had seen, I was overwhelmed with a surging sense of relief and gratitude. I had watched the film with my friends, and I couldn't stop sobbing to them how much I valued their support and influence on my life - that's when I found the tears wouldn't stop. They were the tears of someone who had survived the legitimate fear of encroaching literal death. I didn't need this film to tell me I was transgender, I already knew, but I do think I Saw The TV Glow has permanently made me a more grateful person.
I had a very similar experience. My partner and I, 1 year and 2 years past transition respectively, was very focused and personal i was incredibly uncomfortable. As you said, i was looking into a mirror, watching myself do everything i can to dodge who i was. By the end i was devastated. My partner and i just cried into eachothers arms for awhile, and to this day i cant describe this film without being pulled back and watching totally spies at my friends house so my dad wouldn't see me.
I dont think ill ever watch this masterpiece again, but it has a place in my very soul
The real dread of watching this movie was the understanding of how deeply it reflected a closeted person’s experience.
As an outsider looking it, it gave me soul pains like movies rarely do.
As a queer person who also probably has undiagnosed Autism, the main characters struggles hit so hard. I’m glad I’m living in my truth when it comes to identity but I’m still struggling to find constant motivation to make moves I’d like to in my life; along with using media to cope with that feeling. The ending terifies me but it’s morbidly motivating.
I'm queer and autistic too. For most of my life heard the advice to "be myself", so much that it lost all meaning. Sure, it's easy for those people to say. They were born interesting and charismatic. Whenever I tried to act naturally, I would be ridiculed. After a while I learned that "myself" was bad, the advice didn't apply to me, so my only option was to assimilate. I hated and loved this movie. It made me deeply uncomfortable. It reminded me of what's actually at stake when I deny myself myself. I thought unmasking was terrible, would ruin me socially, essentially destroying my life. But I was wrong. The mask IS horror in its own right. Deep down I knew it because I lived it everyday. I was haunted by the idea that I might look back in a few decades, full of regret trying to pretend I was what other people wanted me to be. It made me recognized I'd rather be hated by everyone around me doing something I loved rather than loved by everyone doing things I hated. Sorry this is so long, it's been rattling around in my brain
TLDR. Be yourself
One aspect of Owen's dad that I thought was perfect was THAT is was rather understated, but entirely unambiguous. We get that ONE line from him, which clearly bad is a very "mild" kind of bad. But having him basically silent for all other appearances leaves the oppression without ever 100% confirming it, which is a special hell for many Queer people. The knowledge that it's not gonna be GREAT if you come out, but not knowing how bad it is.
If it had more lines from him about "manning up" and "stop being a little b*#&$", there it very DIRECTLY villainizes the dad in a way cishet people would be COMFORTED by. "Oh, well, *I'm* not like that asshole, I love all my gay friends! All one of them!" Believe you've even spoken on similar aspects to how racism is often portrayed in media as the actions of an ignorant segment of people.
Also, a master stroke in casting Fred Durst in the role as well. 90s icon of macho bravado, but who has his own personal story figuring out where he fit into the world. How he actually HATED a large portion of the culture and fandom around Limp Bizkit because HE always felt like an outsider nerd and was making his music in rebellion to that, only to become pure Dudebro Jock fodder. He is 100% in on the joke of his casting for this role.
For the second question, it wasn't a Queer story that came to mind, but a very special run of Deadpool comics. The Daniel Way era of the title will always have a special place in my heart for showing depression in such a bizarre, visceral, and oddly FUN form while never mocking it. And it was reading these comics (and developing that parasocial bond with the character! Aaah!) that helped me through my own depression. And part of what I love about it is that it's so STUPID, but by god Wade would love it.
I didn’t even recognize Durst it was wild! He gave a very good performance
Saw the movie with my straight friend and we were both left so unsettled and sad. I was obsessed with it for weeks after. The vibe just weighs so heavy but in such a successful way
Bless. The straight guy in my film group just posted a meh review of this. Gonna go roast him and post this video.
