In a 2014 cover story, Time Magazine declared that we reached the “Transgender Tipping Point.” Transgender awareness was increasing, and we were moving toward progress. Ten years later, Donald Trump glided comfortably to his second presidential win — his campaign and an affiliated super PAC spending about 40 million dollars on anti-trans ads in October alone. Trans people are more visible than ever, but politicians have weaponized that visibility to stoke fear and hate. It may be Trans Awareness Week, but awareness does not seem to be working.
What, then, is the role of the media in improving the lives of trans people? What is there besides the representation model? Despite watching movies that represent trans experiences religiously since childhood, I had all but cast off the idea of meaningful trans stories in the medium. Institutional barriers in the film industry are high. With a couple of exceptions, everything I watched felt trite. The movies were obsessed with transitioning. Trans characters were tragic. Needless to say, I was very skeptical when I walked into the theater to see Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow” this summer, but I left with full-body chills. I finally saw my experience on screen.
At first glance, writer and director Jane Schoenbrun’s films have little to do with trans identity. Their debut narrative feature, “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” follows a young teen whose obsession with an online horror game warps her reality. Their most recent film, “I Saw the TV Glow,” tracks two tweens consumed by “The Pink Opaque,” a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”-esque TV show. That is if these films are about anything at all — which some critics complain they are not.
Under these pink and purple-tinted techno-horrors, though, are thinly veiled trans allegories. Casey (Anna Cobb) of “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” complains she “can’t feel [her] body” and records ominous videos of herself, documenting her bodily distress. Owen (Justice Smith) of “I Saw the TV Glow” imagines himself as one of the female characters in the “Pink Opaque” and tries to dive headfirst through his TV screen. The word “transgender” is never uttered, but the characters’ physical discomfort in their bodies and intense desire to escape through media, all evoke a trans experience.
Film is a visual medium, but Schoenbrun rejects the impulse to make trans identity legible to cisgender audiences. There are no coming-out scenes or monologues explaining gender dysphoria. Critics complain that the films are opaque, but they miss the point. Schoenbrun uses surreal visuals and sounds because what they are trying to communicate cannot be illustrated by a clear visual or dialogue. Schoenbrun’s films offer more than literal representation — they capture a uniquely trans feeling.
“Silence of the Lambs” depicts trans identity as monstrous and violent. Schoenbrun may use horror to evoke the trans experience, but their films are not demeaning. Trans people are not the monsters — dysphoria is. In the final sequence of “I Saw the TV Glow,” Owen, who has now reached old age, loudly wails in the middle of a kid’s birthday party, but nobody notices. He lives his whole life experiencing a pain no one else can see.
The moment resonated with me deeply. Sometimes I forget what it was like before I had the language to understand who I was. There is something so agonizing — but so significant — about that period, and it was a part of my experience that I hadn’t reflected on seriously before. It was too painful. That level of confusion is not normally the stuff of American movies — they are supposed to be about revelations. “I Saw the TV Glow,” in its surrealism, expanded my idea of what a trans story can be. More than that, it helped me create a fuller picture of who I am and how the pain and confusion of pre-transition dysphoria reverberate, years after coming out.
In all likelihood, we are about to enter a dark political moment with increasing attacks on trans people. We will need to fight like hell to protect our community. That fight will likely include the work of awareness, as we are forced to prove our humanity to an ever-critical cis public. Yet, in that struggle, we cannot lose sight of ourselves. We deserve to turn to art that captures us in our complexity, not just media that seeks to explain trans identity to others. In the face of great political stakes, it may seem frivolous to focus on art, but art offers us a place of refuge and healing. Art can fortify us and ultimately is one of our best tools to build the world we want to see.
Contact Sawyer Gouw Ranzetta at [email protected].