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hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and

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you're listening to it's Been a Minute

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from NPR, a show about what's going on

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in culture and why it doesn't happen

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by accident. Suburban

0:41

Decay, delightfully creepy kids shows, and

0:43

brand new metaphors for the trans

0:46

experience. There's a new movie out

0:48

that has a lot to say about all of

0:50

these things. What if I

0:52

really was someone else? Very

0:55

far away on the other side of a television screen.

0:59

I Saw the TV Glow is a new film

1:01

from indie powerhouse A24. And

1:04

lucky for us, we've got the writer and

1:06

director behind the film, Jane Schoenbrunn.

1:09

I think about my own youth in

1:11

the suburbs, both very nostalgic and also

1:13

kind of haunted. I

1:16

Saw the TV Glow is a coming of

1:18

age horror film following two teens, Owen

1:21

and Maddie. They're both outcasts

1:23

in their 1990s suburban town and

1:25

their lifeline is a TV show

1:27

called The Pink Opaque. The

1:32

Pink Opaque is a late night sci-fi

1:34

show about two teen girls with a

1:36

psychic connection who fight off the monster

1:38

of the week. Think Are You Afraid

1:40

of the Dark crossed with Buffy the

1:42

Vampire Slayer and Goosebumps. It's

1:44

creepy, kind of mystical, and just

1:46

a little too scary, which is

1:48

exactly why they love it. As

1:51

they grow up and the show gets canceled, Owen

1:54

and Maddie's lives shift in unexpected

1:56

ways. Their obsession with

1:58

this TV show almost becomes... a

2:00

fixation or a way of hiding

2:02

from darker things in their real

2:04

life until they've realized that perhaps

2:06

the show is more

2:08

real than the reality that they're existing within.

2:11

Today on the show, Jane and I are getting

2:13

into the new metaphors they've brought to the silver

2:16

screen and why it's both

2:18

compelling and potentially stifling to keep

2:20

turning back to the past. Jane,

2:24

welcome to It's Been A Minute. Thanks for having

2:26

me. Jane, I have to say

2:28

I love this film. I really enjoyed

2:30

watching it. One thing I really appreciate

2:32

about it is many of the movies

2:34

today being made about identity

2:37

feel more like explainers

2:39

or essays, but

2:41

you take a more emotional approach by

2:44

really leaning into metaphor. The

2:46

film shows how something feels as opposed

2:48

to telling the viewer what

2:50

something is. How did

2:52

you land at that approach? This is my second feature

2:55

film. I made my first while

2:57

searching for language to talk about

3:00

a feeling that I had always

3:02

had why my life and my

3:04

reality felt like it

3:06

hadn't quite started yet. I ultimately

3:08

very organically through that process had my

3:10

egg crack moment, which is a term

3:13

that we use in the trans community

3:15

for the moment when this thing that

3:17

maybe you've subconsciously always known to be

3:19

true, which is that you're trans, finally

3:21

becomes unavoidable and unavoidable in a way

3:23

where you can't go right back into

3:25

the closet and rerepress it. It was

3:28

also I think an instructive

3:30

creative process in that I wasn't

3:33

worrying about good representation

3:37

when I wrote it. I was

3:39

worrying about trying to articulate a

3:41

feeling that quite literally I didn't

3:43

think there was a word for,

3:46

which is very different. Good representation

3:48

feels primarily concerned with people who

3:51

aren't from your background.

3:53

It feels like in my case, good representation

3:55

would be like making a film so

3:58

that cis people could understand. the trans experience,

4:01

whereas what I was doing as a trans

4:03

person was just trying to articulate the things

4:05

that felt oblique about my

4:07

own experience. It's interesting.

4:09

Explainers kind of presuppose

4:11

that you have all the answers is that you

4:14

understand everything about yourself or understand

4:16

everything about your own experience, but

4:18

trying to communicate a feeling that's

4:20

very different. I think it's also

4:22

the role of the artist to be interrogating

4:25

things that feel unknowable

4:27

or not yet known.

4:30

Right? It's like if I had all of

4:32

the answers and I was giving you a

4:34

lecture on the realities of the human experience,

4:36

I don't think I would be an artist.

4:38

I think I would be a lecturer.

