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Speaker 5: Dudeudes, Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics.
Speaker 5: Today we're talking about the movie I Saw the TV Glow.
Speaker 5: It's an independent movie from a twenty four that uses
Speaker 5: the idea of horror as a metaphor and allegory for
Speaker 5: trans experience in some really powerful ways. That led us
Speaker 5: to want to talk about trans representation in film and
Speaker 5: the way this movie uses it as an allegory to
Speaker 5: the way horror is used as a genre to talk
Speaker 5: about the kind of things that we love here on
Speaker 5: Superhero Ethics. And there's a whole wealth of other things
Speaker 5: that all tie in to this movie.
Speaker 6: And let me just.
Speaker 5: Start by asking you, Riki, you saw this movie, you
Speaker 5: recommended it to me, What was kind of your initial
Speaker 5: take on this movie?
Speaker 2: Amazing?
Speaker 7: Just an amazing movie. And of course horror is my wheelhouse.
Speaker 7: Anytime I can get you to watch a horror product,
Speaker 7: I'm thrilled and This one is weird because you had
Speaker 7: some trouble categorizing it to define it, and it does
Speaker 7: get described as horror, but it doesn't feel like it,
Speaker 7: Like once you watch it, it just doesn't feel like
Speaker 7: a horror movie. And I'm the Wikipedia page describes it
Speaker 7: as psychological horror. I think that's kind of a good fit.
Speaker 7: But it doesn't do stuff in the traditional horror ways,
Speaker 7: and I think that is also kind of a thing
Speaker 7: in horror movies. Yeah, a lot of people think of
Speaker 7: horror as just like slashers and like ghosts and stuff.
Speaker 7: But even in those movies where it's just a quote
Speaker 7: unquote typical slasher, there's a lot of commentary under the
Speaker 7: surface if you pay attention to it, or if you
Speaker 7: understand you know, like when the film was made and
Speaker 7: what was going on in.
Speaker 6: The world, right, And that's a big part of what
Speaker 6: threw me with this movie.
Speaker 5: And I want to say, I think a lot of
Speaker 5: listeners probably have not seen this movie yet. It's not
Speaker 5: been well talked about, although it's gotten a lot of
Speaker 5: kind of indie discussion. I would highly recommend pausing this
Speaker 5: pausing this pod. I would highly recommend pausing this podcast.
Speaker 5: Finding it online. It's available a couple of different places
Speaker 5: watching it and then coming back and listening. But if
Speaker 5: you haven't, if you haven't seen it, I'm gonna give
Speaker 5: just some brief overview of it, so you know what
Speaker 5: we're talking about.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 5: It's a movie about two young people they start out
Speaker 5: as a night I think thirteen and eleven and then
Speaker 5: kind of the age throughout the movie, who become friends
Speaker 5: in the nineties over their shared love of a TV
Speaker 5: show called The pink O Pike, and The pink O
Speaker 5: Pike is very much supposed to be a kind of
Speaker 5: Buffy related show that they show scenes from it that
Speaker 5: even use the exact same font and style for the
Speaker 5: credits as they do in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And
Speaker 5: the show the movie is a lot about like the
Speaker 5: characters identifying with the characters in the show, and the
Speaker 5: horror elements come in in terms of like questions of
Speaker 5: like it is the show reality, are the characters in
Speaker 5: the show?
Speaker 6: Is the show in the characters? All this kind of stuff,
Speaker 6: But what it.
Speaker 5: Eventually builds to is that it is, in allegory, a
Speaker 5: metaphor for the experience of being trans and of figuring
Speaker 5: out that you are trans because the discussions about you know,
Speaker 5: what is inside me and all this kind of thing.
Speaker 5: It's very hard to explain because she's really got to
Speaker 5: watch it, but it's basically leading up to the main
Speaker 5: character coming to realize that she is trans, but that
Speaker 5: she's been hiding that her entire life and hiding hiding
Speaker 5: from it, and that the show has been this incredible
Speaker 5: metaphor and a door into that. And that kind of
Speaker 5: gets to where I got lost with this movie the
Speaker 5: first time I watched it, and I've now watched a
Speaker 5: second time, and I think this is one of the
Speaker 5: greatest movies to rewatch because you pick up so much
Speaker 5: more of the second time through. Going into this movie,
Speaker 5: I knew very little about it. I knew that it
Speaker 5: was connected to trans issues in some ways and queer issues,
Speaker 5: and I knew that it was horror.
Speaker 6: And I think you're right.
Speaker 5: I'm someone for whom I grew up where horror was
Speaker 5: Friday the Thirteenth and Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween,
Speaker 5: the slasher movies, and I've come to understand that horror
Speaker 5: can be other things that there's you know, like get
Speaker 5: Out and other directions like that. Still, to my mind,
Speaker 5: in a horror movie, there's gonna be a scene where
Speaker 5: the characters are running away from the monster, where there's
Speaker 5: gonna be a fight scene, where there's going to be
Speaker 5: a moment where you literally think the characters might be.
Speaker 6: About to die. And this movie has none of that.
Speaker 5: And I think because of that, I kind of missed
Speaker 5: a lot the first time I was watching, because I
Speaker 5: thought it was gonna be a movie about trans people.
Speaker 6: Living in a horror movie.
Speaker 5: And then right I thought it was gonna be about
Speaker 5: trans people in a horror movie, and their transness was
Speaker 5: going to be connected to things and gonna be some metaphors,
Speaker 5: but it would still be kind of a traditional horror movie.
Speaker 5: But at the end, as you said, what we realize
Speaker 5: is that what it's instead doing is saying it's not
Speaker 5: that kind of traditional horror movie. It's saying that the
Speaker 5: experience of being trans and of possibly realizing that you
Speaker 5: have been trans but have been hiding yourself, closeting yourself
Speaker 5: your entire life, that that is in a self a
Speaker 5: kind of horror. And I say that because the the
Speaker 5: kind of final reveal of the movie is that Owen
Speaker 5: has lived his entire life not accepting.
Speaker 6: His transnists or her transness.
Speaker 5: And I use this pronouns interchanging because the director and
Speaker 5: the writer has done that as well. It's kind of
Speaker 5: part of the point. We don't get to see the
Speaker 5: character like post transition, but that the kind of real
Speaker 5: horror is what if you have been living this melancholic,
Speaker 5: empty existence of closetedness and so yeah, so it didn't
Speaker 5: really line up with any.
Speaker 6: Of my ideas of what horror was.
Speaker 5: And I think I kind of because that went in
Speaker 5: with the wrong framework, and I'm taking for you it
Speaker 5: was kind of a very different experience.
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, I want to start by addressing the pronoun
Speaker 7: issue because in the movie they never use the word
Speaker 7: trans right or or cis or I think ever mentioned gender.
Speaker 7: They refer to Owen as you know, he him, and
Speaker 7: there's never as you said, there's never a post transition.
Speaker 7: So it's unclear like if you just watched the movie,
Speaker 7: what you know, how you should refer to Owen. So
Speaker 7: I will probably continue to refer to Owen as he
Speaker 7: him throughout the discussion because that's how the character is
Speaker 7: framed in the movie. There is this thing going on,
Speaker 7: and I want to describe more in depth, like what
Speaker 7: that trans allegory is.
Speaker 2: So in the movie.
Speaker 7: Within the movie, there's the TV show they watch, the
Speaker 7: pink Opake, And in that show there's a villain called
Speaker 7: mister Melancholy who captures the two protagonists of the TV
Speaker 7: show in a place called the Midnight Realm. And it's
Speaker 7: framed as like this different existence where they are kept
Speaker 7: in kind of a suspended animation of melancholiness, and they
Speaker 7: need to escape that to return to their real world.
