#i saw the tv glow tara

[honkygay]

a small detail that kills me in i saw the tv glow is tara’s character is confident, doesnt mess around and is a go getter.

tara in the midnight realm wouldve felt that drive, that knowing feeling that she didnt belong there but she couldnt leave until she found *someone* and wouldve felt that since fucking birth and she would’ve been searching since.

Isabel is a lot more skittish and quicker to hide, less likely to make a scene, but tara has been looking for isabel and *thought* she’d found isabel in amanda- the girl we see tara hanging out with in the first sleepover. tara was always searching for isabel.

but she found her eventually, they *both* found isabel eventually.

also a paralell to this theory i like is isabel trying to find tara in the final episode of season 5 of the pink opaque- failing because tara is buried deep underground but she finds a fake tara instead and it costs her. isabel couldn’t find tara cuz she was buried too deep to scream for help, and tara cant find isabel in the midnight realm cuz shes buried too deep, the soil packed in too tight.

[joe-spookyy]

nothing like going into watching I Saw The TV Glow completely blind as a buffy fan. as soon as they started the pink opaque i was like aww haha this reminds me of btvs! then. my ears perked up when someone was named tara. and then the tv font being the same as buffy’s has me raising my eyebrows. and then amber benson herself showed up for about 3 seconds and i did about 18 backflips in record time. and it made me want to be a better transgender. huge film

[mercutio-venus]

i saw the tv glow today.

owen is not just isabel she is also autistic. please, please, you have to listen to me she is autistic she is begging for people to listen she is begging for people to understand her. she knows she is not right she knows she is not right aside from her gender she can tell and it hurts. "look me in the eyes for once" she CAN'T i can't we can't it is not possible living not just in a cisgender world but an allistic world will kill us. we will die trying to mask ourselves we will die knowing we are not normal. you have to transition- you have to unmask. you not only have to unmask you have to find other autistic people and find joy with them. please, please, please transition. cut or grow your hair. change your name. change your pronouns. start the hormones. i have so many people in my life i want to sit in front of this movie and say, do you get it? do you see? i am begging you, please, please come with me. bury yourself alive with me, we have to get out. i love you, please wake up. you are dying. i am maddy i am tara i am begging you. i will love you i will accept you i will not force your eyes to mine i will understand what you are unable to say. please come with me. there is still time.

[marfalump]

season 6 episode 1: escape from the midnight realm (good ending)

[synthient]

Not high stakes or anything, but I've seen multiple reviews of and reflections on tv glow that engage really thoughtfully with Owen's transness while reading Maddy as straightforwardly cis/a girl/a lesbian, and I think it's kind of fascinating

The way Maddy's "you know I like girls, right? Not boys" offers a (shameful/sublimated) form of gender validation to Owen as their relationship takes on moments of intimacy--and the way that Maddy isn't ultimately capable of fulfilling Owen's fantasies of Two Girls doing Cool Subtextual TV Lesbianism, any more than Owen is capable of fulfilling Maddy's fantasies--is a rich and messy and key part of their whole dynamic. imo

[ohihopeicanchangethislater]

Can we all do a Goncharov with The Pink Opaque? Like I'm so glad it's on Peacock now, I haven't watched it since I was like 6 and my older sister would watch it. I wonder if it's as scary as I remember? I can't wait to see Tara and Isabel again! I love the theme song so much...

[thepunkmuppet]

was no one gonna tell me the pink opaque was based on buffy the vampire slayer. because I - a trans guy who watched buffy at eleven years old and have been irreversibly obsessed and connected with it ever since to the point where it’s an integral part of my life and personality - watched I saw the tv glow today. and I’m. fine I’m doing fine trust me I swear I’m fine

[petr1kov]

it's funny that when you think about 'i saw the tv glow' in the context of the inner logic behind 'the pink opaque' as a show, the events of the movie turn into that one episode in every show where the protagonists are trapped in a parallel dimension that psychologically tortures them before they snap out of it

[in-this-essay-i-wont]

I think what a lot of ppl r missing abt maddy/tara leaving Owen/isabel behind in their old suburban town is the fact that when maddy/tara left, they didn’t thrive and find themselves per se. I mean, they had the freedom to express themselves a bit more outside of their parents seemingly a bit suffocating hold, but it’s not like they were in queer paradise or anything. They wanted to die. They wanted it to end because they couldn’t survive, metaphorically speaking. Maddy/tara skipped town thinking everything would magically feel better. They didn’t. They still felt suffocated and odd in this life, the same way Owen/isabel did. Only when maddy/tara ‘escaped’ into the show and found her true self within the escapism of this show did she want to live again, and find Owen/isabel to take her with them into a world where she could finally feel like herself. Maddy/tara didn’t leave Owen/isabel for dead in this suburban town- they left to find a world they could both finally live in together as themselves.

[mbharestuff]

Top Five Episodes of The Pink Opaque

5.) S1E04 Who You Calling Dummy? - I'd put this higher if it wasn't so similar to the Buffy episode "The Puppet Show." Weirdly enough, this came first. Still, Buffy basically does everything this episode did better! And Tara does not come off well with the way she treats the wooden loser!

