THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 5

Screenshot of Owen in his pink dress, next to Maddy, on the football field, looking up at the old-timey moon face of Mr Melancholy, with superimposed text that reads "I saw the tv glow part 5, a 7-week series examining its trans allegory, by tilly bridges, author of Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix" at tillystranstuesdays.com"

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Tillyvision now in stable orbit in THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 5! Our connection to community returns, and brings with it the hope of another chance at self-actualization!

You know the drill, don’tcha? Sure you do. PART 1!

Drill PART 2!

Keep drilling with PART 3!

This drill metaphor doesn’t work at all, but here’s PART 4!

46:08 – Owen apologizes to his dad for being home late. Even though he’s an adult now his father still controls his life. Look at all the FEAR everywhere around him. 

Owen’s dad lying on a couch, bathed in blue light, with yellow light behind him.

46:19 – His dad has fear behind him, is on a dysphoria sofa, is bathed in blue. This is what awaits you, Owen. The tv is all blue, playing a laugh track from a sitcom. This will be your miserable life.

46:30 – Owen on his bed, the light is yellow, walls around him are green. As he turns his tv on, it bathes him in blue. He’s on his way to where his dad is, a sad (for him) masculinity. But he turns the light out, the fear is gone if he just gives in. Narration from the tv: “…the invaders changed the planet’s atmosphere, creating an eternal night.” That’s what this life is.

46:57 – Owen walks through the theater. The movie is Transpmorphers (it’s a real movie!), a twenty-teens low rent Transformers, and it’s all yellow (SUPERTEXT), Owen is all blue. 

Narration: “The sun forever covered by the dark clouds.” SUPERTEXT. “The survivors fled underground, living in fear of the machines that now ruled the earth.” How very Matrix-y!

And in the Matrix (my book on it is here, btw!) machines = transphobic society, humans = trans people, living underground = going into hiding for safety. As Owen has done, even though he refuses to acknowledge his own truth.

I just wanna say really quick how genius including these clips of it were. The narration and colors fit the theme of I Saw the TV Glow so perfectly I was sure they had to be entirely fictional and made up for this movie! But nope, it’s real.

Owen walking in front of a wall of produce at a grocery store, it’s all lit in green and large images of various produce on are the wall above his head

47:16 – Owen’s at the grocery store, by the produce. I feel like there’s something going on with the photos of produce above his head, even outside of the colors, but I haven’t been able to decipher its meaning. Sometimes produce is just produce. But he’s surrounded by all green, green things that are grown in nature. Dysphoria is “natural” for him.

Maddy stands in the middle of the grocery store, a refrigerated meat section behind her. She holds a raw steak in one hand, and is dressed very gender-neutral.

47:49 – Maddy returns, and look how her gender presentation has changed. Also look how much closer to Tara on The Pink Opaque she now looks! It’s not identical (transition is a journey, she’s not done yet) but she’s definitely on the way. 

There’s all MEAT behind her, which I see as her having already had access to physicality and bodily form, BODILY AUTONOMY. See the Trans Tuesday on it for more.

And again, it’s behind her, so Owen can’t get to feeling like his body is his own if he doesn’t cross to where Maddy’s been (she’s holding a steak, showing you she’s been there).

Owen hugs Maddy in the middle of the grocery store, bathed in green light and under three American flags. 

48:31 – He meets her in the middle (but does not cross behind her to access bodily autonomy). Maddy drops the meat, as if to tell him changing your body is what will get him to where she is. Again, to clarify, nobody is suggesting you have to change your body to be trans or transition. We don’t do transmedicalism here, there, or anywhere. This is speaking in metaphor.

Also look how in this shot the meat behind Maddy looks much more pink than red. Transness is back there, and can be accessed by claiming his own bodily autonomy, if Owen’s willing to go for it.

48:56 – Maddy: “I know a place on the edge of town, it’ll be safe for us to talk there.” As his only access to transness, as a person who has transitioned, she knows a safe place or way for Owen to explore his transness again. 

Owen and Maddy walk beneath a billboard for the grand opening of the Fun Center, surrounded by empty shopping carts.