Speaker 7: And then what happens in the movie reality the reality
Speaker 7: of the movie. The plot of the movie is that
Speaker 7: Maddie disappears, Owen's best friend disappears for several years, and
Speaker 7: then returns and says, Yo, we are the two characters
Speaker 7: in the pink Opake. This the existence you think is
Speaker 7: real right now is the Midnight Realm. I escaped, but
Speaker 7: I came back to let you know, you got to
Speaker 7: get out of here.
Speaker 5: And important to this when Maddy comes back. Their presentation
Speaker 5: in the young earlier part of the movie was cis female.
Speaker 6: They do say.
Speaker 5: That they like girls. You mentioned how they never much
Speaker 5: word like trans. They also never say lesbian. They never
Speaker 5: say ace, although Owen says that he just at one
Speaker 5: point Mattie asks you like girls, he says, I don't
Speaker 5: really know.
Speaker 6: I like TV shows.
Speaker 5: But when Maddy comes back, her gender identities is presented
Speaker 5: much more androgynous, and she does he hasn't changed her name.
Speaker 6: She ask me to pronouns, but clearly.
Speaker 5: She has stepped outside of the realm of sis presentation.
Speaker 6: So just with quick note, we're going yeah.
Speaker 7: And in one of the flashbacks, there's like a brief
Speaker 7: half a second shot of Justice Smith's character Owen, wearing
Speaker 7: a dress, so like when they were watching the TV show,
Speaker 7: presumably like they had like a sleepover and Owen put
Speaker 7: on a dress, and that that is like the only
Speaker 7: like clear visual hint right of kind of what's going on,
Speaker 7: And of course, like we know more in our reality
Speaker 7: because the writer, director Jane Schoenbrun, is trans and has
Speaker 7: talked about this movie and about the issues around it.
Speaker 7: So I just wanted it to be clear, like if
Speaker 7: you just watch it and experience the movie and don't
Speaker 7: get it, like that's that's fine, Like that's not what
Speaker 7: the movie is trying to do. And I think that
Speaker 7: is one of the most powerful things about it is
Speaker 7: that a lot of people will get upset about movies that, like,
Speaker 7: you know, shove a topic.
Speaker 2: Down your throat. This doesn't do that at all.
Speaker 7: And in fact, like if you can watch it and
Speaker 7: just like not understand or know at all what's going on,
Speaker 7: but if you do know, as you said, like on
Speaker 7: a second viewing it, just like everything opens up. You're like, oh, oh.
Speaker 5: Well, And I will say, and this is not a
Speaker 5: critique all. I think this is just our two different perspectives.
Speaker 5: I think I picked up on a lot of the
Speaker 5: transnists in that first watch in a way that I
Speaker 5: think a lot of folks don't. And because similar how
Speaker 5: like when you and I watch anime, sometimes there are
Speaker 5: things you point out that I don't see because I
Speaker 5: don't have that cultural context.
Speaker 6: And I'm doing a lot of research about this.
Speaker 5: I've seen a lot of this kind of breakdown of
Speaker 5: CIS folks saying not by all means on either side
Speaker 5: of this, but like SIS folks saying like, yeah, I
Speaker 5: didn't really get that it was about transnist till the
Speaker 5: very end until I read more about it or something
Speaker 5: like that, and trans folks saying like, oh no, like
Speaker 5: that part I could tell from the very beginning and
Speaker 5: you're right, because there's a lot of little cues like that.
Speaker 5: There's the Owen wearing a dress and Maddie looking on
Speaker 5: very kind of supportively is one of the biggest ones.
Speaker 5: But then there's just little things of like oh, and
Speaker 5: being differentiated from his father, in part because you know,
Speaker 5: when Owen brings up that he likes the show, the
Speaker 5: father's saying.
Speaker 6: Oh, isn't that a show for girls? You know?
Speaker 5: And him having this very close relationship with his mother
Speaker 5: but not with his father, not with his father. And
Speaker 5: one thing I think that becomes really important is and
Speaker 5: here I am curious, and I'd love to hear from
Speaker 5: younger listeners if you've noticed this. Nostalgia is a very
Speaker 5: important part of this movie. As I said, it's very
Speaker 5: Buffy referential. And I came of age and came to
Speaker 5: realize my sexuality. I realized I was bisexual when I
Speaker 5: was in high school, and I thought I might be trans.
Speaker 5: I wasn't sure and only came to understand that I
Speaker 5: was non binary much much later. Part of that's because
Speaker 5: we didn't have the word non binary in the nineties
Speaker 5: when this TV show is set, at least the original
Speaker 5: parts of it. It may have been talked about in
Speaker 5: some small circles or among something, but certainly the parts
Speaker 5: of queerness that were coming down to high school and
Speaker 5: college me, that wasn't a word anyone.
Speaker 6: Was talking about.
Speaker 5: Asexuality was a word that was barely being talked about.
Speaker 5: And I went to a pretty liberal progressive high school
Speaker 5: and my friends were mostly from liberal progressive families. But
Speaker 5: even there, like there were books that we had about
Speaker 5: being trans about being queer that I remember, like friends
Speaker 5: passing them to each other in paper bags because we
Speaker 5: didn't want the teacher to see them, and other kinds
Speaker 5: of like this this idea of secrecy being a part
Speaker 5: of it.
Speaker 6: And this movie does something really brilliant where.
Speaker 5: For a long time Owen isn't for his entire childhood,
Speaker 5: Owen isn't allowed to watch the movie by his parents.
Speaker 5: He has and so Maddy has to give him the
Speaker 5: videotapes in secret, which by the way, is also a
Speaker 5: whole nostalgia thing of like, you know, now, we're just
Speaker 5: so used to like oh yeah, and even can go
Speaker 5: find a show and like just erase your search history
Speaker 5: when your parents aren't looking like whatever. But the idea
Speaker 5: that like you had to get VHS tapes to watch
Speaker 5: a show because it was hard to find and someone.
Speaker 6: Had to give it to you in secret. It just
Speaker 6: it hits so much of my.
Speaker 5: Nostalgia of being a young queer kid in the nineties,
Speaker 5: and I think that's very, very intentional.
Speaker 7: And the nostalgia part also plays into the plot going on,
Speaker 7: because in his adult life, Owen rewatches The pink Opake,
Speaker 7: like on a streaming service and it's different, like literally
Speaker 7: we are shown a scene that he watched as a
Speaker 7: kid that is different, like the character is portrayed differently,
Speaker 7: and that is to a kind of tap into that
Speaker 7: nostalgia of like the show that we liked as kids
Speaker 7: maybe aren't quite as good or in this case as scary,
Speaker 7: like the original portrayal of the villain was much scarier,
Speaker 7: and then the streaming version it's kind of comical and
Speaker 7: it's like, oh, yeah, like this is much worse.
Speaker 2: Than I remember. But it is also playing off.
Speaker 7: Of the reality of the movie of being trapped in
Speaker 7: the midnight realm and literally like reality being changed and
Speaker 7: alternate for Owen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think that's a great example because this
Speaker 5: first time I was watching it, I got stuck on
Speaker 5: the this is an actual horror thing happening. So I
Speaker 5: was thinking, like, is the idea that something supernaturally changed
Speaker 5: this on streaming services or is this a secret government conspiracy?
