Why 'I Saw the TV Glow' Didn't Say "Transgender"
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- I Saw The TV Glow didn't say the word transgender... and that's a good thing.
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The lack of use of the term also served, at least as an older (40+) tran, to cause it to resonate DEEPLY with my own childhood. It reminded me of knowing who I am, but not having the language to describe it.
The chalk "There's still time" hit hard
This was a big part of it for me, too. As another 40-something trans person, this film wrecked me. Knowing something about myself but not being able to express it growing up was a key part of why this film resonated so strongly. I still would have related in general if the film had specifically used the term "transgender," but it would have lost some of its punch. For sure.
Wanted to say the same thing. Yes, not saying "trans" broadens the experience for others to relate to (and thus maybe helps them better understand what we felt, one can hope), but the whole movie had that looming sense of "Knowing what is right, but not knowing how to describe it, not knowing that what is right for you is also possible" that I spent most of my life with.
Likewise. My egg cracked when I was 38. I'm now 42, and so much happier.
My mother always knew I "wasn't like other boys" but in the suburbs of the 80's, we didn't have the language to figure it out.
That's why it's so vital that continue to talk about gender identity, so the trans kids don't have to wait 30 years to be themselves.
I had the same issue. Like if I were growing up today, I think I'd be able to find the words. Back then though? I had no idea there were other people like me out there. I couldn't explain it. I knew that I'm a girl inside, but I clearly had boy parts on the outside. I tried telling my parents but my mother just cut me off and told me I looked ridiculous in a dress. So I repressed who I am until I was in my forties and on the verge of ending it all.
Some people I saw really appreciated the word not being used because it kind of represents how Justice Smith's character doesn't have words to describe their experience.
And in-universe I don't know if it makes sense for Owen to use that term to describe really being Isabel.
IRL we're stuck with the bodies we're born in. Owen / Isabel is kind of like a Star Trek situation where Kirk swapped bodies with Janice Lester ("Turnabout Intruder").
Owen is Isabel, this psychic teenager in another reality. Owen isn't going to medically or socially transition.
@@dante6985 good lord, thank you for sharing this read. I have many reads, but this is one I share and get no response to. The idea that you could embody someone else entirely rather than a permutation of yourself feels like such an interesting way to take this film in. Sure, it belies some of the trans narrative (which I acknowledge the intent is, from the director) but it's worth considering artistically and what the implications are, which can even include a gender aspect.
@@avel1491yes! The choice not to be didactic allows for additional analysis and movement. The myths and stories we tell are recycled and yet can be iterated on. In this sense the story can be recognizable but also new and different. :)
I’m a cis mom of a trans daughter. I thought this film was powerful and moving. I also related to it myself as a very late diagnosed autistic person. The need to make community with people who relate to our experiences is crucial to our wellbeing, I think
I'm glad you got it! My mom is very supportive, but she didn't understand the film at all. She didn't recognize the trans allegory. I was a bit disappointed.
@@electronics-girl I didn't either. I still thought it was a great horror movie that stuck in my mind. But not for the same reason. I thought that Mattie had gone insane. That seems Obvious to me.
@@milascave2 It seemed obvious to me that Mattie was telling the truth. Mattie and Owen were trapped in the Midnight Realm, and Mattie found the courage to escape, but Owen didn't. To me, this film tells a story very similar to The Matrix, with Owen as Neo. The big difference is that in this one, Neo takes the blue pill.
This movie broke me. There's one scene towards the end. It involves street graffiti. When I read what was written there, I just started bawling.
I cry Everytime I see that graffiti
What's it say?
That made me tear up as well.
@@missglucktesbartierchen4143I believe it says "there's still time" I can't fully remember tho
@@missglucktesbartierchen4143
"There is still time."
Some people really just don't get art. The fact that the movie never explicitly broaches trans issues by name is part of the artfulness to the film, the people who understand that message read it loud and clear, but its also a movie that is telling a story that is open to interpretation and people can take other meanings from. Like, as a trans woman I very much got the inherently trans nature of the story, but I also got from it the complacent suffocating nature of life in the suburbs, like, I often feel very trapped living out in the suburbs, a greater sense of trans/queer community locally is just out of reach, located more into the cities. Maddy escaped the suburbs, Owen didn't, and Owen is slowly dying as a result of never getting out.
Media literacy is collectively dismal.
The clearest allegory is the trans narrative that Owen is Isabel (the only time she even approaches smiling is when she's in a dress).
But it also is relatable to someone who's gay who hasn't come out.
Or someone who's stuck in a job they hate.
Or stuck in a living situation that's soul-crushing.
It was blink-and-you-miss-it but that street chalk of "It's not too late." is powerful for anyone.
Part of that is exposure, I think. Evaluation is a skill, and people, especially kids, who dont have figures in their lives who teach them how to "see" means ending up with entirely different expectations of art.
But that's also what makes this "discourse" great! It means more people are hearing other interpretations and some of them will walk away from this better for it.
@@valeoncat13yeah, to be fair, that’s why a lot of straight ppl end up mentioning that they “don’t see it.” Imo though, as an enby and lesbian myself, I don’t feel the need to explain my queerness to them. Or queer subtext. If they don’t get it, but want to get it, they should educate themselves. It’s honestly tiring to have to be the “educator” and be subjected to comments and questions that are harrassy in regards to my identity. (I get that ppl can have good intentions, but even then it isn’t not creepy or uncomfortable.)
I watched it very soon after it came out and I had read no analyses of it beforehand. Until a good 2/3 of the way in, I thought it was about neurodiversity. Welp, didn't quite get that one right.
The idea of signifiers as defining individuals identity is an interesting thing to me as I had something like that happen to me. I work in a HS and I wore a T-shirt that said "defend trans youth" the other day and I had a couple of 12th grade students ask me if I was trans because of it (I am a cis man). I ended up explaining it to them and the conversation went very well but it surprised me that the idea that someone can't advocate for a community that they aren't a part of themselves. I do have plenty of trans and queer family and friends, but I at least would like to think that I would still be just as supportive of other identities even without such people in my life.
I was so grateful that I came out and was past the medical gatekeeping part of transitioning before seeing this movie. If I had to hear them say "I'm dying right now" while I was still feeling stuck in my situation it would have absolutely destroyed me emotionally.
Can confirm. 😔
@@wcookiv I can understand your feelings nonetheless.