Look at the sign for the Fun Center they walk beneath, and the colors there, and what that’s telling you about what Owen has done to himself, and the emptiness (those empty shopping carts again) surrounding him. There’s nothing “fun” for him there at all. Foreshadowing! Oho!

A woman singing on stage bathed in entirely red light.

49:06 – It’s allllll red as we hear Claw Machine by Sloppy Jane. 

I’m in the eighth grade
sending grown men grainy
photos of my ribcage. 

You can read something sexual into that if you want, but the wording of “ribcage” should make you think otherwise. Sounds to me almost like sending a doctor photos of yourself to enquire about top surgery.

My bedroom has no doors
so I can never close them

So, fun fact that is not fun but is factual: my mother HATED when I closed my bedroom door. I didn’t know I was trans… I didn’t have the words, but if I did I’d have told you. My mom didn’t know I was trans… but she picked up on every bit of feminity I ever tried to explore and mocked, belittled, and punished me for it.

And I think she never wanted my bedroom door closed because then who knows what gender I might be exploring within. I’m just saying… there’s something to it. Even when cis people don’t know we’re trans, some of them know we’re trans.

i paint the ceiling black
so I don’t notice when my eyes are open

Listen, this is getting uncomfortable. When I was in high school, my entire bedroom was black and gray. I don’t even like those colors (no shade to those who do)!

But it’s how I felt, especially at the height of puberty. It took this movie to make me realize that connection, right now as I’m writing this. Shit. 

But think about that, truly, and what trans people going through the wrong puberty is like for us… to not even want to notice when our eyes are open.

Staying in that hell, that’s the danger.

The song continues, still bathed in red, but now we can see the sign on the back wall reads “Double Lunch.”

49:39 – The sign behind the stage says this is the “Double Lunch!” We know from when Owen and Maddy first met that this is THE CLUB ON THE PINK OPAQUE TV SHOW! Maddy has escaped and found true reality (as Tara).

49:59 – It’s a very “trapped in dysphoria” song. And look at this portion of the lyrics:

I think I was born bored
I think I was born blue
I think I was born wanting more
I think I was born already missing you

aka
life has always been gray
all I’ve known is despair
this can’t be what my life is
where’s the real me I’ve longed for since I was born?

Kinda burns you up like you’re going through atmospheric reentry, doesn’t it?

51:09 – Owen and Maddy talking backstage. Dysphoria and fear are right behind Owen, and talking with Maddy is all red. Danger, danger is all he sees. To Maddy’s right, look at the lamp in trans pride flag colors on the desk, and on the far right how much smaller her own green dysphoria has become. Transition helps alleviate dysphoria.

51:15 – Owen: “They think you’re dead, Maddy.” That’s how so many cis people treat us when we transition, it’s CIS GRIEF over losing the fake person we never were (that only hurt us). There’s a whole Trans Tuesday about it.

51:35 – Maddy: “I’ll tell you everything. I just need to ask you something first.” Owen: “Does your mom know that you’re alive?” Remember that his mom represented his own access to femininity. Do you see what he’s asking her here? Are you still in touch with your femininity? Did you… transition?!

51:48 – Notice that even though they’re sitting in all red, Owen is also lit with yellow. He’s scared shitless by this. Maddy transitioned! I’m talking to her about it! Does that mean… I am…? OH GOD I’M SO SCARED.

52:10 – Maddy asks him if he remembers The Pink Opaque, the transness that they explored together. Of course he does, it meant more to him than anything else.

53:02 – Maddy: “…how do you remember it? … do you remember it as just a tv show?” Was it just us “playing around?” Or was there something real there?

53:18 – We get the shot of Owen through the door… IN A DRESS. THAT IS PINK. Femininity. Transness. Presentation change. Trans femininity. Supertext. 

Note the green towel behind him. This hasn’t eliminated his dysphoria, but for the moment it’s sure smaller than the giant fish tank, huh? And outside that room he’s in? Fear…. of getting found out. 