Speaker 5: Like I was thinking in those terms instead of recognizing
Speaker 5: this is all metaphor.
Speaker 6: And I'm wondering, I'm.
Speaker 5: Maybe looking too deep into this, but I'm wondering if
Speaker 5: you thought this as well. It's not just a Buffy standoff,
Speaker 5: but there's clear, very clear Buffy references in the way
Speaker 5: that whole show plays out, the pink O pake. And
Speaker 5: one of the things that's happened with Buffy and with
Speaker 5: Buffy fandom is that obviously we've learned a lot of
Speaker 5: things about Joss Whedon that are pretty terrible and that has,
Speaker 5: you know, affected the way a lot of people think
Speaker 5: of this show a show that was incredibly formative and
Speaker 5: stuff like that. And some folks have talked about like
Speaker 5: they can still watch and enjoy the show and just
Speaker 5: separate that, and some people say that they go back
Speaker 5: and watch the show and it feels like it's not
Speaker 5: the same show because now they're seeing things like in
Speaker 5: Xander's character that kind of are like, oh, yeah, look,
Speaker 5: this is much more sexism in the show than we
Speaker 5: thought there was. Do you think that that the rewatch
Speaker 5: of pink O Pake is meant to be in some
Speaker 5: way also a metaphor of that of the idea of
Speaker 5: that growing older and learning more about the creators of
Speaker 5: a show when one of our problems like that can
Speaker 5: can make the thing you watched as a kid feel
Speaker 5: a lot different.
Speaker 7: I don't believe so, because there's no there's no mention
Speaker 7: in the story in the movie story of the creator
Speaker 7: of the TV show, Like there's some credits are flashed
Speaker 7: on the screen, but the Maddie and Owen never talk
Speaker 7: about the creators of the show. They just talk about
Speaker 7: the plot of the show and what's going on. So
Speaker 7: I don't think that is part of it. And of course,
Speaker 7: like I agree that the especially the font is like
Speaker 7: the biggest that is like the same font as the
Speaker 7: Buffy credits. But I think like the show is also
Speaker 7: tapping into stuff like goose bumps and uh, there was
Speaker 7: another one I can't remember off the top of my head,
Speaker 7: but like these kids TV horror shows and the idea
Speaker 7: of like how scary they are to kids and then
Speaker 7: as adults you, like I said, you you watch them
Speaker 7: and it's like, oh, that's just that's comically bad, Like
Speaker 7: that makeup is bad. Like Goosebumps, the original Goosebumps.
Speaker 2: Is really bad if you watch it. Unfortunately.
Speaker 6: That's very fair.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think another part of the nostalgia thing is
Speaker 5: that there's also the sense of the unreliable narrator, because
Speaker 5: in a lot of ways, Owen is very clearly the narrator,
Speaker 5: and there's fourth wall breaks, like he will just look
Speaker 5: directly at the camera and tell you the kind of
Speaker 5: things that might otherwise be in a voiceover, where your
Speaker 5: a sense of like maybe this isn't a book someone
Speaker 5: else is reading, Like no, he.
Speaker 6: Just talks to the TV.
Speaker 5: What we clearly learn that he's not always telling the
Speaker 5: full story because, like you mentioned that, we get shots
Speaker 5: of Owen in a pink dress, and I think it's
Speaker 5: a pink dress very similar to one that Isabelle, who's
Speaker 5: the kind of shyer, less comfortable accepting what they are character.
Speaker 5: And it's also the Black Girl and the Tube Girls,
Speaker 5: and Owen is black and Maddie's white. So I think
Speaker 5: it's really set up that Owen sees himself as Maddie.
Speaker 5: Owen sees himself as Isabelle, and Maddie sees herself as
Speaker 5: Nora Tara Tarah. Sorry, yeah, I was like, is it
Speaker 5: terror because that's a more specific before your reference, But no,
Speaker 5: you're right, it is Tara what. And so the point
Speaker 5: of all that being that the dress is similar to
Speaker 5: one that Isabelle wears, but in Owen's if, like the
Speaker 5: first half of the movie is all Owen telling us
Speaker 5: and Owen walking us through the flashbacks, we never get that.
Speaker 5: We get these scenes of Owen wearing the dress while
Speaker 5: Maddie is like kind of looking on affirmingly and kind
Speaker 5: of at one point like I smiles, like with a
Speaker 5: very like this is wonderful look, when Maddie is kind
Speaker 5: of saying, hey, do you remember this? And to me,
Speaker 5: that's another idea of the nostalgia, of how not even nostalgia,
Speaker 5: but memory that we can we don't want to remember things.
Speaker 5: We're very good at not remembering them, especially when it's
Speaker 5: like I don't want to remember that thing that might
Speaker 5: tell me I'm the kind of person I don't want
Speaker 5: to be. And so the fact that it's only in
Speaker 5: Maddie's memory that we get to see Owen in the
Speaker 5: pink dress, and we get this very different kind of
Speaker 5: picture of what it was like the two of them
Speaker 5: watching the show together.
Speaker 6: I thought was very intentional and very powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he mentioned real quick.
Speaker 7: Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the character, the lesbian
Speaker 7: character who's in a relationship with Willow. There's actually Amber Benson,
Speaker 7: the actress who played Tara is in this movie as
Speaker 7: the mom of Owen's friend who he tells his parents
Speaker 7: he's going to his friend's house when he's.
Speaker 2: Going to Maddie's house.
Speaker 7: Right, there's the scene where he kind of gives up,
Speaker 7: I guess and tells Amber Benson's character, I don't think
Speaker 7: her name is given, tells her, I've been lying to
Speaker 7: my parents. I need you to tell them, basically, like
Speaker 7: to ground him forcing himself to not be able to
Speaker 7: go to Maddie's house to watch the pink Opake as
Speaker 7: part of like his denial.
Speaker 5: Well it's specific because she's about to run away and
Speaker 5: she wants him to come with her, and that's when
Speaker 5: he's like, no, you got to do this. And that
Speaker 5: felt really appropriate to me because I do think part
Speaker 5: of his whole story and again, this really fits into
Speaker 5: the whole metaphor is his idea of like, living outside
Speaker 5: the rules is dangerous, that the rules.
Speaker 6: Will keep me safe.
Speaker 5: And it makes sense because he has a very overprotective
Speaker 5: mother and parents, to the point where even in high
Speaker 5: school he has a ten thirty bedtime, which Maddie points
Speaker 5: out it's kind of ridiculous for a high school student.
Speaker 5: And you know that he's not allowed to watch the
Speaker 5: show and he has to know all these things in secret,
Speaker 5: and you know, so the idea that he would like
Speaker 5: both want to kind of push against those rules but
Speaker 5: also really reject them, and that a lot of what
Speaker 5: the story is about is that Maddie has broken out.
Speaker 5: Maddie has been able to live her life and because
Speaker 5: again we don't, Maddie comes back presenting in a very
Speaker 5: different way gender wise, but still is using female pronouns
Speaker 5: and using the name Maddie, but still is clearly not
Speaker 5: living the life that has been for them, whereas Owen
Speaker 5: really is. It's not just that he's living a life
Speaker 5: prescribed for that by his parents. He's living his parents' life.
Speaker 5: He inherits his father's house, he inherits his father's you know, stuff,
Speaker 5: and he lives a life it's very much like what
Speaker 5: his father would have wanted for him, well, or at
Speaker 5: least what his father did of going to a kind
Speaker 5: of nowhere job and coming home and having this very
Speaker 5: kind of empty existence.