(Also, how did I not know Justice Smith was gay? Fantastic.)
I’m over here just innocently trying to eat toothpaste and I’m taking strays here…
2:43 on writing on the wall: the high school boards say things like carpe diem (seize the day) and the high school is Void High and their mascot is the vulture. Like I noticed that first off the bat and I hadn’t seen anybody mention it. Like there’s so much to this movie. Like people don’t even mention the puke in the bath 😭
I'd been meaning to watch I Saw the TV Glow for ages and this video prompted me to finally do it. I wholly bought into the idea not that Owen and Maddy were being taken over by Isabel and Tara, but that they *were* Isabel and Tara, trapped in the Midnight Realm. The idea that Owen was living an entire life over the course of however many minutes it would take Isabel to suffocate really turned the fact that Owen had asthma into some absolutely brutal foreshadowing. I realise it's all allegory but it still really got to me. Fear and the denial of self, presented as slow but inexorable suffocation. I took solace in the message that "there is still time".
Same.
thank you so much for this video!! as a trans lesbian, this movie has meant so much to me. it's so disheartening to see cishets completely misunderstand the allegory :( your videos mean so much to me and ive been waiting for you to talk abt this movie!!! thank you so much again
Hello. Queer non binary person here, and how anyone could be blind to the actual story here is beyond me. While I was disappointed by the marketing of this film as a horror story, I definitely enjoyed the film, and found myself crying through most of it because of how much of my youth it brought back up for me. Hell, I'm crying right now just writing this. Thank you LaRon for your excellent video essay.
I mean, trans colors flying over a boy while the most feminine song ever plays, its really crazy how people refuse to get it
Did I misunderstand then ending? It felt like such a heartbreaking depiction of a trans person essentially dying in the closet.
I'm definitely watching it again! The ending felt very mournful and I wanted Owen to experience freedom. 😔
Here's my interpretation of the ending as a trans woman myself. The film leaves You (the audience) without closure to Owen's story. What did she decide to do after sheepishly crawling out of that bathroom? It's ambiguous. Without that closure within the bounds of the screen itself, with nowhere to look for closure and meaning but a black screen and your reflection staring back at you, the film forces You to look within yourself for closure and meaning. To ask how You relate to what you've just witnessed, and the film has primed You to do this by showing how Owen and Maddie struggle continuously with their identity as it relates to characters on a screen, and You are invited to do the same. If You want Owen to experience freedom, the only thing to be done is to experience freedom yourself (whatever that means to You.)
I saw the ending as being that horrific and frustrating so as to make the audience ACT. Don't become Owen. Its a date worse than death. Often we mistake a compromised closeted life for safety. But really you are still dying. And for what? For the sake of people who do not care about you beyond your compliance. It's terrible.
So don't be like Owen. There is still time. ACT.
I also interpreted it as a somewhat ambiguous ending, but definitely left me feeling not very optimistic for Owen/Maddy’s future.
I saw in an interview that they filmed a more obviously hopeful version of the ending but went with this one instead as they essentially felt it was more effective.
Hardest hitting scene for me was when Owen walked into his co-worker getting a BJ and later on his co-workers was asking Owen if she wants to hook up with the woman. The way Owen clearly didn't want to have the conversation but his co-workers insist on having it made me think of all the times I had to deal with 'locker room' talk and pretend to be hyper sexual and homophobic. Seriously wish I had the strength back them to tell them all to STFU.
As a bi man who repressed for over 30 years beause of a fundie religious upbringing, this movie was very relatable. Even though the I'm cis, and the trans allegory is not perfectly relatable to my experiences, it still hit like a ton of bricks.
When I first came out to a family member, I had responded to her invitation to a family gathering with undue hostility and I felt like I had burned whatever small amount of connection I had to them. I spent the evening screaming at the walls of my room until I passed out from exhaustion. When we talked later, it ended up being an hours long trauma dump where I came out.