Owen says he remembers it only as a tv show. But he’s bathed in danger and fear, and his voice breaks. He’s so scared. Owen: “The last show before the young adult network switched to black and white reruns for the night.” 

We’ve heard that line before, but right now it’s telling you everything! This is when they were young adults, and it was the last thing they did before the world went back to black and white, lost its vibrance and joy and went back to being THE FALSE DICHOTOMY.

53:51 – Behind Maddy, look at the light on the wall. Pink! Maddy: “Are you sure that’s all it was?” Wasn’t trying on that dress more than kids playing around? Didn’t it make you feel things? Didn’t it clue you in to something?

Maddie looking past the camera at Owen. We can see his blurred reflection in a mirror next to her as he wears the pink dress.

54:11 – Maddy smiles as she looks next to the reflection of Owen in the dress. He’s seeing his true self (Isabel) and his transness for the first time. 

Owen, in the pink dress, gives a slight sweet smile, a green towel hanging behind him with yellow all around.

Owen smiles too, but dysphoria and especially fear are still there. This is so scary.

54:40 – Maddy asks him, when he thinks back about those nights watching the show, if he ever gets confused. “Like maybe the memory isn’t quite right.” This is dissociation!

54:54 – Owen, in his pink dress, walks on the football field like we saw Isabel do in The Pink Opague earlier. The pink ghost tattoo zaps into being on his neck. Madde: “Does time ever feel like it’s not moving normally?” Oh god the dissociation. 🙁

Life with dysphoria is so bad, many of us dissociate and lose not just memories, but often entire years of memories of our lives. Time seems to disappear, which Owen deals with a lot in this movie. I talked a bit about the loss of memories of my own life in the Trans Tuesdays on TRANS GRIEF.

55:02 – Static. Transphobia fills his head. Maddy: “Do you ever feel like you’re narrating your own life, watching it play in front of you, like an episode of television?” 

Holy crap, listen. This is also life with dysphoria, where you feel disembodied, like you’re watching yourself go through the motions. You’re disconnected from your own life, nothing feels real. So you literally wonder what is reality? What is real? You can’t tell, because the entire world has gaslit you into thinking you’re something you’re not.

The Matrix deals with this too. Took me an entire book to talk about it.

BARBIE deals with this, too! Reality is not what you’re told it is when you grow up as a trans person in a transphobic home and society that denies your existence.

“Or do you ever have a hard time distinguishing between what happened in the show and what happened in real life? Like somehow the memories got jumbled around? Shook up in your head, like a snow globe.” Like a snow globe. This isn’t just foreshadowing, it’s telling you what that snow globe will represent when it shows up.

55:30 – Isabel, in a pink dress, walks on the green dysphoria football field… with an axe.

Owen, in his pink dress, walks with Maddy on a green football field.

55:35 – Owen, in a pink dress, walks on the green dysphoria football field with Maddy – she is his axe, his weapon against transphobia

I’m sure you’re tired of me saying “read my book,” but listen, these themes show up again and again for a reason. In The Matrix, the trans community is represented by the character Tank. Tanks are literally armored weapons. Later in the franchise the trans community is represented by the human cities of Zion and Io, which are defended by human-controlled mechs with giant guns.

The trans community protects and defends each other. We need each other to fight transphobia!

55:46 – Maddy: “I’m trying to go slow. I don’t want to alarm you.” If you just shout at someone that they’re trans, even if it’s true it’s going to likely scare them and just make them pull back even more. This is why “the egg prime directive” exists – don’t tell an egg you think they’re an egg (eggs are people who are trans and don’t know it yet, realizing is “hatching”).

Buuuut the egg prime directive is complicated, and often misinterpreted, and that’s a topic for another time (yeah, there will be a trans tuesday on it, but I haven’t written it yet, I’m still writing this one, gimme a break!).

Owen, in his pink dress, stands next to Maddy on the green football field, looking up at a blue sky full of stars and Mr. Melancholy’s face sticking out his tongue in the moon.

54:48 – Standing on dysphoria, Owen in his pink dress with Maddy by his side, look up at the blue sky and Mr. Melancholy.