Speaker 7: Father played by Fred Durst, by the way, hilarious, Not quite,
Speaker 7: I guess, as cameo, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know what he's been up to. Yeah, Branch
Speaker 2: added some acting.
Speaker 5: I only know if like I think he was the
Speaker 5: lead singer of some band, Like I only know of
Speaker 5: him because he mentioned an eminem song in a pretty
Speaker 5: sexist way.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he was the lead singer of Limp Biscuit.
Speaker 6: That's it. Okay, that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you again kind of feeding into the nineties
Speaker 5: nostalgia in a cool way.
Speaker 6: Nineties two thousands nostalgia.
Speaker 7: Yeah, tangent sidebar it every time, like one of those
Speaker 7: actors or actresses from my youth is like a parent
Speaker 7: in a movie.
Speaker 2: I dialetle on the inside.
Speaker 5: You know when my teen crush Winona Ryder was the
Speaker 5: parent in Stranger Things, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6: It did a lot, did a lot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I totally get it, though, and I think
Speaker 5: it's part of what Well, let me just ask you,
Speaker 5: as someone who's not in the trans community, but clearly
Speaker 5: I know, like trans writes and stuff like that are
Speaker 5: very important to you, even part of the Magic Judge community, uh,
Speaker 5: which you know, in which there's a lot of trans folks.
Speaker 5: What what I'm curious kind of how you viewed those
Speaker 5: What were the things that you were picking up on
Speaker 5: that kind of were signaling that or you know, however
Speaker 5: you want to approach that question. I'm kind of curious.
Speaker 5: I've talked a lot about my perspective from someone inside
Speaker 5: those worlds. I'd love to hear more about your perspective.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 7: I knew going into watching the movie because I this
Speaker 7: movie was on my radar because I pay attention to
Speaker 7: a lot of horror adjacent news and content creators who
Speaker 7: talk about horror.
Speaker 2: So I knew going in.
Speaker 7: I was like, Okay, like I definitely want to watch this,
Speaker 7: and so I was looking at everything through that lens,
Speaker 7: and I mean, it makes sense to me, it doesn't,
Speaker 7: you know, because I am sis, I'm sis male. It
Speaker 7: didn't speak to me in the same way, but I
Speaker 7: understand what's going on, and it's It's been described as
Speaker 7: like egg cinema, these kind of movies where it allows
Speaker 7: a trans person to maybe realize what's going on in
Speaker 7: their life, like a young person or even an older
Speaker 7: transferson who's like, I never thought about gender in this
Speaker 7: way or about my identity in this way, that it
Speaker 7: could be different, And.
Speaker 5: Just to clarify for those who don't know, egg is
Speaker 5: a metaphor that's often used within trans communities.
Speaker 6: Of that like discovering who you are and letting.
Speaker 5: That out is cracking the egg, and that people kind
Speaker 5: of look it back and be like, oh, yeah, that
Speaker 5: moment five years ago where I kind of like really
Speaker 5: loved my friend's dress that was kind of one of
Speaker 5: the first cracks in my egg, et cetera.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and it and this movie I think follows in
Speaker 7: a tradition that in some ways goes back to like
Speaker 7: The Matrix. Of course I could be farther back, but
Speaker 7: The Matrix is often cited as that type of egg
Speaker 7: cinema because, of course, now we understand that the Wachowskis
Speaker 7: are trans and they were presenting as male at the
Speaker 7: time I've transitioned to female.
Speaker 8: And.
Speaker 7: That you know that in that movie, it's literally like
Speaker 7: you are in a reality, computer generated reality and then
Speaker 7: escape to the real world. So It's like the same thing, right,
Speaker 7: the escape from one reality into the real one. So
Speaker 7: Maddie in this movie, I saw a TV glow has
Speaker 7: a scape from the Midnight realm, which is their their matrix,
Speaker 7: their prison, and then comes back and tells, Ohen, look,
Speaker 7: you got to get out of here.
Speaker 2: This isn't real you you are going to die in here.
Speaker 7: In fact, and that especially, there's a scene shown where Isabelle,
Speaker 7: right Matt Owen's kind of pink Opake persona is being
Speaker 7: buried alive, and I think like dirt is literally being
Speaker 7: thrown on her body by the by the villains, and
Speaker 7: Owen in his reality suffers from asthma and as he
Speaker 7: gets older, has more and more trouble breathing. Right, So
Speaker 7: it's this like the two realities are paralleling to like, oh,
Speaker 7: that's what's going on, right, And and that's what I
Speaker 7: said earlier, is that you can understand it as just
Speaker 7: Owen is trapped. And even though yeah, like the pink
Speaker 7: Opake character is female, I didn't necessarily you know, if
Speaker 7: I hadn't known going in, I wouldn't have thought about
Speaker 7: it as a trans experience, yeah, and more of just
Speaker 7: like a matrix, like escaping your reality. But of course,
Speaker 7: like if you are trans or if you are like
Speaker 7: thinking about those issues, it hits right. And I think
Speaker 7: that's that's what makes this so powerful, is that it
Speaker 7: can be accessible to different audiences.
Speaker 5: I think that's really true, and I think that's you know,
Speaker 5: I like things that are more clear and direct and
Speaker 5: hit you over the head. But I also think that
Speaker 5: you're right, there's a real need for stories like this,
Speaker 5: especially where it's a story that it does speak so
Speaker 5: much to people who are within the experience, but also
Speaker 5: not in a way that is alienating or pushing away
Speaker 5: anyone who isn't necessarily, And I'm to say, like, I
Speaker 5: think there's some stuff that should be so trans that
Speaker 5: it alienates anyone who's not. And that's fantastic and so
Speaker 5: black or so female or so Asian, like whatever the
Speaker 5: experience is. I'm not saying everything should be made for
Speaker 5: the majority.
Speaker 7: Well, the thing that happens in the movie, right Owen
Speaker 7: has to like sneak around and watch the pink O
Speaker 7: pig because he doesn't want his parents to know like that,
Speaker 7: I think that experience in our real world is what
Speaker 7: the creator is trying to avoid, Like creating this movie
Speaker 7: that you can watch and yeah, like if you listen
Speaker 7: to the people talk about it, you know, and you
Speaker 7: understand what it's about. But I think like it's it's
Speaker 7: not the kind of movie who knows these days, but
Speaker 7: it's not the kind of movie, in my opinion, like
Speaker 7: gets banned or like parents go out and they.
Speaker 2: Like protest and stuff.
Speaker 7: Because again, like they never use the word trans Like
Speaker 7: there's a there's like a half second of Owen I
Speaker 7: wearing a dress, and.
Speaker 5: There's like three or four long shots of it, but yeah, right,
Speaker 5: it's pretty pretty short.
Speaker 7: And there's like the the idea of his character in
Speaker 7: the pink O Pike being female, but again, like that
Speaker 7: is something I think that is a way that these
Speaker 7: movies have been able to talk about these issues is
Speaker 7: through like a supernatural or scientific like gender swap.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like this feels like the kind of movie that
Speaker 5: a fifteen year old in a very you know, conservative
Speaker 5: household wouldn't have, wouldn't have to hide in their church
Speaker 5: history necessarily.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly might. And and the thing is like it's
Speaker 2: not that media like.
Speaker 7: This doesn't turn people trans right or turn people gay
Speaker 7: or whatever. Like that is such a terrible concept. Because
Speaker 7: you can watch this and like understand, like, oh, appreciate
Speaker 7: that this is about a trans experience and say, okay,
Speaker 7: I understand that I like it. I like what I'm seeing,
Speaker 7: but that's not me, Like that's how I felt like.