I was out to my own immediate family since my son had come out to me that year, but I was so estranged from my birth family that even though I had been back home in my birth city for a year, it was the first time any of them had reached out to me... and i bit her face off and then trauma dumped on her. Not great. Something about the thought of going back into the closet to spend time with my family had just broken me.
That breaking point scene at the end where everyone around her does not acknowledge her pain while she screams at the walls. Finally having no choice but to look inside. Ya... painfully relatable.
The fact that anyone couldn't pick up on transness when the opening scene features the protagonist WITH TRANS PRIDE COLOURS BILLOWING BEHIND THEM baffles me beyond belief
I watched this a few days ago and it affected me far more than I ever expected. Watching someone wrestle with their identity, being terrified of the potential effects on their life, and running from it was something I still haven't shaken.
“Pretty and problematic people that persistently need permission to exist” is a truly incredible turn of phrase. Like I have to shout out what incredible writing that is, La’Ron, wow. Amazing work, loved the video!
A recent example of non-queer people ignoring queer coding is Spider Gwen from the second spider verse movie.
Her arc is coming to terms with her father about her true self and him initially rejecting it due to his position in society as a cop. There's the fact that captain Stacey hates spider woman because she "killed his son" in Peter, something trans women are accused of doing to their pre-transition identity. Hell, when Gwen confronts her father at the end of the movie about being Spider woman, the colors of her universe turn pink, blue, and white.
But she's definitely not trans because cis people said so.
While I don’t know my sexuality, I definitely see a message about still having time and needing to take agency for anything!
I'm a bi cis woman and I watched I Saw the TV Glow with my straight mother. It was an interesting experience because the entire time, I was thinking about what the film looked like through her eyes. We didn't have a deep discussion about it, I'm sure she missed a lot of the nuance, but she did ask me if Owen was a trans woman so she clearly understood the broad strokes. I enjoyed it a lot and I'm glad my mom watched it, I feel like she walked away from it with more empathy for trans people.
Who skips the collard greens?
I prefer mustard greens, but still.
You'd be surprised...
As a straight, the trans allegory was obvious to me. I think people who miss it are either doing so on purpose or are just really that ignorant.
Gods bless SOMEBODY made this fuckin video thank. There was a couple I saw walking out, one of them literally called this a 'bad shitty suck movie' and the other was like 'well, I mean, no, it wasn't bad' (straight couple wow whoda guessed) and that was how I knew I had to see it. Sitting in the theatre, it wasn't even the halfway point before I started thinking 'she' and 'her' pronouns. That ending was a gut punch, but people forget that art is not just here to make us happy.
It's here to make us feel. Sometimes, that feeling is unpleasant, hurtful, agony.
I have the theatrical poster on my wall for a reason. For me, when I saw the tv glow as a child? It glowed blue for me. I'm glad I was able to break out of the static before I had myself hollowed.
It's also tantamount to people being incurious about the creators of the media they consume, because a simple google of Jane Schoenbrun and watching Any interview abiut the movie would have explained things 🤣
Everyone turns out to be problematic. May as well never look into the creators to preserve the original experience and leave the work unsullied.
Idk if people are IGNORING it exactly, because this is one of those shows that more people have opinions about it than have actually seen it, but I'm a fierce fan of Sailor Moon, and I have had people try to explain to me that "Isn't it ridiculous how people these days think that, like, every single character in that show is queer? Like, obviously there's that one couple that aren't cousins, but seriously."
No, no it really isn't ridiculous, yes, seriously. Lots of queerness in the original anime is just blatant and impossible to ignore, but even beyond that, there is SO MUCH that's not explicitly stated but that makes a whole lot more sense through a queer lens. Like, there are a ton of interactions Usagi has with women that, if you squint real hard, could maybe just be admiration, but that make a whole lot more sense as crushes. Hell, I think the straightest person among the inner senshi is Minako, and even she would 100% date Haruka if Haruka wasn't already with Michiru.