I can confirm that the hearing I am dying while not even being in estrogen yet definitely hurt so fucking much
I'm a cis man, but I identified very strongly with that movie because of how Owen/Isabel can also be read as autistic and masking. Obviously not as focused on as the trans metaphor but I found that to be another really good aspect of the movie.
That's also how I chose to look at it. I'm also cis and straight, but I'm on the spectrum, and for me Owen checked off all the boxes. So for me it could be read as much as an allegory for the neurodivergent experience as much as the trans experience, which is an equally valid take IMO as there's documented overlap between the two.
i’m an autistic trans person and really felt that double whammy
Same here, I wasn't diagnosed at the time but I've always known something was wrong. At the time, I was going through some serious burnout/depression. I haven't had a movie hit so close to home in a while.
@@emyrfackler2219holy shit same 😭😭 the autistic aspect of it resonated with me just as much as the trans parts if not more. Being hyperfixated on something, trying to conform, and the meltdown at the end of the movie while being overstimulated and just apologizing constantly for your existence THIS MOVIE BROKE ME
@@emyrfackler2219so real 😭
This movie meant so much to me. I've never felt like a movie understood me like I saw the tv glow did.
Same.
This movie actually made me feel fully seen for the first time in my life… a m o v i e 😭😭😭
As a person, whose "egg" finally cracked at 34 and started transitioning at 35 with a childhood in different part of the world but in a small town in 90s, movie was so relatable, painful and beautiful. I rarely rewatch moveis but I rewatched it next week. I guess it's my favourite movie ever now. And that scene with King Woman playing...😊
this exactly
one thing i keep coming back to is this thing jane schoenbrun said (i dont have the exact quote cus i only heard it in amandathejedi's video on the movie and she didn't have it written down, just what she remembers from a q&a after a premiere i believe?), that if you dont relate to the movie in any way, you probably had a great childhood
'cause yeah not everyone will relate to all the specifics of it, but so many people know this sense of wrongness and of being disconnected from the outside world and not being what we really are
(for instance a few months ago i saw a tumblr post reading the main character as autistic and oof yeah that fits very well too)
& (speaking as a trans guy) i think it's a really nice way to make a movie about being trans, because it presents it with those universal feelings, which can be way less othering? like the cis can go "oh yeah ive felt that too, even if it was about something else. maybe we're not so different after all"
In my opinion, queer allegories are very important. For people who are questioning there identity, allegory can be a safe place for exploration. I am non-binary. As a kid, I remember really connecting to and liking the character Stevonnie from Steven Universe, so much so that I wanted to cosplay as them. At the time, I didn't know why I connected to them so strongly, I just did. That show has the magical concept of fusion and Stevonnie is a fusion of Steven and Connie. At the time I watched that show, my understanding of trans people was very limited. But even though I don't think in the show they use the word trans, the fusion character of Stevonnie helped to explore my gender identity. There are other fictional character that helped crack my egg, like Xavin from Marvel's Runaways. But Stevonnie was big for me. Of course, we always need more real canon obvious LGBTQ representation. Im not against representation. I just think queer allegories can exist in addition to that.
Exactly this. I always connected strongly with characters who were gender queer coded like Haruka from Sailor Moon way before finding out I’m gender queer myself. But when I learnt of identities outside of the binary, I couldn’t wrap my head around it and I was sadly in very centrist anti-sjw (or what’s now called anti-woke) spaces at the time. I wasn’t ready to confront my trans-ness yet which is what makes representation that was more coded or symbolic rather than direct more digestible for me at the time. Of course part of that is because of transphobia and censorship but I think media and characters who don’t rely on using labels are genuinely helpful for questioning queer people.
Some people truly don't have the capacity or skill to engage with art. Steven Universe was made for children and even THAT was too much for some people. Moral ambiguity?? A complicated past?? Good heavens, I'm going to faint!
We need allegory. There's a reason it's been a key part of storytelling since the dawn of civilization.
I can't help but grin when someone says "as a kid, I saw Steven Universe" (or such). To me, it's a show that just came out yesterday, not that I was significantly younger then than now
Just letting you know there are non-binary people like me who could be your grandparents - and that you are valid
@@BlackXSunlightyeah, it’s sad. Even if you say something in regards to different media like anime, as in seeing subtext because a lot of animes have underlying subtext, queer or not, a lot of straight ppl will get all defensive saying “why do you have to make everything queer?” While deliberately ignoring subtext. Ppl are so weird tbh, and I’ve learned at this point in my life as a queer person that you can only really talk about your experience if cishet people are willing to listen. If they aren’t, that’s shit we need to live with yk?
Some people get lucky with accepting parents, but for me; that’s something I’d never get from one of my parents. I’d be an erased gender, my sexuality will be a more or less open secret.
I'm not even sure I'd call this an allegory, per se--sometimes we just aren't going to know how exactly someone identifies, and that also needs representation, and happens to cover a lot of other bases at the same time. When you include nonbinary identities, we can't possibly get enough rep to allow everybody to have a constant stream of main characters who identify the same way we do, and in that case I'd rather have at least some left unspecified.
I'm trans, and very much understood the movie as being a trans metaphor, but I related to the dying inside message of the movie much more in terms of the normative life that I was taught, growing up, i was supposed to live in this capitalist society: mind numbing job under a boss, getting married, having kids, buying stuff, keeping appearances for the sake of others, etc. - and I'm sure many cis (and other trans) people could relate to that as well and so maybe that was the intent of the director (and not just something they said to execs to get the movie made): there are many soul crushing ways this society wants us to conform, and it can be really hard or impossible to get out of that (after all, capitalism is everywhere).
That's why the movie is about being trans. It's very much linked to a confusion during a person's coming of age that adulthood is so deadly to a person's identity. Adulthood is dull, emotionally void, etc. Is it the truth of the world, or is there something major Owen is missing? He ends up believing the former.
The movie was, I think, about two linked things:
One, Owen was a trans woman who repressed themselves because society wouldn't approve, they had internalized transphobia, and because they believed the "lie" that life is meant to be monotonous and emotionally empty.
Two, media can be a view into better lives that can provide relief to people, but it also can be used detrimentally as a bandaid treatment for depression that prevents a person from ever building a better life for themselves. Owen at the end has replaced her (Isabel's) heart with media, and finds it relieving during a major crisis, which allows him to go back to being his apologetic, unnoticed self.