Speaker 7: I you know, I've thought about it in my life,
Speaker 7: in my lifetime because like, for example, when I when
Speaker 7: as a kid video games, I would often play female.
Speaker 2: Characters, right, yeah, to do a different thing.
Speaker 7: And for some people that can be kind of a
Speaker 7: window into your self identity and it can be like
Speaker 7: the first beginnings of questioning your gender. It wasn't for me,
Speaker 7: but like those kinds of things I think are important.
Speaker 5: Well and as well, Like I'm a very careful I'm
Speaker 5: not speaking for you, but in general, I think it's
Speaker 5: very possible for people, and I think this is a
Speaker 5: good and healthy thing for people to question their gender
Speaker 5: and come to the answer that there sys Like to me,
Speaker 5: that's very different than just never questioning it and taking
Speaker 5: his default. And I really I think it's a great
Speaker 5: time to really talk about kind of the monster the
Speaker 5: horror of this movie because it's so tied into what
Speaker 5: you're talking about, and I think it's very intentional. This
Speaker 5: movie is made at a time when, especially just in
Speaker 5: the last few days with our government, but really for
Speaker 5: the last couple of years, trans people are being painted
Speaker 5: as monsters. Transnists is being painted as this horror, as
Speaker 5: this gender ideology that is attacking our country and our
Speaker 5: schools and our kids and all this kind of like
Speaker 5: you know, I mean, utter nonsense. You know, clearly like
Speaker 5: transnists is biologically and scientifically supported as just realistic facts
Speaker 5: of life. The gender ideology is hating those things. But
Speaker 5: this idea that trans people are monsters is really out there.
Speaker 5: And what this movie is showing is the idea that
Speaker 5: not only is that not true, but it's almost sort
Speaker 5: of saying that that that the real horror, the real tragedy,
Speaker 5: is for someone to go throughout their life not accepting
Speaker 5: who they are, and that that can both.
Speaker 6: Be specific about transnists.
Speaker 5: But I think like someone who's always wanted to be
Speaker 5: an artist but it's for you know, has become a
Speaker 5: nine to five, you know, corporate job, but always want
Speaker 5: to do something else.
Speaker 6: I could easily see seeing themselves in this movie.
Speaker 5: Of you knowuse the final scene of Owen literally cracking
Speaker 5: himself open and realizing that there's this whole living self,
Speaker 5: his soul inside of himself that he thought was dead,
Speaker 5: you know, to me, like, yeah, the person who starts
Speaker 5: painting again at age fifty, who gave it up at sixteen.
Speaker 6: It's just as much there.
Speaker 5: But it's also very much this very real metaphor for
Speaker 5: transnis and hearing we speak very personally. I think there
Speaker 5: can be a lot of generational conflict around and I
Speaker 5: see this in a lot of tradition, a lot of
Speaker 5: communities where one community had to fight very hard for
Speaker 5: rights and they won some fights, and as a result,
Speaker 5: younger generations now get to enjoy things they didn't get
Speaker 5: to enjoy, and there can be resentment both sides and like, oh,
Speaker 5: why don't you appreciate us, or oh, why are you
Speaker 5: stuck in the past. And I'm not trying to take
Speaker 5: sides in any of that, but I will say there's
Speaker 5: a part of me that is incredibly jealous of young
Speaker 5: people who grow up today who have the language that
Speaker 5: I didn't have. I literally had, like the concept of
Speaker 5: non binariness had never would never occur to me. I
Speaker 5: started questioning, I don't think I'm a man in high school,
Speaker 5: but I didn't think I was a woman either, so
Speaker 5: I thought, therefore I must be stuck as a man,
Speaker 5: and I think it may. My experience, I think is
Speaker 5: not like I. There's a level of danger and a
Speaker 5: level of social attack that is faced by people who
Speaker 5: go through more of a transition to a new gender
Speaker 5: that I will ever have to do. And I'm not
Speaker 5: trying to appropriate that the slightest but just using my
Speaker 5: experience and I think a lot of others.
Speaker 6: It's even more so.
Speaker 5: The idea of this, like because when I talk to
Speaker 5: other people who've discovered their gender, you know, accepted their
Speaker 5: gender much later in life.
Speaker 6: There's also this sense of like how much time have
Speaker 6: I wasted? How much time?
Speaker 5: Like could what would my life have been like if
Speaker 5: I could have been this? And I think I think
Speaker 5: this movie really speaks to that in a way that
Speaker 5: both acknowledges that at but it's also like, that's the
Speaker 5: whole point of own cracking himself open at the time.
Speaker 5: It's that when he cracks himself often that that glowness,
Speaker 5: the glowing of the TV, which has been this representation
Speaker 5: of his true self, is there all the time. And
Speaker 5: to me, that was one of those brilliant things of
Speaker 5: it is that it speaks to that idea of that
Speaker 5: the horror is denying who you are, and and but
Speaker 5: that that you can't.
Speaker 6: But it doesn't mean that you're dead. It doesn't mean
Speaker 6: that you're over.
Speaker 5: It doesn't mean that because you didn't accept it as
Speaker 5: a as a teenager a young adult when it was
Speaker 5: presented to you, the horror that therefore you have to
Speaker 5: deny the rest of your life isn't true.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And then you said the TV glow, Right, it's obviously
Speaker 7: the title of the movie. There's a couple of times
Speaker 7: where the glow is presented as a portal, right, And
Speaker 7: at one point he literally like tries to go through
Speaker 7: his own TV. I think, like smashes his head into
Speaker 7: his TV and it's his dad, Fred Durst, who stops him, right,
Speaker 7: And I think at that time Owen is saying something,
Speaker 7: saying something. I can't remember the exact line he says.
Speaker 7: It might have been like you're killing me or something
Speaker 7: like that, but he definitely says that.
Speaker 2: In the final scene, right.
Speaker 7: He shouts out at his job at the like fun
Speaker 7: center job. He shouts out like help me, like I'm
Speaker 7: dying here, and the reality freezes and every other character
Speaker 7: is frozen, and you know, it doesn't react to him,
Speaker 7: and then like a reality kind of restarts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I.
Speaker 7: Like, again, to me, I understand the metaphor, it doesn't
Speaker 7: speak to me, But that scene was so powerful because
Speaker 7: I think it's a it can be a universal feelings
Speaker 7: you've been saying of I'm trapped, like I'm dying here
Speaker 7: in this life, like I want to escape it, So
Speaker 7: that can be a universal feeling regardless of what he
Speaker 7: did specifically, you're.
Speaker 2: Trying to escape.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, very much so. And I think that's that's
Speaker 5: to me, that's what's so important to intersectionality. It's what's
Speaker 5: so important to you know, any of these things, like
Speaker 5: I think we I think there's this balance that that
Speaker 5: it's really hard to find between on the one hand,
Speaker 5: saying the experience of this one person or this one
Speaker 5: community is unique and separate and no one else should
Speaker 5: relate to it because that's insulting to that community, or
Speaker 5: saying we're all oppressed in the same way.
Speaker 6: We all have the same experience. It's all the same thing.
Speaker 5: And I think it's really important to be able to
Speaker 5: find that balance of saying like, yeah, the experience of
Speaker 5: a trans person, or the experience of a black person,
Speaker 5: the experience of a woman, or of a disabled person
Speaker 5: or an Asian person, or any of these things is
Speaker 5: going to be unique and different, and that uniqueness has
Speaker 5: to be honored and looked at, but that they are
Speaker 5: also similarities.