4:42

Yeah, or a dictator. To

4:45

me, like so much of the joy of art is

4:47

about being with mystery. Hmm. Being

4:49

with mystery. I like that. You

4:52

said in another interview that, to quote you, staring

4:54

at screens is probably the thing that we do

4:56

most, that we make art about least.

4:59

The screen becomes such a beautiful

5:01

and malleable metaphor to talk about

5:03

how it feels to be alive and

5:06

especially to be alive in a world where

5:08

you don't quite feel like you fit

5:10

in. Talk to me more about that. Like,

5:12

how did you want to use the screen

5:14

to show that in this film? In

5:17

this film, Owen and Maddie see

5:19

something on a screen that is, Maddie says,

5:21

early in the film feels more real to

5:23

her than real life. It's

5:25

not that this signal that she's

5:28

caught is necessarily like God's holy

5:30

text. Yet she sees something in

5:32

that signal that shows them a

5:34

magic or a thing that they

5:36

can emotionally invest themselves in that

5:39

they aren't finding in everything

5:41

else around them that they're being told

5:43

is real life. And the film is

5:46

very much not coy about this. That's

5:49

gay stuff. The

5:53

show, you like a lot of shows from the

5:55

early 90s, like kind of queer coded. It's about

5:58

these two teenage girls who fight

6:00

monsters, but it's about two girls who

6:02

don't feel like other girls. And it's

6:04

about two girls who have this special

6:06

psychic connection that makes them a little

6:08

bit different from everybody else around them.

6:10

And when I was 12 years

6:13

old, I tuned into Buffy and it quite

6:15

literally was my first love. I put so

6:18

much of myself into that show through my

6:20

adolescence to the point where I cared more

6:23

about who Buffy was going to prom with

6:25

than going to my own prom. And this

6:28

is sort of the parasocial relationship that I

6:30

was trying to get at through the work

6:32

in the way that I think a lot

6:34

of adolescents who don't fit easily into the

6:36

quote unquote real world will find

6:39

these relationships through fiction. I

6:42

think it's about this process. Who makes

6:44

who? Does our fiction make us or did

6:46

we make our fiction? And the answer to

6:48

that question, I think isn't so straightforward. Hmm.

6:51

One of the things that really

6:53

struck me about Owen's relationship to the show,

6:55

The Pink Opaque, through one of the lead

6:57

characters from The Pink Opaque Isabelle, she

7:00

kind of presents a vision for

7:02

Owen of relation, possibly how to be

7:04

in the world or possibly an aspect

7:06

of his personality or being that he's

7:08

like still wrapping his head around. But

7:11

she's idealized in his mind. Like when

7:13

he's watching the show as a kid,

7:16

she looks like a 25 year old supermodel, right?

7:18

But when he goes back and watches the show

7:20

as a grown up, he's watching

7:22

it and all of the characters from the

7:24

show look like ordinary children.

7:26

That vision of Isabelle from

7:28

Owen's childhood is perhaps even

7:32

more important to him than how she actually

7:34

was on the show. And what's

7:36

that about? That is ultimately about

7:38

how love and

7:41

identity and emotional

7:43

investment in the thing is so

7:46

much more about who we

7:48

are and like the side of

7:50

the prism of our lives that we're gazing

7:52

from than it is about the

7:54

actual thing. This TV show that was

7:56

his only real connection to a life

7:58

source that felt... akin to

8:01

love, it's been bled at something.

8:03

And this ultimately became a way

8:06

for me to talk about, like, yes, our relationship

8:08

to media, but I think also in a wider

8:10

sense, our

8:12

relationship to nostalgia

8:16

and our relationship to possibility and

8:19

identity and the ways in which

8:21

the same things that in youth

8:23

felt so imbued with magic and

8:25

possibility can also become

8:27

traps. If we don't evolve

8:30

that possibility out

8:32

of the screen, I

8:35

look back on the

8:37

ghosts of my youth, a lot

8:39

of complicated feelings about them, just

8:41

how weird it is when time

8:43

passes. Trans people have complicated relationships

8:45

to the concept of time, and

8:47

that's very embodied in the film.

8:50

Hmm, hmm, hmm. It felt like it

8:52

was being made from the perspective of somebody

8:55

who grew up in the suburbs as

8:57

I did and watched a lot of the same cable TV,

8:59

obsessively, that I did.