YES YES THIS EXACTLY I ALSO TOOK IT LIKE THAT SO HARD
As someone who is trans i completely missed the allegory and resonated far more with this!!!
I think it successfully expressed that the main character was trans. But even then, I think the movie worked on a broad existential level. I’m not trans but I found this movie to be so relatable.
I think it may be a near universal experience. My dad used to say something like, "everybody wants to be exceptional but they're afraid they're not even average." I've often wondered if depression\melancholy is really a brain screaming that something fundamental in that specific life needs to change, but people feel trapped in their current reality and feel like changing what needs to change - even if they know what that is - would mean killing off a part of themselves and they're too afraid to do it.
Sure but how many of those changes could get you murdered by a stranger for walking down the street?
100% what I think this movie was about. Owen was a trans woman, depressed because they bought the "truth" that it is normal for adult life to be emotionally void and dull. Owen has replaced her (Isabel's) heart with a TV screen-media, which while providing him relief also serves to make his current life comfortable enough that he can disassociatively coast through it until the next major emotional breakdown.
The way i see it the word trans is just language being used to describe an experience. But cinema is a visual medium so it doesn't need to use language to show the emotional experience of being trans. This film gets to the emotional core of being trans in a way that is accessible to anyone that sees the film and that is really powerful, more powerful than if they had just talked about it on screen.
I sometimes find that people who like poetic, metaphoric movies hate direct narratives calling them dumb or vapid. And people who like direct, literal narratives describe cerebral films as pretentious or boring nonsense. Sometimes they are right but sometimes they simply don’t understand the other.
I usually like it down the middle. Don’t obfuscate what you are trying to say, but don’t do a The CW and beat me over the head either.
@@Dave102693 the CW 😂 I hear you. I think a good example is Annihilation. Could be a straight forward alien movie or a film about how we all become a part of the people we experience trauma with, ending up the same person but changed, sometimes unrecognizable to ourselves and loved ones.
Im a transfemme and while i can see the very obvious trans allegory i found the other allegory present in the film to be more significant and that allegory was about losing someone you care about to suicide. A very dear friend of mine (who for what its worth was a transman) took his own life a year ago and the film captured the feelings ive had in the time since very vividly. In that sense it utterly wrecked me.
@@clashcitywannabe but Maddie didn't killed herself
@VeRtb14 my interpretation of the film was that she had and her appearances after her initial disappearance were the main character's imagination and that her miraculously returning was a matter of them wrestling with that as much as their own gender issues
@@clashcitywannabe🌟
Sorry for your loss.
Take Care
✨🫂🫂🫂✨
💫✨🌟❤️🌟✨💫
@clashcitywannabe while my interpretation differs, I can definitely see it this way! The nature of her return is certainly metaphoric due to the supernatural elements in the narrative, so its cool seeing a different thematic takeaway!
Oh that's a really interesting interpretation, I can totally see it. Best wishes from Florida ❤
It’s a movie that I feel like anyone could relate to on an emotional level whether you’re trans or cis. If this came out in the late 2010s, I would’ve bawled my f*ckin eyes out in the theater cause one of my jobs at the time was a theater usher, which were my pre egg hatching days. The person who got me that job was my internship program teacher who felt like a father to me. I felt like he understood me on an emotional level compared to my biological father. He actually cared about my love for cinema, which is why he got me that job. And we bonded like father and son over movies and shows that we liked. Things seemed to be going good in my life for the most part, until he tragically passed in 2018. Like Owen, I kept working at the theater job acting like things were fine, even though I was slowly dying inside cause the magic was gone. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. No matter when this film came out, I would’ve found something I could relate to. Either way, I Saw The TV Glow hit me with a flood of emotions. It didn’t have to spell out the word “Trans” in order for trans people to relate to it cause the visuals show the struggle of what most of us deal with through metaphors. If a story can affect you on an emotional level, then it’s doing something right.
Using language we know grounds it in the world we know. When I was figuring myself out, nothing felt _grounded,_ every thought I had was otherworldly. I really appreciate everything about this movie.
Sometimes a metaphor is more relatable if it's allowed to remain a metaphor. I could also see it being problematic to have a horror movie premised on 'YOu're a trans kid, you should ...unalive yourself to fix everything.' At least if we start having to have things be literal, that has implications. At least we probably would want to keep it metaphorical there. Cause, the literal topic suddently gets a lot different from the metaphor if you start spelling it out.
Remember a lot of people only see a surface level of anything. If you spell some things out they think they know.
When it comes to 'representation,' maybe some of that's best when it's modelling how people should treat each other. Trying to use art to convey experience, well, you know much of this. But there's different ways to go about it. And it may depend on the point of the art, too. It's kinda like with a lot of the Matrix stuff, you could say it took particular trans people to *create* that , but clearly its relatability isn't confined to 'This is trans, this is trans, this is trans,' ..when it was clearly powerful enough for enough other people to relate to that the Right felt the need to try and appropriate it and flip the narrative.
I suppose if fandom weren't so toxic it might be easy to say, 'Hey, you know, here's one of those trans people saying all kinds of people feel kinda gaslit by the system too, right? '
And I guess the spiederverse stuff didn't stick in my head well enough, but I recall at the time, 'Yeah, this could be an already-strained relationship about a trans kid, ' but yeah, I could directly relate to it on the level of 'OK , queer Noertheastern police brat with a sideline in some extralegal do-gooding.' Trying to protect someone's career against secondhand stigma, all that.
The cookouts were less socially-inclusive back then But still a relatable story.
thank you so much. you are the only other person I have seen who has a problem with ...unalive yourself to fix everything.' trans people have dun just that and it's very confusing that a move is saying that it is correct thing to do. ITS NOT!! . i have watched around 15 reviews none of them mention it. i feel like i was the only one who has a problem with this message. i did not wont to say a bad thing about a queer movie people are thinking is good. thanks again.
@@armouros Are you a bot?
@@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou a bot would have perfet spelling
@@armouros I think what OP's trying to say is that it's good that the queer themes in the movie remained a metaphor, which means that the 'being dead to the world' thing is a metaphor as well. It start becoming problematic if the transness were overtly stated because if one thing's literal, then the death could be interpreted literally too.
I don't think OP is criticizing that aspect of the movie, but rather saying that it's good to keep that kind of narrative metaphorical so that being buried alive remains a metaphor for starting anew or breaking free from the fake world.