Speaker 6: In the ways we can all relate.
Speaker 5: You know, there are things you have said about, you know,
Speaker 5: your name being mispronounced, or other aspects of being Asian
Speaker 5: American and things like that, and discrimination and depression you've
Speaker 5: dealt with that I don't. I have never dealt with
Speaker 5: those things, but they connect enough to things that I
Speaker 5: have dealt with that I can understand. And I just
Speaker 5: love the way that this movie does that of you know,
Speaker 5: and I because I think it is just such a
Speaker 5: hard balance to find. Yeah, let's talk about, Well, is
Speaker 5: there anything else about this specific movie you wanted to
Speaker 5: bring up, because we also wanted to talk about it
Speaker 5: in kind of context of some other things that are
Speaker 5: happening right now in cinema around horror and trans issues
Speaker 5: and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: But nothing else about this specific thing you wanted to mention.
Speaker 7: No, I think we're good on this movie. It's and
Speaker 7: I just want to reiterate, it's it's very different. Like
Speaker 7: if you've listened to this discussion so far and you
Speaker 7: haven't seen it, of course, like I highly recommend you
Speaker 7: watch it. I don't think if people are squeamish about
Speaker 7: horror as the genre, it just it doesn't hit any
Speaker 7: of those notes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, there's no.
Speaker 7: The psychological like existential horror like it. It may make
Speaker 7: you think about stuff afterwards in a way that is
Speaker 7: uncomfortable and so so that's something to be aware of,
Speaker 7: but it's not going to like gross you out or
Speaker 7: like give you the jump scares and make you afraid,
Speaker 7: you know, keep make you keep the lights on at night.
Speaker 7: I don't, at least I don't think so.
Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5: A couple of the last things I reason I want
Speaker 5: to say one is that I realized I never quite
Speaker 5: made this connection. But part of why I went on
Speaker 5: that whole thing about the horror, the tragedy being a
Speaker 5: person not really a person, having lived so much of
Speaker 5: their life without realizing who they are and what they are,
Speaker 5: is that, as you said, there's this myth that movies
Speaker 5: like this, or movies that are more explicit about things,
Speaker 5: turn people trans Where's the reality.
Speaker 2: Out which is just total BS.
Speaker 6: Right, that's total BS.
Speaker 5: But the reality is that they are fighting against this horror,
Speaker 5: which is what they're doing is saying there is like
Speaker 5: there are words for that thing you have inside yourself
Speaker 5: that you think there aren't any words for. And I
Speaker 5: think that that is so powerful and kind of on
Speaker 5: that subject. I don't have no idea of the experience
Speaker 5: of this movie anything to do with this. It seems
Speaker 5: like this was a truth already known but has only
Speaker 5: reasonly become more public. The actor who plays Maddie recently,
Speaker 5: only just two days ago, revealed that there the name
Speaker 5: that they actually go by is Jack Haven and I
Speaker 5: checked the the cast stuff has not been updated yet,
Speaker 5: but I imagine has happened with Elliott Page, that that
Speaker 5: will happen on the movie, on the movie websites and
Speaker 5: stuff like that, but.
Speaker 2: That Wikipedia has already been updated.
Speaker 5: Has it awesome? Okay, so yeah, that's kind of cool.
Speaker 5: And the last thing I wanted to say, and this
Speaker 5: is just one more of those. It's like a small
Speaker 5: little detail, but that was so poignant, and that this
Speaker 5: one I missed the first time through, but I really
Speaker 5: the second time. There's a scene early in the movie
Speaker 5: where Maddie is talking to Owen about the show and
Speaker 5: Owen is trying to understand, and Owen is clearly kind
Speaker 5: of confused because Owen is jumping in right in the middle.
Speaker 6: Owen has just watched like a.
Speaker 5: Random episode from season four of a show that he's
Speaker 5: not seen anything of before. Maddie is a little bit
Speaker 5: not really like, you know, malicious way making fun of him,
Speaker 5: but he's kind of like, you know, teasing him and
Speaker 5: kind of surprised, like, oh, don't you know that when
Speaker 5: he asks some questions and they're kind of specific, like
Speaker 5: he asks at one point, so does this mean that
Speaker 5: they are part of the pink Opake?
Speaker 6: And she says, no, it means they are the pink Opake.
Speaker 5: And once I connected this movie as the metaphor that
Speaker 5: it is that feels like such an allegory to a
Speaker 5: person discovering later in life that they are queer, they
Speaker 5: are trans and trying to jump into online conversations about
Speaker 5: this to learn about this where there's just so much
Speaker 5: lingo and it's great and it's wonderful, but it changes
Speaker 5: every three or four years, and there's so many acronyms,
Speaker 5: and I think It's a common experience. I have this
Speaker 5: even sometimes when I try to talk to younger queer
Speaker 5: people and I'm just totally lost and I'm like, what
Speaker 5: the hell I ask a question and people are like, oh,
Speaker 5: come on, don't you know that? And so just that
Speaker 5: one scene felt like such a perfect metaphor for that
Speaker 5: experience of trying to jump into these conversations.
Speaker 6: I think that's right.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of like subcommunities can have these
Speaker 5: whole lingo and language that again, because Owen is later
Speaker 5: in life discovering it, he doesn't know and that's part
Speaker 5: of the problem for him.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I deal with that a lot in gaming communities. Yeah,
Speaker 7: there will be like light teasing or gate light gatekeeping
Speaker 7: over URMs.
Speaker 2: Right, if you use.
Speaker 7: A certain term that's older, it's like, oh, well that's
Speaker 7: a boomer.
Speaker 2: Term, right, yep type of thing. Yeah, yeah, see that
Speaker 2: happen totally.
Speaker 5: So So one thing we were thinking about in terms
Speaker 5: of this conversation is that this is by no means
Speaker 5: the only sort of transness as a big issue in
Speaker 5: a movie that's come out this year. There's another one
Speaker 5: that's come out that just got thirteen Oscar nominations. It
Speaker 5: is very well regarded by a lot of the film
Speaker 5: community world. Amelia Perez, I've heard it often pronounced with
Speaker 5: a much more Mexican pronunciation of those words that I'm
Speaker 5: not going to try and recreate.
Speaker 6: And it's it's. It is a much more specific movie.
Speaker 5: It is a movie about a trans woman and her
Speaker 5: the experience of her trandness is a very big part
Speaker 5: of the movie. It is also very badly regarded by, frankly,
Speaker 5: a lot of the trans community and a lot of
Speaker 5: the Mexican community. And and Riki, I know you wanted
Speaker 5: to talk about that in comparison with this Where Where Where?
Speaker 6: Where? Is it few that that this movie intersects well.
Speaker 7: I think this movie, first off, like, it's very important
Speaker 7: that the actress who's playing the title character is trans
Speaker 7: Carlos Sophia Gascon, and she has been nominated for an
Speaker 7: Academy Award. It's the first time in history that an
Speaker 7: openly transferson has been nominated for an Academy Award. And like,
Speaker 7: there are a bunch of other like firsts in terms
Speaker 7: of like the award seasons that have happened. That's very
Speaker 7: important and I think that that needs to be acknowledged
Speaker 7: in a way that is separate from the criticism about
Speaker 7: this movie and about the character, because any anything you
Speaker 7: say about like the portrayal of the transferson like that
Speaker 7: absolutely has to be separate, like the plot of the
Speaker 7: movie and whatnot, because it's such an important moment. And
Speaker 7: I don't you know, if just being nominated is great,
Speaker 7: but if she ends up winning, like, I don't want
Speaker 7: that to be taken away from her because of because
Speaker 7: of like the character she portrays, right, Like, that's that's
Speaker 7: such a secondary thing. It's important. I think it's very important.
