I Saw the TV Glow, and My Childhood Onscreen

Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine in I Saw the TV Glow (A24 | Baltimore Magazine)

Spoilers ahead for I Saw the TV Glow

Creepy ice cream truck from I Saw the TV Glow (A24)

I am now so old that I’m starting to see my childhood in movies and on television.  The 90s and 2000s are now far enough away from the present that I can look onscreen at the production design of a film taking place in that era and really feel a difference, along with a weird nostalgia for a period that I wouldn’t live through again if you’d paid me.  My childhood was terrible; so when I watch films like Riceboy Sleeps, which was released in 2022 but takes place during the ‘90s, and I see the production design and costume design that clearly evokes the period and I start to miss the carefree days of my youth, I can’t help but feel ambivalent.  Reflecting on the days of my childhood is usually painful, but if you evoke the feeling of the era in a moving image narrative through confident aesthetic choices, you somehow make me realize I can’t go home again and I feel wistful.  That’s weird!  

(Riceboy Sleeps | Hallyu | The Projector)

Now that I think about it, this yearning is something I appreciate.  Seeing my early years represented in media allows me to put distance between what life was like for me then and the now, and take better refuge in the present and process the past.  Such distance makes my childhood feel less painful.  That’s a powerful thing.

Ian Foreman as young Owen in I Saw the TV Glow (4 Columns | Spencer Pazer | Pink Opaque LLC | A24)

I Saw the TV Glow twice, at an AMC and at a specialty 35-seater cinema, designed for viewings in a more intimate atmosphere.  Both settings were comparable in that the theaters were smaller than those of your usual multiplexes.  Consequently, I ended up feeling like I was watching the movie in an incredible home theater, which I think made the experience more magical.  You had the sense of watching with other people in this intimate setting, but on this giant screen and with a high-quality sound system that allowed you to be more fully immersed in the unearthly color, sound, and lights that are such a crucial part of Glow’s mood and tone.  I mean, of course you could watch this film on television, and I Saw the TV Glow has been available on streaming for months.  And while I feel like the movie still looks exquisite on the small screen, in part thanks to Eric K. Yue’s gorgeous and haunting cinematography, it is a profound experience seeing the movie (especially this scene; spoilers if you haven’t seen it) on the widest screen possible. 

(FilmGrab | A24)

Seeing the images of my childhood larger than life and put into a completely different, and somewhat ominous context was surreal, wondrous, and disconcerting.  Chalk drawings, bake sales, motivational bulletin boards, the Fruitopia machine, the 1990’s wood paneling, the aquarium, which three of my childhood friends had in their house, for some reason -- all these hallmarks of my childhood were reconfigured as touchpoints for engaging with this weird, mysterious world.  And so for me, in the midst of the otherworldly glow of this film are weird flickers of memory, and feelings of nostalgia I never thought I’d have.  Because even if my childhood was rough, it’s a particular time and place in my life, in my story, and I can’t rewind time and go back.  There’s no reason in my life now to have a bake sale, the Fruitopia machines are gone, I haven’t been in a house with an aquarium in about ten years – I just never thought I’d associate those things with childhood.  Maybe I associate them with youth more than my childhood.  Maybe that’s why I found myself wistful after watching the movie.

Ian Foreman in I Saw the TV Glow (A24 | Spencer Pazer | Pink Opaque LLC)

(Looper | A24 | Youtube)

One More Thing

Since committing to movies as a lifestyle and career path, I’ve found myself paying attention to audience reactions when watching a film in a public setting.  This is to see how moments of a film resonate with people from all walks of life who are in that theater with you.  With culture and shared human experiences supposedly fragmenting, if not becoming outright endangered (which I don’t really think to be the case), I’ve found myself really trying to appreciate these shared cinematic experiences when I can go to a theater, along with the magic of a singular moment or image or line that inspires members of the audience to laugh, cry, to be enraptured, to all have their eyes truly riveted on the screen at the same time.   

I’ve only seen I Saw the TV Glow in public twice, but I feel like the ending has elicited much stronger reactions from people who’ve reached a certain age – say, older than twenty-five.  I feel like I’ve noticed younger people feel confused by the ending and see it as kind of anti-climactic and confusing, if not outright vague.  Whereas on my second viewing, I tore my eyes away from the screen to see how the audience was processing the final seconds of the film, and I noticed this somber look in some people’s eyes, because they understood the finality of Owen’s situation.  But I had a hunch the teens who were watching the movie behind me just felt confused, because what is the concept of not having enough time when you’re sixteen or seventeen anyway?  Something far off and insignificant.  Something that happens to older people. 

Perceiving the different reactions among people at different stages of their lives to I Saw the TV Glow was sort of profound.  You can see how members of the audience can all watch the same movie and react to it differently; yet all the reactions are valid.  And I started to think about how a movie connects with others and what audiences might bring to it.  What are truly universal qualities about a film that can unite an audience in a shared experience?  What can everyone truly understand and engage with to enjoy this entertainment and art form, this incredible visual and auditory medium we have in front of us?  For people who didn’t grow up consuming these ‘90s supernatural shows and their lore that so heavily influence I Saw the TV Glow, how would they connect with it?  How would they still enjoy it, even if they don’t understand the references? 

These are the things I think about.  I want to wrap up by saying I thought I Saw the TV Glow had one of the best movie lines of the year:

“This isn’t the Midnight Realm, Maddie. It’s just the suburbs.”

(FilmSpeak | A24)