55:54 – Owen thinks they should tell the police or his dad. Uhhhhh I feel so weird let me check with my toxic masculinity and see what it thinks! Look at Maddy LEANING in on him, pressing the importance. Maddy: “No, you can’t tell anybody.” 

Do you know how many people you thought loved you and cared about you instantly reveal that they do not once they know you’re trans? It should be zero.

For many of us, it’s not.

For some of us, it’s a lot.

56:30 – Maddy: “I’ve been there. Inside the show.” She’s been transitioning. Note, again, they are inside the club from the show. Owen is also there, now, with Maddy, and doesn’t even realize it.

King Woman singing, entirely in blue light.

56:40 – King Woman sings Psychic Wound. (SUPERSupertext, phew), and that song title sure explains the despair of the blue lighting.

In the commentary, Jane said this moment was a release from the tension the audience and Owen are feeling. And, well, Owen just learned Maddy transitioned into Tara and that transness is real, and he needs to scream about it. 

Foreshadowing what he does later!

Why have I been punished?
I’ve been banished from the sky.

I didn’t ask for this, why is this happening to me? Why do people hate me for who I am? (you’re not gonna believe this, but The Matrix has Neo literally asking that question out loud). 

Also, in that franchise, flight is a metaphor for gender euphoria, the kind you can find with transition. In fact, long before ever realizing the “flight is gender euphoria” metaphor in The Matrix, I’d described my own first encounter with gender euphoria the exact same way – like flying.

I discuss that a bit in the Trans Tuesday on BODY HACKING, where I talk a bit about the first women’s clothes I ever owned.

And I went into that in even more detail in the Trans Tuesday on GENDER EUPHORIA.

So “banishing someone from the sky” is preventing them from ever accessing that euphoria, which means preventing transition.

clinging to his mighty chest
bury my face and cry
I bow to him just to sleep next to you
a force I can’t deny

For Owen, holding on to the man the thought he was, that society said he was, is what’s causing all his pain, keeping him from the real person inside.

when I’m spread on the bed
you remain the luscious fruit
help me I’m so chained to you
Someone tell me what to do

At my most vulnerable, you (the real me inside) are what I crave. I keep pretending you’re not real, that I’m not trans, that none of this is happening, but it keeps coming up again no matter how much I try to deny it.

Poor Owen.

57:52 – Owen leaves the danger behind as he walks into despair. Says a lot.

58:04 – Maddy tells him she can’t stay where he is much longer, she’s going back to her life as her true self. Maddy: “Do you remember how it ended? The final episode? The end of season five?”

Remember that Owen found the episode guide that mentioned the start of season six was escaping the nightmare realm… leaving dysphoria behind (hopefully) and transitioning. 

But the “show ended” before that, which means he never got to that point. Maddy: “You can’t trust anybody in your life. They’re all working for him… Mr. Melancholy.” Transphobia is everywhere, even in the people you love, and they all work to uphold the transphobic false cis binary matrix even if they don’t realize it. 

And many will again consciously turn on you the moment they know you’re trans.

You’ll never guess what movie franchise deals with that and explicitly shows how if you’re not fighting the system that oppresses trans people, you’re a vital part of the machinery that oppresses us… anyone? Any ideas? 

A hint… I wrote that damn book about it!

Maddy asks him to come to the high school at midnight, his last chance for her to help him out of the misery he’s in. 

58:44 – Owen digs through his closet, it’s all fear and danger inside and dysphoria outside. Tonight, Tonight by Snail Mail plays. Lyrics, anyone?

We’ll crucify the insincere tonight
We’ll make things right, we’ll feel it all tonight
We’ll find a way to offer up the night
The indescribable moments of your life
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you

This might be your last chance, Owen. You can do it.

He’s digging through the closet, which is where he has put himself, and his transness. 

IN THE CLOSET.

Almost every trans person has been there at some point, and choosing to bring our transness out of the closet and into the light of day can be so tough. Because society does everything it can to stop us and make us feel that it’s bad and wrong.

It messes you up. A lot. And look where it’s gotten Owen.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

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