For a while I thought Mamoru was probably also straight-ish, but then a friend pointed out that A LOT of absolutely GORGEOUS people throw themselves at him over the course of the show, and his reactions range from "politely disinterested" to "oh god how do I make this stop", which I couldn't relate with but made my ace friend feel very seen so... yeah.
Side Note: so would the people, the PROFESSIONALS, who looked straight (heh) past the allegory to try and dissect the supernatural plot line as if it was the core element be a case of "And they were ROOMMATES!" happening in real time?
yep
So happy for this review. As a straight guy i could immediately tell the story was about queerness in some way but my girlfriend insisted I was reading too much into it lol.
Thank you, I loved this movie so much and it drives me crazy when people don't get it. Really appreciate you using she/her for the main character.
I had an interesting discussion with my trans friends leaving the theatre and questioning how to discuss Owen, the casting and what pronouns to use. I argue that Owen would absolutely insist on he/him pronouns at his current state in the movie.
The movie is about the egg crack moment - using she/her is kind of an expression of hope that she goes forward to do something with what she learned.
@@cfor8129 but then do you think Owen should have been played by Helena Howard?
I think this movie really resonated with me because I have been Maddy in my life and been pushed down in fields and run away from when I see things in people they are not ready for. Since then I realize you have to meet people where they are at.
Never seen this channel before but after watching 7 minutes of this video and looking through some of the other videos you've posted, you've gained yourself a new subscriber! The amount of thought and care that went into making this is amazing, this channel needs more attention 💜
Shrek is a queer movie about one gay showing another gay that its ok to be gay. Im not changing my mind on this.
I am a trans woman, I think I got more out of the using media to cope than I got out of the trans/queer plot.
I remember when I was a 18 and I saw Scott Pilgrim vs The World in theaters 21 times (I worked in a theater lol it was free) I was OBSESSED
But I wasn’t just obsessed cuz it was good, but because I needed that to be my life. They were cool, dating cool people, they liked video games and were in a band.
It made me get really into music, be more open about nerd things I liked, and get my shit together with fashion. I spent the better part of a decade (18-26) trying to force my life to look like these fictional 18-26 year olds… and it also kinda led me to justify some of my worst impulses in relationships!!
I Saw The TV Glow is the first media to explain that back to me. Like media as escapism or a roadmap to follow is fuckin dog shit. BUT ALSO I think it really plays into my trans experience!
I had to let go of my weird fandom childish ways before I could embrace being trans. But when I finally made that transition it was actually pretty easy! I’m not saying I don’t get called the F-slur on the bus, or that my parents love me - but they already didn’t when I decided I was to the left of Bill Clinton lol.
I’m sorry, bad gay alert, I just didn’t get much out of the queer story here. Even though I’m glad everyone else did
I'm a bi woman who figured out my sexuality in my late-20s due to trauma, and I went to this movie in theatres with three other people.
We all came out with very different opinions on the movie-for me, it was one of the most visceral and impactful movies I've seen in my life.
Of course, I can only imagine how much harder it would hit for a trans person, but the admission that coming out is terrifying and can come at great personal risk, paired with the sinking dread of knowing that failing to live as your authentic self will slowly drain the life from you... It's a type of extensial horror that has sat with me long after I left that theatre and the fact that my friends and I all came out with different feelings on the film (heck, the person who liked it the least wasn't even het-) just tells me that it's ideas are worth thinking about-that it has meat on its bones-and the message that there is still time to embrace who you are was so quietly affirming.
I can't fully express how glad I am that this movie exists.
My moment of discovery was undoubtedly the fault of Inuyasha's brother. Lord Fluffy, Sesshomaru himself.
I hate the fact the algorithm decided to show me this video now instead of day 1.
I haven’t watched the movie but now i’m going to. I’ve been having trans thoughts since middle school. But i only truly understood them during the pandemic and that really killed my ability to be productive.