@@armourosI have mixed feelings on it. I get that in the literal plot Isabel is dying, and the burying themselves is probably to return to their real burried self on a subconscious level. And Isabel dying ties into metaphorically dying by living in denial. And it also ties into trans people having “deadnames”. Owen must die so Isabel may live. Death is baked into the story.
BUT! The way to return still didn’t have to be dying in the Midnight Realm. I think choosing an unusual method was definitely better than the “I have to off myself asap to escape this dream”, but it still evokes this idea of dying in this world will allow you to wake up in another. Which feels gross because people do want to use death as an escape.
I Saw the TV Glow was the best movie I've seen in 5+ years. It spoke to my soul. I loved every detail. I think it's a masterpiece
Definitely felt like a "don't show the shark" choice -- the word itself is SO BIG that even confronting it would have cracked the egg
Technically two of Spiderman's classmates are trans, but one of them was in the films pre-transition. I always thought they should bring her back after the snap and be like "so much happened in those five years, some people are even living as their true selves now" but that would require them to be overtly queer and they're not going to do that
And if they did it be a quick thing that could be cut out. Sad thing is a Spidey movie is a guaranteed hit. So they could do it and still be insanely profitable
and thats beyond frustrating, because spider-man especially has been very queer friendly in the comics.
Wait what? I know he had a trans dude classmate but which other character was played by a trans actor?
@@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep Josie Totah, she was in the Saved by The Bell reboot and also Spiderman Homecoming
One of the reasons I really liked Insomniacs Spider-Man is because it actually did start to have representation a bit more overtly. It's still all small roles (I mean let's not get too crazy!) but many of the side-quests really lean into Spider-mans more progressive themes. The most explicit example is that side-quest where you help a trans-guy with his plan to ask his boyfriend out to homecoming which was just the cutest thing really.
All in all I was actually really impressed by just how many minority groups and other struggling demographics that game periodically gave centre stage to, and it was all done with such kindness as-well.
Towards the end of the movie when the wheezing progressively gets worse and you remember that Isabel is underground suffocating as Owen continues to live in denial... that gave me a deep sense of dread and fear that no other piece of media has ever given me. I felt like I had been transported back to high school when I couldn't accept myself yet, or worse, a reality where I went my entire life living in that state of denial. The analogy is just so accurate, I can't think of a better way to explain how living that way felt for me. It really was like this other version of me, a truer version of me, was locked away and slowly dying, and the only way to set that version free would be to kill the current version -which is terrifying because I didn't know in what way my life would change, just that it would change. To see that part of my life portrayed so accurately (in an emotionally accurate way I mean) was an amazing, albeit terrifying experience. Which is to say, I thought the movie was fantastic
I think the general theme of 'everything you want is on the other side of fear' is a pretty hard-hitting one that shouldn't be summed up as solely a trans thing. Identity and yearning encompasses so many aspects of the self that I think it's best for ISTTVG to be a clear trans allegory while also never saying so out loud so cis viewers don't tune out the important messaging as not applicable to them. I have a cis friend whose personal reading of the movie was a sign to finally cut off her toxic family so she could live in the reality she wanted. She understood the trans reading just fine, but the space to personally interpret the story did wonders for her experience.
I think it’s important that you can read Owen’s story many ways. But also so much of the film is these signals that Owen fails to see, warning that this world is not real and is a literal death trap. So I think it’s fitting that even Owen’s identity is something to which they have only clues, not an explicit understanding.
This movie was fascinating to me, although I didn’t have the same visceral reaction to it that I’ve seen others talk about. I wasn’t emotionally destroyed by it but I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a long time.
I think not specifying trans is a good decision. In every other way this film is very overtly trans but by not tying it directly to that experience by naming it, it can allow those who are not trans to see the trans themes but also feel the universality of some of these experiences, and hopefully enabling them to see that being trans isn’t as foreign a concept as they might think it is. Maybe that’s too hopeful, I’m sure plenty will willfully miss the trans themes entirely, but inviting a wider audience into the experience seems like a good idea to me.
The movie takes place in the 90s, when I lived my teen years, and back then, the word "transgender" didn't even exist. We barely even knew it was a possibility to be trans. I now know, at 43 years old, that I am a gender non conforming autistic person, and I relate deeply to Justice Smith's character and experience. As a teenager, I was obsessed with my favorite shows and movies, and I wanted to live in those worlds, not in the one I knew (a world that clearly didn't want me). I saw the TV glow was painful to watch, but also beautiful.
As a black transfemme, being forced to watch the main character of this film be tortured for the entire runtime was wild. The trans folks of color I know all hated how the director/writer(s) completely ignored the intersection of race and gender. White viewers loved it, but many mixed race/people of color whether trans or not basically watched a re-enactment of their traumas. It was a pretty film, but god I wish it were made with more sensitivity and respect for the black trans experience rather than creating a false equivalent between the two main characters' situations. Also from reddit, to discord, to tumblr, and even in person I've seen white queers dogpile people of color for bringing this up. "You just didnt get the film" lmao sorry, we got the film- we literally lived it
Would you mind elaborating a little? I kind of see what you mean, but I feel like I'm still missing some parts of what you're saying.
No biggie if you don't feel like it, I get that. I'm just curious.
Mostly replying bc I’m also curious and want to be notified if you do choose to respond
Mm why do you think it ignored the intersection? As a POC myself, I could see myself really relating to the struggle and the trauma was there but I didn’t think it lacked sensitivity
Oh wow thank you for letting me know this!! That’s not your brain rot reading, it’s objectively true and it should ruin for for everyone else 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
I sort of identify as gender fluid/I don't personally identify as trans, but I definitely got the trans allegory and ALSO deeply related to both main characters. I feel like this is a movie that is obviously talking about the transgender experience. But I also feel like...I've always been a weirdo and never really fit the mold, and deeply related to that feeling despite not being trans myself. It also MAKES SENSE they never say trans because the characters don't have those words to describe their experience--small towns in the 90s just are like that. Its hard to find those things when there's no one to tell you what it is.
Im trans and I didn’t like the film. I didn’t relate to it and it confused me a lot. I felt the themes of being suffocated by nostalgia and stuck in the closet were clear, but a lot of it was expressed through just talking that felt like an exposition dump. It didn’t work for me as a narrative or as a vibe.
And that’s ok! I recognize that this movie isn’t for me and that it’s for many other people who relate to it. I can live with being disappointed by the film. The good thing about our experiences is we all have different interpretations and perspectives on the same events and ideas. I’m glad this film meant a lot to others.
