I loved ‘I Saw the TV Glow’. I’m a trans man, but I started transitioning as an adult, and prior to that often felt like I was floating only half in my body, remembering past events like a tv show. No joke, it was easier to remember things like I was a casual outside viewer; somehow I would construct that external view. It happens less now. So much less.
But that’s not why I’m making this post.
Isabel is a mixed race Black girl, considering her actress’s heritage and the fact that Owen is also one (it seems that for both main characters, that part transfers over). Her hair is always perfect, swept over one shoulder, only curling at the edges. It’s white girl hair, arguably. I looked up the actress, and it seems that’s not her usual texture.
Owen’s hair is always in protective styles (initial twists) or natural (short Afro) or at the very least, curled (old hair). When she is little, when she is shown to be her nightmares self in the snow globe, she is chubbier* and darker than both adult Owen (somewhat realized) and Isabel herself. And as Owen ages away from the age she’s ’meant’ to be, she was given darker makeup**.
*Might just be baby fat, but fatphobic also intersects with misogynoir in a unique fashion, so I felt it merited mention.
*(Perhaps it was just too much in their attempt to make Justice Smith look older)
And that little Black body is the body she hates.
Both also speak softly, do not use slang, and contain their presences to the point of extreme performance of softness and femininity considering their assigned gender at birth. Isabel wears a short pink dress to a magic battlefield; Owen wears a shapeless pink sweatshirt to the battlefield that is high school. They are usually the only Black person on the screen; the only other one we really get to see is Owen’s mother and the young lady who was giving oral to Owen’s manager. Both meek and in service to white men, never respected, and then either dead or gone.
I think the movie deliberately shows Owen & Isabel’s experiences with trans/misogynoir. She only feels the most perfect and powerful when she’s poised and acceptable. She is alone during difficult moments concerning racial intersections. Many (American and/or diaspora) Black women, cis, trans, or otherwise, struggle with the push to conform to standards that were not meant to uplift her. I think it’s especially telling that it was her worst punishment was to be darker, rounder, more masculine (by USA standards), and with curlier hair. All physical aspects that Black women are punished for in anti-Black societies.
It’s a subtle detail. Maybe not even done purposefully, or it actually reveals a lack of racial consideration in the production. I can’t tell you for sure. But like Owen’s ultimate decision to transition and live again, her acceptance of her racial identity is left uncertain. And I just find that incredibly interesting within this context.