I said this elsewhere and will say it in my own video on the movie once I finally get around to it, but as someone who has written specifically trans stories with the intention of having the readers experience the egg crack alongside the character, I Saw The TV Glow is the harsh, brutal version of what I wrote.
While my first and most known work, Deviled Egg, was lighthearted cheese, I recognize that I could have made A Transformative Spark as harsh as I Saw the TV Glow.
Where I picked up the reader and dusted them off, Jane yells in their faces, weeping There is still time.
Honestly I feel robbed that people project on mainstream works and ignore the self published works of queer people.
It also saddens me that the meat mallet level of bluntness this movie was was still not enough to get the Straights to see the queerness, but I'm not sure how to write a Monster Hunter Hammer level of bluntness for them to not notice it until they're smacked with it.
I loved the movie and cried at the ending. After I watched it I immediately knew that the story conveyed would be divisive in the critiques. Imo, best horror movie yet for 2024.
I like this movie and even though I am straight and cyst, I could relate to the characters on several levels, using art (in this case a TV show) as a form of escapism from one own life when your emotional needs are not fulfilled and you see yourself and an Other. The difficulty of finding people you could relate to. The underlying self-hate is because you don't fit. To suppress your true self to accommodate others, especially people you love. How time and conformity chip away your sanity bit by bit.
However I felt while growing or right now, I know is 100 times harder for queer folks.
This movie left me with a sense of dread because sometimes I think I will do that, I will scream bloody murder in front of people because I was not able to build the life I want for myself.
Yeah I was expecting a liminal space horror vibe. Which the movie did do, but as a queer person I did quite quickly identify the core of the film and what is was about. It fucked me up, I was going in for a horror film and exited sobbing at seeing what I and many other queer/trans people have had to go through before and after making the realization that we are in fact queer. I think what made me most emotional about this was the fact that Owen was so deep in masking who she really is it was coming to the point it was slowly but blatantly killing her. Even the way they chose to display this fact by the way Owen was becoming more dependent on an inhaler (I.e. denial or huffing copium), and heavily wheezing was spot on in my own feelings of trying to hide a part of myself. And what was heart breaking and all to familiar to me was the way that Maddie made their discovery and chose to come out and live their life, while Owen made her discovery but stayed closeted and how it will eventually take her life sooner or later if she doesn’t make her escape.
this movie reminded me of the matrix, which was ALSO an allegory of the trans experience
16:49 I guessed the source before you told me due to the shot of Tara (as an aparant cameo in this film) who what this bi chica's first seeing herself as a 20 something gen xer. Yeah, I and many of my friends (this show appealed to so many of us divergent peeps) lived for Tara & Willow and after the death of Tara into dark willow(I and other soooo identified with this pain of loss of someone who SEES you, ALL of you). Then you go later a decade of so (recall that in this era you were either gay or hetero, if inbetween you were just lying about one of them sort of pressures). Then you add in Xena and decade later with True Blood and Anna Paquins character and the actress herself where mething for many of us the parasocial aspect allowed us to see ourselves in ways we didn't know we could see ourselves as. These gave us a sort of self permission to allow us to see ourselves fully and lovingly without the societal (and familial) distrust/hatred. Didn't want to talk over other peeps just a tangent of emotions that you bring up (also thank you too, for showing me how to give myself permission to see & feel all of my with love, cuz dear person, your words in tangent help this intersectional disabled chica exist in a world that hates peeps like me, oh very ND too, but shows up differently in latino/indegenous adjecent peeps like me)
Have a great day brother
I'm straight, for the most part haha. I have no idea how anyone doesn't see the queer symbolism throughout the film, it's not even implicit it's fully explicit. Good film though, a lifetime of being eaten inside because of the profound stigma imposed by society is something I wish no one ever would face
I love it that they could have made the movie in a way most cis people would understand, but it was made FOR queer people instead
As a trans man, this movie shook me to my core. I saw it in the theatre and the entire last 30-40 min, my arms were locked around my body (think the self hug you do when you're in the midst of a panic attack iykyk 🫠) holding back sobs that could have only originated from the depths of a person's body. I've NEVER seen a movie that immediately spoke to me so clearly, everything about it seemed to be specifically for me. I couldn't help but wonder on multiple occasions , "Is this how cishet people feel watching movies about them?" But no, I believe they take it for granted. What I was experiencing was validity. We exist. We have always existed. We will continue to exist. Much love to my trans and queer siblings. There is still time.