Not everyone has taste.
This is one of the biggest things I love about science fiction: it gives us a framework for talking about politicized traits disconnected from the politicization. That's not always a positive, but it's also what gave me a pathway out of the empathy black hole that is the US right wing that I was raised in. If you say "transgender", now people are thinking about in those terms, which invokes mental training/prejudice to cut off empathy - if you can get people to empathize with a character, *then* connect it to a real identity, it cuts through a lot of rhetoric.
I've made a video game about a trans character (If Found...) and it's been played by a couple hundred thousand people I think. And in the game it never explictly says that Kasio is trans (those exact words would have been really uncommon in Ireland in the 90s) it's p obvious to people who have familiarity with trans or lgbt stuff. However, there are a large number of players who don't realise it's a trans story, but relate to other parts of the story, and I think that's really awesome.
And it's because Kasio is human! Her story is about way more than just 'being trans'. It's about depression, parental pressure, making friends, etc etc. I so agree that it sucks for things to be pigeon-holed by biographical details of the creator (eg, anything made by a woman is automatically turned into -> this must be biographical), and we're all just human. I think great art when it gets at something true is reinterpretable like that, and it can make experiences of one person understandable to another.
Love TV Glow.
And like it's sad if shut others or ourself out of experiences because we think 'oh, this isn't made for me'.
I loved If Found!
I’m cis but I related so much to the end because Owen was apologizing for having a panic attack. The line “I’m sorry about earlier I’m on a new medicine” is almost verbatim what I said once at a party after crying in the bathroom. It seems so ridiculous when I see someone else do it, like why are you apologizing for suffering? But I still do it anyway. I think it’s a defense mechanism. If I apologize people will feel bad for me and are less likely to hurt me.
Needless to say this movie made me cry, but in a good way.
i just really love the conversation that happens between owen and maddie on the bleachers. it felt relatable as someone who is both trans and autistic, since i wasn't able to reckon with my identity almost at all until i started working to understand why i had difficulty connecting to others in the first place. i too knew from a very young age that my parents thought something was "wrong with me" but had absolutely no language for it and didn't necessarily trust that they weren't correct
That moment where Owen's narration talks about how maybe there really is a girl buried alive and suffocating while he does nothing, really cut deep for me. That was exactly how I felt when I came out to myself, and the prospect of simply existing (not living) through the rest of my life in a flash while that girl slowly died was truly horrifying. I'm going to be thinking about this film for a long while.
I think it's wrong to say the movie has a trans metaphor or trans allegory: it's literally a trans plot.
I Saw the TV Glow is literally season 6 episode 1 of The Pink Opaque. We're told this explicitly throughout the text, including the magazine with the S6E1 title "Escape From the Midnight Realm." The plot of the movie/episode is that Isabelle and Tara were trapped in bodies and lives that weren't their own in the midnight realm. Isabelle is trapped in Owen, and her story is therefore necessarily a trans one, no metaphor about it.
I realize it was the 90s and they probably couldn’t, but DS9’s Rejoined never says any of the terms and is still amazing.
I’m 23, bisexual, and masc genderfluid. I wanted to clarify because I don’t want to sound like an old boomer who thinks all the queer words are too much and that our profess should come with dismissing identifying tools. I do however respect artistry and it’s cool to have a character be obviously trans without it being said
This movie is so well done. It hurts to watch but it hasn't really left my mind since I saw it. I didn't know it was a trans story going in, I thought it was gonna be something completely different, but once I realized what it was doing it really hit me as one of the most effective pieces of horror I've ever seen. I don't think it needed to say trans, it was all there on screen.
This movie hit me so hard. It didn't need to say the word "trans", and honestly I think it is more powerful for not saying it. As someone who is very much in Owen's shoes, seeing this movie nearly brought me to my knees. The final scene was so, visceral, for lack of any other word. Such a powerful movie and so very important.
I've never felt as seen or as hollowed out as that final sequence.
@wcookiv I felt like I couldn't even move for a good 15 mins probably after the movie ended. Never have I seen something that felt so, real for lack of any other word.
I watched this last night and I knew about the trans subtext going in but I was still shook. I couldn't sleep all night. I've never felt so called out and disturbed by a piece of art in my life. 10/10
I personally don’t believe movies need to be enjoyable. As an autistic nonbinary person, I have extremely complicated feelings about being an adult (I’m 23), puberty, and the passage of time. Personally, the movie adaptation of “where the wild things are” is one of my favorite movies, and I’ll never watch it again. That movie hurts to watch, but that’s why it’s so good. I have always found it nearly impossible to “relate” to characters, not in a lack of empathy or understanding kind of way, but in a elementary school “which character do you relate to most/ find yourself to be most like” kind of way. That movie proved to me that I actually do have that ability, and that I desperately want to be 12 again.
There's a long scene in this movie at the planetarium that made me experience some kind of panic attack. My body was shaking and tears were falling to such an extent that it almost scared me. I've watched a lot of films, but it's very rare that a movie has managed to resonate with me so strongly on emotional and literally physical level. I Saw the TV Glow is such an unique and astonishing achievement for queer cinema and especially for trans cinema.
The song that played at the beginning of the movie was “anthem for a 17 year old girl” by a very amazing gay band called Broken Social Scene. For those of us who are fans, that said it all in the first 10 minutes.
I think it really works in the film's favour just from a textual level, because to me it looks like the experience the film is depicting is one of knowing that there is a problem but not looking at it too hard and hoping it will go away on its own. Since it's all filtered through Owen's perspective, and Owen is keeping busy and distracted and never allows themself the space to really think about gender, then it works to never make it explicit. I think it speaks to Schoenbrun's talent as a director that even though Owen never realises what's wrong, the audience can see the problem and the solution clear as day.
i’m not trans, but as a queer and neurodivergent woman it hit me like an absolute truck and (although i didn’t understand everything in the film) i completely bawled my eyes out 😭 just covered in snot and tears and i can’t even begin to describe why
6:18 oh goddess same. I think this is the part of being trans that a lot of cis people simply don't get. The ever-present horror of believing you're trapped in the wrong gender.
