I Saw the TV Glow uses a key cameo as a ‘corrective’ for Buffy the Vampire Slayer

polygon.com:

Jane Schoenbrun’s new movie I Saw the TV Glowhas sparked a wave of excited buzz and a sharp spike at the indie box office during its slow rollout in limited release. Like Schoenbrun’s previous movie, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, TV Glow was a sensation at Sundance and a subsequent critical hit. Both movies have won fans with their queasy, dreamy late-night tone, and the way they tap into familiar feelings of dread and alienation, compounded with the relief that can come from finding a fandom and sharing an obsession with other people. In World’s Fair, the protagonist is drawn into an online community sharing creepypasta-type stories. TV Glow, by contrast, centers on a late-night TV show called The Pink Opaque, about two girls using their psychic connection (and their magical, matching, glowing tattoos) to save the world from evil.

In a Q&A Wednesday night after a screening of the film, simulcast to viewers at Alamo Drafthouse screenings across the country, Schoenbrun (who identifies as nonbinary and trans) discussed how all those elements came from their background growing up alienated and disconnected in the suburbs. Schoenbrun says they found a lifeline through television — particularly Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“I really did live and breathe Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Schoenbrun said. “I cared about Buffy more than I cared about my real life. And just having that consistency — when I was, like, 10, I watched the first season of that show while it aired, and was with it for seven years. And it was such a tool of dissociation for me.

“It was, in hindsight, I think, very much a coping mechanism for not being able to form the kinds of deep romantic relationships that other people can form when they’re an adolescent in the right body. I wasn’t in a place where I could open myself up to people, but here was this show that was so emotional, that I could have this relationship with.”

I Saw the TV Glow and the new era of trans-authored cinema

Schoenbrun