I hope this movie gets nominated for the Oscars, do you think it will? Will you make a video on the Diddy scandal that’s unfolding right now or no?
you had to list off all that food, and im starving.....lol
I was locked in to the movie. I was really hoping Isabel was going to find her way back at the end but we didn't see it happen, which is probably what the writer wanted but it was NOT what I wanted! 😭 I enjoyed the movie and I understand why it was released in spring because seasonal depression is about to hit and I need happy ending movies.
I completely get not interacting with anything associated with Joss Whedon now, but watching Buffy when it first aired was such a Gay Experience. It's different from the other WB shows you mentioned in the sense that courting a queer audience was very intentional, especially in later seasons. But even early on, being a slayer is used as a deliberate allegory for being queer. There was just nothing really like it on television at the time, particularly for queer youth. Watching I Saw The T.V. Glow felt like a love letter to Buffy the Vampire Slayer from queer kids in the 90s/early 2000s
I'm bisexual as well and I agree, to not see the message (especially if you're queer yourself) it's willful ignorance, it's BLATANTLY obvious what this movie is about. I could see heterosexual cisgender people not understanding to an extent but even still, if you know what a trans person is, you really should "get it"...
Goddamn, fantastic video on the best movie I’ve seen this year.
Im straight but neurodivergent so...i enjoyed it much but needed a little help with it. Thankyou for your support and patience friendly community.
I'm going to adapt the 2nd question a bit to name several tv shows that set up for queer tellings before yeeting hard the opposite way, by bringing up the worst showrunner for taking thoroughly queer texts + aggressively hetronormalising them, Steven Moffat.
He's particularly bad with "awakening" AroAce coded characters, his version of Sherlock Holmes & the 11th Doctor are the worst for this. But the BBC Dracula show was truly awful too, because it gave us an actively Bi Dracula, but then gender swapped Van Helsing, and the last scene is them effectively dying together in a scene that's meant to be romantic but is honestly the most horrific scene of the 3 episodes.
I'll allow the exception of series 10 of Doctor Who + Bill Potts, but it still buried literally both it's queers so 😒
Hope this wasn't twisting the question too much. Thanks for another great video
My biggest issue with the film was and still is how hopeless it feels. I haven't seen anyone mirror my feelings on it either. Without the blink and you'll miss it "there is still time," message at the very end, this film is just a depressing example of never being true to yourself. The nightmare of realising far too late that yes, you did make the worst mistake of your life and you probably cannot fix it mentally and emotionally ruined me. The scene of the main character SCREAMING during a panic attack and no one able to listen is viscerally relatable and unnerving.
When I first watched it, this was the only ending to the film for me. I was so disturbed that I never registered there was supposed to be a flimsy message of hope buried in there. I still don't like the film for the very reason it was a truly horrific experience to endure; it is an example of realistic hopelessness and regret wrapped up in a disturbing existential horror film.
Can you explain it for bisexuals? Thanks in advance 🙏🏾
Everyone knows we need a little extra help.
The closet is painful and it's never too late to accept your queerness.
Hard to describe how much I enjoyed this film
I should just stop RIGHT NOW and watch the movie before this BUT... the intro was too good so I'm stuck
Hey. Being queer /is/ evergreen, thankyuuverymuch.
Hell, I am not straight, pretty gender fluid but I didn't fully understand it too... Maybe because I do not live in the US?
Hmm today I learned Justice is gay, didn’t know that
Amazing job as always!
Wow, what a killer metaphor! 😘👌
I loved this film but found it pretty devastating
And I mean this: Grrl, same.