Speaker 7: That's why we're discussing it. But the importance should be
Speaker 7: acknowledged and absolutely should be celebrated in a way that
Speaker 7: it's that we don't add a butt like if there's
Speaker 7: a win, like she won an Academy War, but the
Speaker 7: movie sucks, right, like, no, forget it, Like that's not
Speaker 7: that's not what's going on.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: The first Oscar ever won by a black woman, I
Speaker 5: think possibly by a black person was Hattie McDaniel in
Speaker 5: nineteen thirty nine, who won the Oscar for playing the
Speaker 5: slave made to Scarlett O'Hara and Gone with a win,
Speaker 5: a incredibly racist movie and an incredibly racist portrayal through
Speaker 5: no fault, I mean the way the character is written.
Speaker 5: But still it's an amazing achievement and and nothing should
Speaker 5: ever be taken away from Hatti McDaniel for it.
Speaker 7: Yeah good, yeah, good comparison. So what is going on
Speaker 7: with this movie? Like why is it being criticized? I
Speaker 7: think there's a couple of things going on, like what
Speaker 7: what have you seen?
Speaker 2: Discussed?
Speaker 5: The best way I can describe this, both from all
Speaker 5: the critiques and stuff that I've read and also from
Speaker 5: my own viewing of it is and this is my terminology,
Speaker 5: but I think it's similar to what a lot of
Speaker 5: people said. It's kind of like the Green Book of Transnis.
Speaker 5: If you remember, Green Book was a movie about a
Speaker 5: white guy who is the driver for a black pianist
Speaker 5: going through the South and having to use this green Book,
Speaker 5: which is a book that was real that was a
Speaker 5: way to help black people traveling in the segregated South
Speaker 5: and even in the racist North. You know, what are
Speaker 5: safe places to stay, what are sundown towns and all
Speaker 5: that kind of stuff. And I think it's a good movie,
Speaker 5: but it is very much a story about a white
Speaker 5: person experiencing racism through a black person they're connected to
Speaker 5: and of you know, in that way, it's like it's
Speaker 5: there is a very safe story of racism that that
Speaker 5: allows white people to watch it and be able to
Speaker 5: be very much like not challenged at all in their
Speaker 5: own racism and instead just to be like, oh, look,
Speaker 5: not just.
Speaker 7: Not challenged, but I think like celebrating their lack of racism, right.
Speaker 5: And it was largely panned by large members of black
Speaker 5: community and black film critics and stuff like that, and
Speaker 5: one I think it one best picture, and that was
Speaker 5: seen as a kind of like, oh, this is this
Speaker 5: is you know, an example of we're not celebrating black
Speaker 5: film creators. We're we're celebrating like white people being heroic
Speaker 5: in the face of.
Speaker 6: Racism, et cetera.
Speaker 7: And this.
Speaker 5: A trans character is one of the main characters, and
Speaker 5: it's certainly the title character, but so much of it
Speaker 5: play And there's a great article that I read recently
Speaker 5: by that was put out by Glad that I will
Speaker 5: link to that really kind of goes through it all
Speaker 5: the problems with it, but it just it plays into
Speaker 5: almost every stereotype that people have about trans people. It's
Speaker 5: also incredibly inaccurate. It talks a lot about surgeries and
Speaker 5: medical things in ways that are blatant, like you know,
Speaker 5: not accurate to the actual experience, but play into a
Speaker 5: lot of the kind of hate language you hear online.
Speaker 5: The characters portrayed as incredibly selfish and kind of like
Speaker 5: using their transness to justify things, and there's kind of
Speaker 5: this like redemption arc that they go through because part
Speaker 5: of it is that they're also we're a criminal and
Speaker 5: a drug dealer, and it's kind of presented as like, oh,
Speaker 5: but I was trans, and so that's all the bad
Speaker 5: things I did as a man, and now as a woman,
Speaker 5: I will be like pure and right and good, and
Speaker 5: I'm painting with an incredibly broad brush here. There's a
Speaker 5: lot more nuance to the story. And again I'm saying
Speaker 5: this also as a white non binary person talking about
Speaker 5: a movie about a Mexican trans woman. So take us
Speaker 5: a big brain assault and take much more of the
Speaker 5: articles that folks have read have written that I'll be
Speaker 5: referencing in the show notes to this. But yeah, I
Speaker 5: think it's it's It's been widely panned as this is
Speaker 5: a CIS person's fantasy of what transnis is like, and
Speaker 5: it's actually gonna much more encourage transphobia than really like
Speaker 5: speaking to the trans experience in a real way that
Speaker 5: either is helpful to trans folks or is helpful to
Speaker 5: cist folks, like breaking down some of that hate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I.
Speaker 7: Just want to go down the the biography of the
Speaker 7: film here, because it's written and directed by Jacques Audiard.
Speaker 2: I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
Speaker 7: That's a French film director, and he's French, and by
Speaker 7: all we know a cis male, right, So they are
Speaker 7: a French cis male has written and directed a movie
Speaker 7: about a Mexican trans woman, and and that it it
Speaker 7: raises an eyebrow, right, And the same thing like The
Speaker 7: Green Book, I believe was written and diregged by different people,
Speaker 7: but from what I can find, they're both white, right,
Speaker 7: So it's like, yes, like people who are not of
Speaker 7: the identity creating something about very like strongly portraying a
Speaker 7: certain thing about an identity group is like okay, why right?
Speaker 7: And especially twenty eighteen, I think the big thing with
Speaker 7: The Green Book that happened is that it beat out
Speaker 7: Black Clansmen, which was the by Spike Lee.
Speaker 2: And of course, like Spike.
Speaker 7: Lee has been snubbed multiple times by the Academy, and
Speaker 7: it was a lot of people roll their eyes. It's
Speaker 7: like like Spike Lee again, it's been snubbed, but the
Speaker 7: specific way of like the Green Book beating out the
Speaker 7: Black clansmen and then being celebrated. It's like this great
Speaker 7: movie for black people. It was like, no.
Speaker 5: Context there be This was coming right on the heels
Speaker 5: of the Oscars So White campaign that have been talking
Speaker 5: about how often black black creators and black movies and
Speaker 5: black you know, actors and directors and people across the
Speaker 5: board were denied denied Oscars, and so I think there
Speaker 5: was this kind of self congratulated tone by Hollywood and like, no, look,
Speaker 5: it's not Oscar So White anymore.
Speaker 6: We rewarded this movie about racism. And it's like, and
Speaker 6: I'm sure there's a similar thing with a Millia Peres now.
Speaker 7: And yeah, I mean Maherschela Ali I think was the
Speaker 7: most prominent black person who won and who won an
Speaker 7: Oscar with regards to that movie, right, And it's the
Speaker 7: kind of thing like that. It's called these are often
Speaker 7: called like white savior movies.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 7: In the same way that Hidden Figures, a movie about
Speaker 7: the black mathematicians who helped the NASA Space program to
Speaker 7: make all the calculation to be able to get a
Speaker 7: rocket into space.
Speaker 2: And go to the moon.
Speaker 7: And yet right, the main character, like the most prominent
Speaker 7: character is Kevin Costner's white Guy, and the scene that
Speaker 7: was shown in the trailers that we remember as him
Speaker 7: taking like a golf club to the whites only.