4.) S410 Isabel's Magic Dress - Completely shifted the tone of the season halfway through. It got shockingly raw--I'll never forget the way Tara chews out Isabel on the psychic plane, with that dress blowing in the wind, lightning flying everywhere. Some of the best performances in teh show.

3.) S5E02 Melancholy Youth - For most of the series, Mr. Melancholy is untouchable and incomprehensible. Near the end of the original run, we finally get answers about him and his throne. The tone is set for the nightmare that is the last season. You loved this one, Isabel.

2.) S1E05 The Curse of Mr. Sprinkly - Stone cold creamery classic. It's like the archetype of a standard classic TPO episode. Mr. Sprinkly still gives me nightmares sometimes!

1.) S602 Escape from the Midnight Realm (Part 2) - Isabel. Isabel. Isabel. Isabel. Can you hear me, Isabel? I know you're still there. I can feel you. It's going to be okay. Listen to my voice. Oh, my dear Isabel.

[zybilna]

You know they're getting into the craziest debates about The Pink Opaque on old internet forums

[meowteefz]

I've seen I Saw The TV Glow in theaters twice. I hope to see it at least once more before it stops showing. I have my tickets from last time I saw it pinned on my wall.

I seriously can't communicate in a human language how much this film means to us. It's sickening how deeply it touches me. Grabs me. Holds me.

[sagenotparsley]

i saw the tv glow is doomed yuri if you squint

[mistyheartrbs]

i saw the tv glow script released online. lots of compelling things in here

-the timelines were originally going to be more jumbled, with the revelation that maddy disappeared happening right after the 1996 sequences and jumping between 1998 and 2006 for the remainder of act 2 - i think it was the right call to make it mostly linear instead. keeps you hoping every time you watch it that maybe This Time owen will run away with maddy instead of knowing up front that she's gone from his life for eight years

-parallels that broke me:

-originally maddy had two friends instead of just amanda - feels like if they'd kept that their pink opaque counterparts would be marco and polo instead of mr. melancholy himself, so probably a stronger choice to take one of them out. still interesting though

-owen (unknowingly spending her entire life trying to get off mr. melancholy's wild ride) i can't wait to go to florida and get on mr. melancholy's wild ride

-again i think it was the right call to make the dress scene silent/dreamlike but also this is so cute???

-i do kind of wish they'd kept the double lunch conversation in a corner boot instead of at the bar counter - something about the physicality in these stage directions --

-- of maddy extending her entire body over the table, straining to reach owen who doesn't move at all, is so so good

-in this version, maddy calls owen during the finale and they watch it air live together over the phone. this made me specifically very emotional

-OW!

-left there like a reminder for the viewer... ;-;

-the girl in the streaming version of the pink opaque is called "Fake Isabel" here, but she's "Fake Tara" in captioned versions of the actual movie. since nobody calls her by name in the scene we don't know which is correct, but either one is heartbreaking in a different way. if the girl is meant to be tara, that's a warping of owen's memory of a dear friend, the defiant and furious and devoted tara flattened into a one-dimensional girly Spunky Tween - and it means isabel is gone, missing from the show entirely (because she's rotting away on a couch in the suburbs). if she's meant to be isabel, then she's nothing like owen ever was, and there's the very disturbing implications of a Black character being replaced with a white blonde girl. erasure from the narrative. losing your mirror.

-final fun center sequence explicitly takes place in 2016 instead of "twenty years later" here. Huh.

-this ending seems somewhere between the alternate ending where owen escapes the fun center that justice smith alluded to in a couple of interviews and the one we actually got:

-in conclusion: where are jane schoenbrun's oscars. and their buffy reboot showrunning deal

[theworldsfairchallenge]

⭐️🌜⭐️- 🌚📺🌚 -⭐️🌜⭐️

[seventeendeer]

hrrr I Saw the TV Glow is still rolling around in the back of my mind. it's hitting me somewhat belatedly that what seemingly starts as mainly an identity story turns out - toward the final act - to also be a love story. two queer kids finding each other (again). the bond they forge (have always had). the feelings that start to grow (were always there) despite the lie they're living. one trying to save the other, and failing. the frail hope at the end that maybe what they had mattered after all, even if they never see each other again. maybe because they knew each other, someday things will be better.

idk. so much of the story feels so lonely. they're awkward with each other at first and they don't really "get" each other and they're absent from each other's lives for long periods and they don't have anyone else. but it's all a lie - they were best friends, they knew each other better than anyone, they are who they are because they knew each other, they were not alone. no matter how bleak the setting is, this fake world can't obscure the truth. they'll never forget each other. it will always have happened, it will always have mattered.

it's so hard to put into words but Owen/Isabel and Maddy/Tara make me so crazy, the way everything in the world works to drive them apart and yet not even losing their memories can destroy the connection between them. and it's not enough to prevent the world from tearing them apart but maybe it's enough to save their lives

queer love portrayed not as supernaturally resilient or invincible (god knows it isn't), but as a precious fragile thing that can and will grow back over and over in some form no matter what ...