9:01

And that kind of haunting quality

9:05

does tinge many of

9:07

my memories about growing up. And

9:10

you make so many references in this film

9:12

to seminal 90s kids TV. Nickelodeon's

9:14

Pete and Pete, Are You Afraid of the Dark?,

9:17

Buffy, Alex Mack, I think back to

9:19

how they made me feel, a

9:21

big part of that was I felt like

9:24

they took seriously what it felt like to

9:26

be a kid, like the strangeness of

9:28

being a child. What did they

9:30

speak to for you? There's always a

9:32

weird TV show for kids on TV.

9:35

You know, I do think that's a time honored tradition

9:37

that we still have today, but I do think there

9:39

was something in the water in the early 90s. It

9:44

was also hinting towards an

9:46

underworld to the American suburbs that I

9:48

had sensed at that point and that

9:50

these shows sort of introduced me to.

9:52

I think they were also though, feeding

9:55

us back an idea that the

9:57

American suburbs could be a place.

10:00

of magic and possibility. But

10:02

I think in another way, these were like

10:04

corporate products from an ideology that

10:06

was reinforcing something about the environment

10:09

that I was being told was

10:11

the epitome of normal and safe.

10:14

Another thing I really appreciated about the film

10:16

was the metaphor that you created to show

10:19

what it feels like to be trans,

10:21

but not transitioning. Like instead of

10:23

stuck in the closet or stuck in

10:26

the wrong body, you

10:28

liken it to being buried

10:30

alive. Talk to me more about

10:32

this metaphor. It was the

10:34

first thing that I had when I started working on

10:36

the film. It's not a perfect

10:39

metaphor, but I do feel that a lot

10:41

of the trans people that I know are

10:44

constantly trying to find language. We're

10:46

trying to find language to talk

10:48

about this very ephemeral feeling that

10:50

we call dysphoria, this feeling

10:52

that I think has been misrepresented

10:55

in a lot of the media about

10:57

trans people, but the

10:59

actual feeling of dysphoria and

11:02

the feeling of being trans,

11:04

but not quite accepting it

11:06

yet or not transitioning and

11:08

becoming yourself. It's

11:10

an internal feeling of very

11:13

deep existential wrongness that

11:15

we carry with us. And that if we don't do something

11:17

about it, is going to rot

11:19

us out and give us not only

11:22

a shortened life, but a life

11:24

that doesn't quite feel like a life. And

11:26

so this metaphor became

11:28

my attempt to talk about how that feels. My

11:33

producer, Liam, he said that this spoke to

11:35

him as a trans person, but also that

11:37

the experience of becoming a new

11:40

person and living a new life because the old life was

11:42

slowly killing you is something that a

11:44

lot of people have experienced, that that metaphor

11:46

could easily apply to people who are going

11:49

through divorce or recovering from

11:51

addiction. Like it's something that has a

11:53

broad resonance. Yeah, I do really like

11:55

the trans author, Torrey Peters, talks about

11:57

the relationship between divorced women and trans

11:59

women. as some kind of spiritual union

12:01

in the way you're talking about. And yeah,

12:03

you know, it's funny because the film is

12:05

obviously coming from a very specific

12:08

context that, like, I

12:10

am very proud of in that it

12:12

is a movie made at

12:15

a level and with, I think,

12:17

a degree of honesty and candor

12:19

that you don't often see from

12:21

trans people talking about their own

12:23

experiences. But on the other hand,

12:26

in the same way that when

12:28

I watch a film by, like,

12:30

my favorite Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kirastami,

12:32

I'm not, like, I understand

12:35

every part of the context that he

12:37

is speaking to from his existence as,

12:39

like, an Iranian man born in the

12:41

1940s. I

12:44

know that a lot of the context is going

12:46

to go over my head, but that

12:49

doesn't mean that we can't find

12:51

commonalities between us. You also said