Speaker 2: Sign above the bathroom yep.
Speaker 7: And so like it's that kind of thing where oh yeah,
Speaker 7: like as a as a white person or as a
Speaker 7: non black person, like you feel good because this white
Speaker 7: guy is like standing against racism, but it's not.
Speaker 2: It should be more.
Speaker 7: Centered on the black characters because that's what it is
Speaker 7: purportedly about.
Speaker 2: And so the same thing here is.
Speaker 8: That the this this French Cismle Guy is creating a
Speaker 8: movie that is getting all this buzz and is elevating
Speaker 8: the trans discussion, which I think is good, right, having
Speaker 8: more trans representation.
Speaker 7: In movies and TV everywhere in life is good. But
Speaker 7: when the trans community is saying this is a bad portrayal,
Speaker 7: this is a harmful portrayal, then that you know, we
Speaker 7: gotta we gotta question that, and we got to listen
Speaker 7: to them. And then like again the comparison to Green
Speaker 7: Book and Black Clansmen. I saw the TV Glows got
Speaker 7: no nominations, right when when it is the actual representation
Speaker 7: of trans experience that we you know, in our opinion
Speaker 7: is very good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, very much, so very much.
Speaker 5: I think part of that budget, you know, Milli pre
Speaker 5: is getting a much bigger budget, Like there's I was
Speaker 5: thinking about, where does I see the TV Glow fit
Speaker 5: in terms of an Oscar conversation, And I think the
Speaker 5: unfortunate thing is because it is fairly low budget and
Speaker 5: like some of the like some of the like Justice
Speaker 5: what they do to age Justice Smith just looks bad unfortunately.
Speaker 5: And there's some other stuff like that where it's like
Speaker 5: it feels like the production values are not what you
Speaker 5: would think of for an Oscar winning movie. But I
Speaker 5: definitely think it should have been considered, especially the acting
Speaker 5: of both Jack Haven and Justice Smith.
Speaker 7: And horror horror gets often ignored, yes or sidelined for
Speaker 7: award season. That has definitely been a thing historically, and uh.
Speaker 5: And they are the fact that I think if any
Speaker 5: horror had been nominated, it was probably gonna be no
Speaker 5: know Saratu and the fact that it also got no
Speaker 5: nominations has except for like some technical things, has been
Speaker 5: also part of the whole, like horror gets shut out
Speaker 5: and stuff like that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean this has been a thing among horror
Speaker 7: fans for a long time.
Speaker 2: I think the most prominent.
Speaker 7: Horror movie to do well and then Oscars was Silence
Speaker 7: of the Lambs YEP, which also has a problematic portrayal
Speaker 7: of a possibly transperson in Buffalo bill Is for that time,
Speaker 7: like they didn't call himself trans and it's not clear.
Speaker 2: In the movie portrayed as a man who cross dressed.
Speaker 7: But right, historically we can see that maybe as a precursor.
Speaker 6: Right, No, exactly.
Speaker 5: And there's two other movies I want to bring up
Speaker 5: that I think in the last couple of years have
Speaker 5: also done like much better jobs than Amelia Perez.
Speaker 6: And these are both sort.
Speaker 5: Of closer to the metaphor idea, but both really powerful
Speaker 5: and both animated and both kind of on the surface
Speaker 5: kids movies, which I think is really important because I think,
Speaker 5: you know, this whole idea of grooming children is absolute bullshit.
Speaker 5: It's about trying to keep kids alive, because yes, people
Speaker 5: do start questioning their gender identity as teenagers, as kids,
Speaker 5: as you like in part because general he's pushed on
Speaker 5: people so much, you know, like only you're four years old,
Speaker 5: you know, I play with trucks and not dolls, like
Speaker 5: that is pushing gender ideology on people. Sure, But the
Speaker 5: two movies I wanted to bring up. The first is
Speaker 5: Luca and Luca is I would say it's much more
Speaker 5: about being gay than it is about being trans. But again,
Speaker 5: like in this the word gay is never mentioned. There's
Speaker 5: one quick shot of two women who are holding hands
Speaker 5: at the very end of the movie, but it's mostly
Speaker 5: about a society that lives by a small Italian town
Speaker 5: on the sea, where there are some people who are
Speaker 5: mere people but are living as though they are regular people,
Speaker 5: and there's a lot of hatred and discrimination against them,
Speaker 5: and they have to live in secret, and people like them,
Speaker 5: and the whole thing is very clear I said, very queerly,
Speaker 5: very clearly, a queer allegory was never actually said. And
Speaker 5: you can but I think like a lot of kids
Speaker 5: probably can watch this and be like, oh yeah, maybe
Speaker 5: actually being different or loving people differently or anything that's
Speaker 5: not bad necessarily. And the other one is Pnemona, which
Speaker 5: is based on a graphic novel and is more directly
Speaker 5: I think of a trans allegory and there's openly queer
Speaker 5: characters in it, and the Mona, the main character is
Speaker 5: a shape shifter, but also one of the things shapes
Speaker 5: uh shifts between genders. And at one point someone asks like,
Speaker 5: what is your real gender and and her their response
Speaker 5: is just like I'm me, And they use different pronouns
Speaker 5: different parts of the movie, and it's it's just incredible.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I just wanted to like lift those up
Speaker 5: as other kind of things like what happens in.
Speaker 6: Saw the TV Glow.
Speaker 7: See I and this, like I have a different opinion
Speaker 7: on Luca and this might just be our different lived
Speaker 7: experiences and how we view things. But to me, stuff
Speaker 7: like that is more about race, mmm okay, And and
Speaker 7: that could also just be the Star Trek of me
Speaker 7: is like different races in Star Trek are often used
Speaker 7: for discussions about race, like are like human races like black, white,
Speaker 7: and Asian, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So that's that's that's a different frame.
Speaker 7: I got an animated movie that has been often cited
Speaker 7: as an egg movie. It's called Your Name. It's Japanese anime.
Speaker 7: The Japanese name is Kimino Nawa and it is about
Speaker 7: It's a rom com and it's one of my favorite
Speaker 7: movies of all time. I've mentioned it before, but it
Speaker 7: is about a man and a woman or a boy
Speaker 7: and a girl. They're teenagers who body swap through un
Speaker 7: known magical powers.
Speaker 2: It's never explained.
Speaker 7: They just body swap and then like live their lives
Speaker 7: for a while and like each other's bodies and keep
Speaker 7: going back and forth and communicate to each other through
Speaker 7: like written notes or like text messages to themselves. And
Speaker 7: it has like a few of those tropy moments that
Speaker 7: like often gender body swap movies do about when you
Speaker 7: like find yourself in the opposite body. But then also
Speaker 7: just like quick acceptance of like, I guess this is
Speaker 7: just like what I'm doing now, right, and it has
Speaker 7: been to me is like a moment of like oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I can see that. It's definitely what I'd
Speaker 6: love to say.
Speaker 5: And there's one other example that I think a lot
Speaker 5: of folks are kind of maybe even wondering why we
Speaker 5: haven't talked about yet. But another example of think where
Speaker 5: sci fi is used as a great metaphor from one
Speaker 5: of the things transness which is the trills and the
Speaker 5: character of jed Zia Dax and other Daxes in Star Trek,
Speaker 5: Deep Space nine and Star Trek in general. We're gonna
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Speaker 5: with that, why don't we sign off Riggi as always,
Speaker 5: thank you so much for this conversation. For everybody else,
Speaker 5: please check our show notes because we're starting to do.
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