The first time I watched this movie, I got to the final scene (with him apologising to everyone) and I just sat silently for like 5 minutes, trying not to cry. I'm not trans nor did I fully understand the inner workings of this movie's metaphor at first watch, but the feeling it evoked of nostalgia, youth, desire and uncertainty of who you are and who you could be resonated so deeply within me. I think this film could honestly be explored through so many different lenses of identity, whether it be gender, queerness, mental health, vocation, spirituality or just self-worth
theres a generation of people who have CinemaSins poisoning, where if the actors dont look directly at the camera and explain the plot, themes, and subtext of a movie to them, directly, by name, it means the movie is bad. *ding*
I watched it last night and it brought me to tears. The metaphor about choking to death while being buried alive really stuck with me
I watched on nebula yesterday and just wanted to add that I feel like the concept of art being enjoyable doesn't 100% mean that our society thinks it's good. For example I really enjoyed the new ant man movie, but most would say it was bad.
I will admit, i did originally see you as "The" Trans youtuber when i found your channel while looking for reviews on Discovery. I no longer see that as your defining youtube characteristic.
You've expanded my understanding of many aspects of the LGBTQ+ community. I've always been an ally, and you've grown past that original moniker I originally understood to be your "niche.".
Anyway, I just wanted to give you your flowers.
I'm happy it didn't say "transgender" because it makes the metaphors and themes stronger. I might be bias but I don't like when stories tell you what they are vs show you. To contrast this a book I tried reading, Manhunt, I kinda hated that the author wrote the villains of that novel as "the TERFS" instead of a different name. Which they were but because the author told me up front that these were TERFS I didn't really care to get to know or understand the villains. There was nothing there for me to figure them out on my own. I was told what they were from the start, mystery over.
Also outside of the trans allegory the film also works as metaphor for settling in an unfulfilled life. What does Owen do once his friend leaves? Works minimum wage jobs with a family we never see and watches TV. I get depressed if I repeat that cycle too much. This is all Owen does. The themes of alienation the film explores too are fascinating.
Edit: Should movies be enjoyable to be good? I think another jane flick, "We're all going to the world's fair", answers this question perfectly. No, they don't need to be. If I'm watching a film and I walk away feeling uneased and thinking about it for a week then it did its job.
Manhunt's a completely different type of narrative, though. They literally are TERFs, the story is in part about the nature of TERFism. They're a violent hate movement, to add a layer of mystery to them is entirely the wrong approach. The author goes out of her way to give each TERF depth, dimensionality, pathos--more so than the ones in real life. There's plenty to figure out about them as people. I was fascinated to see how Ramona (for example) justified herself and responded to different situations, as did the others of her ilk. She's literally one of the most fascinating parts of the book.
Your criticism simply doesn't make any sense to me.
Agreed! If it's overtly stated that something is meant as a direct stand-in for a real-world thing, then there's nothing to really figure out and less motivation to get to know the story more. It leads to a situation where either the real experience is something people have already know and therefore don't need to see again, or it alienates viewers who can't relate at all. Of course there's definitely a place for explicity stated representation, but when something is allowed to remain implied or as a metaphor, it's typically much more intriguing
I'm not much of a film person in general but I avoided spoilers for this and watched it. It just seemed so stylish that I didn't want to miss out on the experience. I thought it was beautifully put together, but could really feel that I wasn't part of the target audience. I don't know how to describe that feeling where you're watching something that you know is going to make a huge impression on a lot of people, just not you. It was a fun (?) experience though, especially if you like melancholy and surreal stuff.
I've never experienced a story that captured "living a life you know is wrong somehow, deep down, but can't put together why" like this move
I haven’t seen this film yet, but between this take and the one you recently shared on Agatha All Along, it’s really fascinating to hear about queer storytelling being experienced like this. I still remember the slew of Shrek analysis videos from people who related to it on different levels-as women, as queer people, as people with disabilities, and just in general. It makes me really excited about the stories I hope I’ll write someday.
I related deeply to Maddie and I love the movie (I already rewatched it 3 times) because to me it spoke about existential dread, and about the feeling of not fitting, ever, int his world. I am bipolar and many persons with this same feature told me that the movie resonated with them for this very same reason.
I loved this review, thank you.
I keep coming back to this video, it’s somehow so comforting and I don’t know why
To touch a bit more on "glitch identity" (both the concepts you quoted here and in that video essay as well as the overall concept of that lens): ~Also potential spoilers for the film though I feel I am being vague enough. ~
Samantha Luxe had an interesting and unique takeaway from her viewing as she was able to go to a screening with a Q&A with the creative team for the film afterward and this was how I first learned about the film.
When I watched your essay discussing various "glitch" films I couldn't help but think that certain aspects of the fate befalling that of the James Woods character sounded a bit similar to that of the lead character near the end of I Saw The TV Glow (though obviously for very different reasons, yet possibly your direct statement of what the "effect" symbolized could be considered rather similar and the first thing that came to mind when you described it).
The connection my mind made - in addition to the literal message written on the road, which many have seen as a sign of hope/potential of a positive outcome of Owen as Isabel is something that became a *higher* plausibility to me after watching your essay than merely "seeking a silver lining" by those whom were heavily affected by a difficult narrative.
After all, if the obsession with one program for purely self-serving reasons at the sacrifice of all else can transform someone, why can't one assist someone in transforming to serve themselves?
TLDR; This is why representation and seeing yourself matters.
11:40 resonated hard with me. I'm an academic, and getting into research as a trans person has come with a lot of assumptions that I will want to research trans issues in my field, or, perhaps more accurately ought to research trans issues in my field. I remember a few years back when I was discussing a PhD proposal with my then personal tutor, and in general academic guide, being shocked and disgusted that her genuine advice to me for getting into research was to not research the topic I cared about, but instead focus on my experiences as a trans person, and use that to inform my research.
I remember asking her if she would be just as insulted if she were told to stop researching service people and militaries and instead focus on women's issues and female gendered issues instead. It was a learning moment for both of us, I saw how I would be pigeonholed (and have been since as people do assume my research must be about trans people), and for her in recognising that I am not just trans, there is more to me than just being a gateway to trans issues and trans concerns.
It is a real tragedy that trans people seem barred from engaging in any production unless it is explicitly trans, being told that here is the trans box, it's perfect for you, because you're a trans, just like them!
I'm trans and didn't relate to the movie at all. Like I get what they were going for but I feel like it mostly appealed to trans folks who figured it in their adulthood.
It was weird. I went in to the movie with high expectations and came out saying "that's it? Really?"