12:53

in the previous interview something about TV static

12:55

that I thought was so interesting, the kind

12:57

of black and white, scrambling static that used

12:59

to show up on old TV sets and

13:01

that glow that sticks around on the screen after

13:04

you turn it off. It's something that shows

13:06

up throughout the film. And you

13:08

said in this previous interview that

13:10

static is a kind of imperfection

13:13

that's a beautiful wrongness. What

13:15

does that static represent to you? I think

13:17

about a different time

13:20

with something that feels the way that

13:22

I feel about my own youth in

13:24

the suburbs, both very, like, nostalgic and

13:27

also kind of haunted. I'm a big

13:29

fan of the theorist Mark Fisher, who

13:31

talks a lot about this term hauntology,

13:34

which is kind of like the darker

13:36

side of nostalgia, perhaps, would be a

13:39

simple way to put it. His theory

13:41

is that after the Cold War history,

13:43

at least in, like, the American Western

13:45

context, kind of ended. We

13:48

no longer had a future to strive

13:50

towards. The future has arrived and we

13:52

can just all enjoy stability. Of course,

13:54

that doesn't hold. And of

13:56

course, like, from 9-11 on, what I

13:58

think we've actually been experiencing for much of

14:00

this young century has been gradual

14:03

decay. And Fisher talks

14:05

about how increasingly we find ourselves returning

14:08

more and more to the past. And

14:12

that is, you know, like

14:14

Stranger Things and the 10

14:16

million Star Wars or Marvel

14:18

movie, obviously. But there is

14:20

a darker side to it, sort of

14:22

like a psychic spillage that can happen. And

14:25

I think that's where my work comes

14:27

from, this feeling not of longing necessarily

14:29

for the past in an uncomplicated nostalgic

14:32

way, but of feeling haunted by it

14:35

as you would be haunted by a specter. I

14:38

have one last question for you. It's a little bit of a departure.

14:41

You've said that Mattel, I

14:45

guess I'm Barbra Mattel, reached

14:47

out for an interview for you

14:49

to work with them, I'm guessing, and you turned them

14:51

down. You said to quote you, the way

14:53

that those companies right now are operating,

14:55

the artist is middle management. The

14:58

artist is completely disempowered and the artist has

15:00

to fit into a larger mission and

15:02

has nothing to do with individual vision. Why

15:04

is it so important to you to

15:06

preserve your freedom and individual vision

15:09

as a filmmaker and artist? Because

15:11

I don't want to be rich

15:13

and depressed. That would suck, you

15:16

know? Like my people, like

15:18

trans people, are like not

15:21

rich and depressed. They're poor and

15:23

depressed. Or

15:25

they're poor and doing their best. And

15:27

I'd rather be one of them than

15:30

be some isolated person in Malibu who

15:32

has to go to a job every

15:34

day that they hate. Although Mattel, if

15:37

you're listening, Barbie Two, I

15:39

will make an exception. I will even take

15:41

a meeting if you give me final touch,

15:43

carte blanche, and just think about

15:45

this, Barbie One, that movie ended at

15:48

the gynecologist. Barbie had

15:50

a sex change

15:53

operation. What's

15:56

more trans than that? Oh my gosh,

15:58

oh, the places you could go with. Barbie too. I would

16:00

love to see it. Jane,

16:03

thank you so much. This was a fantastic

16:05

conversation. Yeah, this was lovely. Thanks for having

16:07

me. Thanks again

16:09

to writer and director Jane Schoenbrunn. I

16:12

Saw the TV Glow is out in theaters now.

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your homework. Hey,

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Brittany. Hey, Brittany. Hey,

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Brittany. Hi, Brittany. This

17:59

is your producer. For Alexis and

18:01

last week we asked our listeners for

18:03

great things to do for Mother's Day

18:05

or memories around the holiday. We

18:07

got a few responses but I'm just going to share two with you.

