#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.

[isabelopaque]

On graves, and resurfacing from the ashes (in tandem)

justin vernon, i saw the tv glow, julie bunton, hannah lock, catherynn m. valente, disco elysium, buffy the vampire slayer, bell hooks, melody lee

[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

[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

[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...

[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.

[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.

[lesbianmarrow]

also it's so crazy how much i saw the tv glow was inspired by willow & tara specifically........

[gayiconwaluigi]

Twin Peaks and I Saw The TV Glow are really companion texts. Laura Palmer dies, and with that death, the normal facade of the town is peeled away, while when Maddy disappears, there is no fuss and no grand change. Maddy dies to find her actual world being run by nefarious supernatural beings. Her actual life isn’t banal suburbia. It’s evil. It’s life and death. She tries to peel back the reality of the Midnight Realm for Owen just as Agent Dale Cooper peels back the mysteries and horrors of Twin Peaks, while Owen pleads with her to go to the cops, to engage in the rules of the fake world they live in. Except in Twin Peaks, Coop is a visitor who leaves messages to Diane on his tape recorder, an outsider willing to believe in the supernatural, while Owen is a prisoner who speaks directly to the audience and cannot believe what Maddy has told him. While the whole world of Twin Peaks cracks and falls apart from Laura’s death and Coop’s investigation, revealing the town’s underbelly, Maddy’s death does not free Owen. Instead, the horrors simmer for decades, the facade of normalcy plodding on until the suffocating shell of existence breaks under exhaustion. You are trapped but in what way. And who is there to free you.

[navysealt4t]

me when i bury myself alive just to apologize for the whole thing and beg for help and I know its the right thing to do and claw my way to the surface

[lofimp3archive]

i found your heart and it was still beating. there is still time. i found your heart. bury yourself with me. i can't stay please come with me. you can't stay here either. help me i'm so chained to you someone tell me what to do.

[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 ...

[mistyheartrbs]

not to be extremely 2016 about a movie set two decades earlier but...did anyone else notice that the very first pink opaque tape maddy leaves owen is episode 307. you know. the episode code queer tumblr used to consider cursed because of lexa the100's death. that 307.