Same
It really helped me crack my egg because I found the movie from word of mouth and it kinda broke me. I couldn’t get it out of my head and I deeply resonated with owen. I had a lot of the same thoughts and experiences of feeling like I couldn’t connect with who I was, and choosing to ignore that dissonance instead of doing any introspection. But then I saw people discussing how it was a pretty explicit trans metaphor and it finally clicked in my head why I never felt like I was true to myself, why I felt like I was living life in someone else’s body, why my sense of self was so disjointed, why I hated seeing myself in the mirror, why I never liked being in photos or being seen in public, why I felt so disgusted hearing my own voice, why it felt like no one really knew me for who I was, why I was afraid to do any introspection or self reflection. I’m still figuring things out but these past few months are the happiest I’ve ever been and my only regret is not coming to this realization sooner
Heaven forbid a story teller trusts the audience to grasp the themes of the movie using subtext.
I grew up in the ultimate suburb and relate deeply to the need to leave in order to become one’s true self- what ever that may be!! The journey itself often becomes art- the escape from a suffocating world !
Great discussion Jessie🥰
Ps- love Chris Stuckman!
I love your visual interpretations of the light bulb and washing machine and such
Oh Goddess, the Pink Opaque was Buffy.......that makes it hit so much harder. The amount of times I imagined/pretended I was a character from that show when I was a kid.
I ugly-cried at the end of this movie. I took this movie really literally when I watched it, and I really deeply, painfully felt for Maddy and what I interpreted as her desperate need for escapism. Hyperfocusing on a specific TV show and experiencing reality through the lens of that TV show because real life was insufferable... That was me as a child. I just remember at the end of this movie, mourning so deeply for both Owen and Maddy, Owen for being stuck in this suburban hellscape where he has no words and no meaningful power over his mundane life, and Maddy for living in a completely different world than her peers and in so doing leaving them behind. I'm crying as I'm typing this. I just remember crying into a pillowcase during the credits and not knowing why or how to put the tragedy into words, but to me it looked like nobody had a happy ending. It's so soul-crushing. What a beautiful movie.
As someone adjacent to a lot of anime fandoms as well these conversations are so fascinating. They don't have the obvious intentionality of a queer narrative as I saw the tv glow, but I think that appreciation for queer coding has been lost on some people. Like i love canon queerness as much as the next person, but sometimes there is a beauty (and often tragedy) in not having the words. (Or you know just queerplatonic relationships everywhere :P )
This movie hit me so hard that I'm scared to watch it again. I was blown away. As a former heroin addict with sort of magical thinking that is facilitated by opioids it just was exactly the thing. I'm actually scared that someone was able to show that.
what I love about this film is how it presents two different Stages of Transition from two very different people.
I think the fact that they did not say explicitly trans was good in the way you can really relate the themes explored to many queer experiences and struggles. And tbh I love the fact that this movie really encouraged the use of “show dont tell”, I feel it treats the audience with respect
Something else with this movie is that it’s set primarily in the 90s, with a main character who was a child of that time. In the 90s, society at large didn’t really have terminology for the trans experience, except for largely insulting terms. This was a source of pain for many trans people living in that time who didn’t know anyone else on the LGBTQ spectrum that could help them put words to what they were experiencing. I figured the lack of use of the direct word “trans” was a reference to that.
Take a shot every time Jessie says "overt/overtly". You'll be hammered 5 minutes in lol
This movie felt like that scene in Midsommar where all the women are crying with Dani. It was a shared despair.
As soon as the girl said she got beat by her parent for being herself I immediately knew that was her trying to set escape from Owen. That is why she disappeared the first time. He locked her away inside himself out of fear of society judging them. She showed herself one last time trying to be free from Owen, so Owen can be her true self, but in the end he killed her off permanently. I transitioned in 2020. I had a hard time adjusting because I had to be this male version to protect my true self from society. So, I cried a lot. Torn between who people wanted me to be and who I really was. So, finally it was time for me to let the protector go. I took him out for his last meal at Sappor's since sushi was his favorite. Afterwards I laid him to rest, and I have been Lady Rei ever since. No regrets.
I also think that a large part of why the word is never said is because... the movie is pretty explicitly about Owen/Isabelle's self-denial, so the movie itself is as afraid/hesitant to say that word out loud as the main character is to admit that aspect about themselves
Without having seen the video yet - not explicitly saying "it's about transgender people" makes it more relatable for people who face different issues in society that have similar dynamics. Me as an example, I'm low support needs autistic, very late diagnosis, struggled through young adulthood very significantly. I always felt a strong sense of solidarity for people with identities that were outside of social "norms", because the sense of exclusion was something I experienced as well, if for different reasons. I could relate a lot to the film, even though I understood it wasn't directly aimed at my kind of life experience.
as a trans person i definitely saw the transness of it all, and related to some aspects of that, but honestly related even more in non-trans ways, to the avoidance of the truths about yourself that scare you, and how that avoidance is what slowly kills you in such an excruciating way
The parachute thing was not just a '90s thing. We did the exact same thing when I was in elementary school in the early 1980s.
I feel like this movie uses such specific strong sensual cues to like hypnotize the audience in to going back in time and reconnecting with those parts of yourself. Kind of reminded me of how Skinamarink works. It was so visceral, the parachute, voting machine, humming vending machines.
@@Progressunlikely Voting machines were cool! I guess they were heavy and hard to move around, though.
@@electronics-girl also contributed to the whole "hanging chad" debacle of the 2000 election.
also the parachute had bisexual flag colors so I read this film as speaking to queer identity and experience not just trans
@@Progressunlikely I thought they had gotten rid of voting machines by 2000, and were using punched-card ballots (hence the "hanging chad" problem). The old voting machines like shown in the film were purely mechanical.
Anyone else finds it downright malignant how bigots used to say if you want gay characters you should create your own original media with gay characters and now that gay people are doing their own gay media they are trying to deny us even that?
Yes. You could've ended after the word "bigots" and my answer would still be a resounding yes, honestly.
If I may add to the conversation, so much of this movie and its music is inspired by the work of David Lynch. (Twin Peaks, Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, and Elephant Man)
For those who don’t know, Lynch would often take characters with seemingly normal or at least casual lives and then put them through a “Wizard of Oz” scenario. His stories began with a status quo that is immediately warped and suddenly, “we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
Never once in David Lynch’s filmography was he trying to argue a point so much as describe a feeling. He played into the “show don’t tell” technique simply because he failed to have words to describe his experience.