18:10

The first one comes from Marissa Baker in

18:12

Chicago. She says, My

18:14

husband makes a donation in my name to

18:16

Black Momma's Day bailout. I can't imagine a

18:18

better way to celebrate Mother's Day than making

18:20

sure other moms get to be with their

18:23

kids. Ah, so thoughtful. And then

18:25

this next one comes from Allen and

18:27

I believe it's pronounced doozak but please

18:29

correct me if I'm wrong from Alameda,

18:31

California. He says, When I was

18:34

growing up, I'm 75 years old now. My

18:37

mother was not a fan of Mother's Day. Perhaps

18:39

it was because she was a down-to-earth

18:41

practical person and felt it was too

18:44

commercialized or, and I hope this wasn't

18:46

the case, she felt she didn't deserve anything

18:48

special. I loved her dearly and

18:50

hounded her about what she liked for Mother's Day. She

18:52

responded, Okay, what I really like and need is

18:54

a can of motor oil. And that's

18:57

exactly what I gave her. The following year,

18:59

I again begged the question. She

19:01

said, since I grew up on a

19:03

farm and enjoyed target practice, I like

19:05

a 22 caliber rifle. Yeah,

19:08

my siblings and I pitched in and bought her

19:10

one. She was so darn happy. So much

19:12

for brunch and flowers, huh? Thanks

19:15

for helping me bring up this memory. Well,

19:17

Alexis, thank you so much for relating those beautiful

19:19

stories to me. Marissa and Allen,

19:21

thank you so much for calling in

19:24

with these incredible reflections. And Allen, that

19:26

is one heck of a story. I

19:29

don't know how exactly a rifle would

19:31

go over with my mom for Mother's Day,

19:33

but you know what I say, whatever mom

19:35

wants, that's what mom gets. And

19:37

mom, not my mother, myself. I think that mothering

19:40

is one of the most incredible

19:42

things that the human race is

19:44

capable of. And I think celebrating

19:46

that is just a beautiful thing. However,

19:48

I will say, okay,

19:51

and this is me speaking from outside the mom club.

19:53

Okay, so take this with a grain of salt. I

19:55

will say, I think the way that we think

19:59

about Mother's Day celebration. celebrations, we

20:01

might have it backwards. On

20:03

Mother's Day, instead of like bringing mom

20:06

breakfast in bed or taking

20:08

her out to brunch, why don't

20:10

we instead give

20:13

mothers the day off to do what

20:15

they want to do? I've seen a

20:17

few TikTok videos where moms are

20:19

talking about what their ideal

20:21

Mother's Day would be. Usually

20:24

it involves maybe perhaps

20:27

having breakfast with their family, but

20:29

the real highlight of the day seems to be them checking into

20:31

a hotel. Possibly getting

20:33

some type of massage, but mostly ordering

20:36

room service, maybe having a glass of

20:38

wine or two. I mean,

20:40

I don't know. I don't have any kids. When I

20:42

think about, you know, an ideal day for me that

20:45

involves no responsibilities and obligations,

20:48

I don't know. I'm also seeing a hotel

20:50

room. I'm also seeing maybe a four-hour nap.

20:53

I'm also seeing a Nancy Meyers marathon in

20:55

a nice cushy hotel bed. But

20:57

that's just a little brain food for

21:00

you to chew on as you're thinking

21:02

about what you're gonna do for your mom.

21:04

Now all that being said, I don't

21:07

currently have hotel money for you, mom,

21:09

my mom. So I

21:11

hope you enjoy the floral arrangement you have coming. Anyway,

21:16

thank you so much to those who

21:18

submitted their memories and suggestions for Mother's

21:20

Day. Now if you want to be heard

21:22

on an upcoming Hey Britney, I have

21:24

a topic I know some of you out

21:26

there can help you with. But to give

21:29

you some background info, next week we have

21:31

director and author Miranda July on the show

21:33

to talk about her new book, All Fours. It

21:36

is a juicy read. It follows

21:38

a middle-aged woman on a journey of

21:40

self-discovery in pyramidal pause. So

21:42

for the next Hey Britney, I want to

21:44

know from you all, what do you like

21:46

about middle-aged? What do you hate about it?

21:48

And if you're not middle-aged, how do you

21:51

imagine it? Let me know. I am over

21:53

here trying to get the juice, trying to get

21:56

the secret. Fill me in. Send

21:58

us a voice memo at npr.org.

22:02

I-B-A-M at

22:04

npr.org. This

22:07

episode of It's Been A Minute

22:09

was produced by Liam McVane. Alexis

22:12

Williams. This episode was edited by

22:14

Jessica Placzek. Engineering support came

22:16

from Ko Takasugi Chernovan. Our

22:18

executive producer is Verilynn Williams.

22:21

Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangwini.

22:24

Alright, that's all for this episode of It's Been

22:27

A Minute from NPR. I'm Brittany

22:29

Luce. Talk soon. This

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