I love everything about all of this ❤
Several of my trans friends were surprised since they expected a trans movie, and not a movie about dysphoria.
Some trans people are closeted for a long time. This is a trans movie.
@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou Yeah but like. The experience of the movie itself is kind of pointedly shaped in a way where Owen Seeming to not Know that word is the point, yeah?
knew i could count on u
What's this movie about
TIL Justice Smith is gay in real life!
had a hard time enjoying this beautiful movie.
the mesage of k111ing yourself to go to the reall world "the pink opaque" was just to hard for me to get past. please. you can be trans in this world.
You can, but owen doesn't know that yet.
I don't think the movie was trying to say trans people should literally kill themselves. Instead, kill their old identites to live authentically. I'm sure for a lot of people, that's just as scary.
i am so happy someone else has said this. i couldn't get past that messaging
You don't think that was intended to be understood on a symbolic and nonliteral level? That's not messaging, that's a plot point. Transition can feel frightening, outlandish, self-destructive from the perspective of someone yet in the closet.
@@tempesttossed6029 It is not messaging. It is a plot point. They are not advocating for people to literally bury themselves.
Lmaoo thank you
Meh... I'm straight. I went into this knowing nothing except that there was a lot of buzz. I'm not sure when I figured out it was a trans allegory, but it was during the viewing experience... And I still think it's a disappointing film because I can't relate.
Have you ever seen 'Eagle Eye'? It's a stupid sci-fi espionage action-thriller from 2008. And I like it way more than it deserves, because it takes the idea of cutting off the entire head of the US government and starting over seriously (or at least as seriously as a dumb action-thriller can). Anyway, the point is that I know it's not really that good, and that I'm just giving it extra credit for playing towards my biases. And I would suggest that's what's happening here, except that since "political revolutionary" isn't core to my identity in the way "queer" is to yours, it's a lot harder for you to admit that the part that speaks to you doesn't make the rest of the movie any less half baked.
To use your analogy, I ate the greens. I get how it tied the rest of the meal together. And I still think it was an unsatisfying meal... Like every other thing I see that clearly strikes me as a trans allegory, it just reinforces how foreign and unrelatable the trans experience is to me. Which only makes me like the surrounding material less, rather than wanting to give it a pass for providing a space for a message I find worthy of working through the chaff to receive. Trying to make me empathize with trans-ness is like trying to make me accept blue-and-orange morality (check TV Tropes if you're unfamiliar). It's so alien that the more specifically you try to explain it, the more alienating it becomes.
It seems like you kind of...failed to recognize that the core of your complaint being your disconnect from what the film seeks to communicate completely invalidates any claim of objectivity. You can't argue queer people give the film too much credit for connecting to them while saying you explicitly value you it less because the portrayal was alienating. Its a bizarre way to torpedo your own argument. Not enjoying the film is understandable, but don't claim unearned perspective.
can you not enjoy ANY media that doesn't reflect your experiences?
@@MrMrprofessor12345 - What are you talking about? I clearly said THIS film is obviously trans coded. Then I compared it to 'The Matrix', which was mentioned in this video, which I don't think is nearly as trans coded as queer people like to insist. You're conflating statements about 2 completely different movies.
@@errantnomad - I enjoy plenty of media that doesn't reflect my experiences. It's specifically trans metaphors/allegories that I find completely alienating. The idea of not grounding identity in the reality of the physical body strikes me as madness, and I am viscerally opposed to anything advocating that idea. I reject it in exactly the same way I reject religion and the idea of the supernatural soul.
@@JCPRuckus You compared it to your experience with Eagle Eye. The Matrix wasn't ever mentioned by name, so I'm not sure what you mean there. Your next paragraph talks about eating the greens, which I took as "I didn't ignore the text of the film". Where exactly is what follows *not* referring to your experience of this movie?
I didn't like the movie subtext is for nerds
Your mom is subtext
Ok now i definitely have to watch it