He was known for being super avoidant of giving commentary on his movies and shows and answering their great mysteries in interviews. I honestly believe he couldn’t explain it all himself which is why he made the movies to begin with.
I think it’s the same for Jane and I Saw The TV Glow. The reality of being Trans is one of loneliness, fear, and melancholy. It is also one of beauty, joy, love, wisdom, and power. To me the movie has only one statement: “There is still time.”
So I think the movie does say Trans. It screams Trans all over the place. It just doesn’t use words to do that.
I was dead inside and didn’t know if I was going to make it.
As soon as I saw him in a dress it clicked in my head what was going on and that this was a trans allegory, but everything before that was personally a slog. I never thought the word transgender was necessary though again going in blind was a mistake for me personally. But the points you mentioned especially about trans characters and treatments of trans writers was interesting. I did get that vibe from UA-camr Lily Simpson, that they wanted to branch out to other topics besides just transgendered videos. Reminds me of Steven King feeling pigeon holed to the point he wrote Misery. Thank you for sharing this.
I watched it and didn't really feel much of anything other than discomfort at the ending, but as time goes by since having seen it there's been a lurking sense of dread that the movie left behind in me.
I can feel the warning the movie gives you and I can feel just how much I don't want to end up like the protag, and it motivates me to want to move forward because if I keep waiting I might lose myself in the complacency.
It may not have made me cry, But it did do something.
Allegories tend to be best when they don't have to tell the reader they're allegories
Take Beastars for example. There are few characters that are stated to be queer, and none of them are the main cast, and yet you can feel the undertones throughout the story.
Legoshi never needed to say he was bisexual for people to see it in his chemistry with Louis, and vice versa, hell the closest they come to stating they're queer is when Legoshi says he's attracted to herbivores and Louis says he loves carnivores
There's so much more littered throughout the series and the spinoff that makes it more obvious, and never once is the word "queer" spoken nor do any of the characters state that they are queer
I love the way it works as an allegory a lot. It's inspired some of my own writing as well, though there are a lot more queer characters in it, so while the overarching themes are allegorical, there are smaller struggles sprinkled in that are more overt
i loved this movie. the soundtrack was killer too.
The point about pigeon holing done by the Money People in Hollywood is so incredibly good. I think people can do that in life. Every human is more than one part of them. Right wingers often screech about the Left pigeon holing them. (Although other things about a number of Right wingers are said in bad faith, so I grant that it's difficult to sometimes want to extend the courtesy of treating their words as coming from a genuine place.) But I do concede that many people have so many different parts of themselves which are expressed at different times and places as appropriate. Comic con isn't the place for your stamp collection, probably. A date with your partner isn't the time to play a solo online game. Possibly.
Thank you for the video. 😺
Jessie did you turn our convo the other day into a video lol
One of the things that holds us back as people is our difficulty in understanding other people's lived experiences, especially when they are so different from our own. I think art and allegory can be a useful bridge. What I liked is that it presented the moment a young trans person wrestles with their identity and told two different stories, one where they transitioned and one where they stayed the same. They were both presented as horror stories with hardship to endure, but crucially the one where they chose to stay the same was a horror story that never ended (I particularly liked the street art that said 'It's not too late').
If something is actually spelled it out, it's no longer a metaphor.
This is not usually my movie type and I would not watch it again. But I am glad I watched it. I feel a lot of the fact it didn't speak directly about what it was about, although the director clearly stated the vision, was important. Because it allows the themes to resonate without a preconceived notion. Those who get it do. Those who don't, don't. Those who can't admit it it might be that step closer to understanding.
This makes it easier for people to get it. It also makes it safer to get the message around those who don't. Who may be unsafe. It's a way to share the message.
Edit: Just a note I am non-binary. I just do not like art house movies as a rule and there's a very queer tone that I also just am not the biggest fan of. But I don't have to like it for it to matter to people and for it to be a very important message.
my mom pointed out that the pink opaque as a show, for owen and maddie, works in the same way as creepypasta did for me and a past friend. we used creepypasta and building a world about them as an escape, and we both *wanted* to live in our AU as the characters/ocs rather than existing on this earth.
which i thought was interesting:)
she also said that owen and maddie came off as autistic to her, and that their interactions with eachother and the world around them reminded her of me (im autistic, so thats why she thought of the characters as such)
anyways, if someone who isnt the target audience for i saw the tv glow watched it and had a different interpretation please tell me! i find this stuff interesting:)
I'm a teacher and I discuss Joseph Campbell every year. I've never thought about it through this lens. I'm supposed to touch on the monolith again next week. I guess I have some thinking on how to best approach that.
If they say 'trans' outright then the movie becomes a sermon, or a diary of some painful experiences a character had. But by not _saying_ it, but walking the audience right up to the line - making us live through the experience of being trapped in your egg step by painful step - that's where the fear of the film comes from. It's scary because for some people, they can look right at it - right at _us_ - and not see. The reaction of the cis audience is _part of the horror_ of the film.
ironically my first thought at the end of the movie was that the messaging was TOO on the nose, i think that’s mostly because my expectations were really built up from seeing so much content about it online beforehand but still, it’s insane to think the art piece needs to directly tell you what it’s doing.
One thing I feel helps the case of not using the term is that a lot of trans experiences aren't exclusive to being trans, as well as it keeps the terminology from ostricizing some people. And not to mention the less you use the terms the more likely it'll stand up to the test of time, because words change pretty frequently, but ideas and concepts don't change nearly as much.
A lot of people in denial and in the closet will shut down any empathy to a character if they know in advance they are trans with capitol T. So I'm really glad this movie didn't, and further since it had one character who was clearly trans at the beginning, I think a lot of people went in assuming the main character would just be cis, and that the supporting character was what everyone was talking about. All in all I think it made the end so much more effective.
The movie isn't afraid. Owen is afraid. If it could be said, Isabella would be free.
There Is Still Time.
I am a cis woman and the movie made me cry really hard. I found the exploration of memories was the thing that made me cry, as I could see how these characters had a past, the truth, vs the past they have created through words & how people frame those experiences in their life, and sometimes we have to or someone/something forces us to create a past just to fit in. We can fool ourselves to say there is no war in Ba Sing Se, but to maybe feel whole you have to face the reality that the past has left you hollow and there is time to fill the hole.