For general student, alumni and other enquiries please email
warwicklgbtuanetwork@gmail.com
For corporate enquiries, including if you would like to find out more about what a partnership or sponsorship deal with Warwick PLAN could do for early careers diversity at your business, please email
warwickplancorporate@gmail.com
If you would prefer to contact us by phone then please call one of our Co-Presidents or our Treasurer on the following numbers
Kian Cushman, Co-President: +447776254499
Thomas Fry, Co-President: +447955705655
James Thompson, Treasurer: +447857821101
You can also reach out to us via our Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, linked at the top of this page, through the direct messaging functionality
For general student, alumni and other enquiries please email
warwicklgbtuanetwork@gmail.com
For corporate enquiries, including if you would like to find out more about what a partnership or sponsorship deal with Warwick PLAN could do for early careers diversity at your business, please email
warwickplancorporate@gmail.com
If you would prefer to contact us by phone then please call one of our Co-Presidents or our Treasurer on the following numbers
Kian Cushman, Co-President: +447776254499
Thomas Fry, Co-President: +447955705655
James Thompson, Treasurer: +447857821101
You can also reach out to us via our Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, linked at the top of this page, through the direct messaging functionality


When I first watched I Saw the TV Glow alone on a sunny day in London, I stumbled out of the cinema dazed. I remember walking to the train station and going all the way home, still unable to comprehend what I’d just witnessed.
Now, this doesn’t sound like a glowing review for the film, but my confusion wasn’t due to the film’s inadequacies. Instead, it was from my astonishment that it had captured the simultaneous alienation and community that I, as a young queer person, have felt in my life.
If you’re shaking your head in disagreement at my conclusion, come and take a seat and let me fill you in. Beware of spoilers!
I Saw the TV Glow is a 2024 film by director Jane Schoenbrun. The film follows our central protagonist, Owen, as he falls in love with a teen TV show called The Pink Opaque through meeting a friend called Maddy. The film then takes an unexpected turn as Maddy expresses a - quite literal - burning desire to escape their suburban life, and after disappearing, returns to Owen with a shocking revelation: they both belong in the TV show, and their ‘reality’ is what’s not real.
You might be thinking: wonderful story, but how on earth is this an allegory for the queer or trans experience?
Well, the movie connects to this experience in two main ways. Firstly through its depiction of alienation, and secondly through its simultaneous depiction of community.
The film immediately displays how isolated Owen is, opening on him watching TV alone before slowly transitioning into him walking around a children’s play parachute. Despite being surrounded by other people, Owen does not interact with anyone, and eventually the parachute collapses on top of him, revealing the title of the film and perfectly setting up the film for the audience.
We can deduce that the film is going to be about Owen’s loneliness, and how he feels trapped in it. It would be very easy to read the rest of the film through this lens, dismissing its underlying message. However, continuously the film brings up these feelings of discomfort that Owen - and Maddy - have. They feel misunderstood in their environment and feel like they don’t know themselves.
Despite these being typically ‘teenage’ things for them to experience, at the end of the movie when Owen is an old dying man and screams for help - “I’m not supposed to be here” - you realise that the film isn’t just referencing regular teenage alienation, but a distinctively queer experience of alienation when growing up ‘in the closet’.
It demonstrates the alienation that closeted queer people feel every day, the feeling of being alienated from your true self- directly referencing living a false life that is more comfortable for the people around you.
Owen’s final acceptance at the end of the film - that Maddy was telling the truth about the falseness of their reality - leads them to finally take a look inside themselves and understand who they really are. It is this painful experience of alienation that so many queer people share, and while it feels devastating, it can also lead to a life full of constant self-discovery and freedom. But only if you choose to acknowledge it.
Owen’s journey however, acts as a cautionary tale for queer, and specifically trans young people. If you don’t confront the alienation you feel, hiding true and central parts of yourself, your life will feel unfulfilled and the persistence of this feeling of unsettling wrongness in your own skin will continue.
This specifically is where the film moves fluidly between queer allegory, and specifically referencing the trans or gender-diverse experience. The film is very physically visceral- with Owen actually cutting open his own chest at the end to find ‘the real him’ on the inside. This is obviously a metaphor for ‘coming out of the closet’ or finally acknowledging the true ‘you’ on the inside, but it can also be more directly applied to transgender people and dysphoria- this feeling of not being born in the right body, and that your true self is lying under the surface.
Interviewing other queer people at Trans Society’s free screening of the film on Sunday 24th November further corroborated Schoenbrun’s intentions. When I asked what parts of the film felt particularly reminiscent or relatable to queer and/or trans experience, I was told by someone that: “The claustrophobia of it all” was really significant.
They continued that they loved “how absolutely alone they make him [Owen] feel and how it builds up until it's too late for him. Also, how everyone around him encourages his remaining closeted and how he sticks to that despite knowing something was definitely wrong.”
People question how this film could be a horror film, as it lacks traditional tropes of the genre, but this feels like it was intentional on Schoenbrun’s behalf. The horror is found in how relatable it is to queer peoples’ real, daily lives; the horror is the idea that you could be trapped, like Owen, in a body and life that is not meant to be yours.
Despite isolation being extremely prevalent in the film, Owen is not completely alone. Maddy is the first - and only - character to offer Owen genuine comradery and friendship in the film, and she later sacrifices her own ‘escape’ of the ‘Midnight Realm’ to come back in an attempt to save Owen.
Even though Owen refuses to believe her, Maddy’s character represents a very integral part of the ‘queer experience’: community and connection. It is Maddy that helps Owen discover his love for the TV show The Pink Opaque, and it is her guidance that helps him notice, and eventually acknowledge, the permanent feeling of discomfort he carries with him.
Despite the overwhelming despair the movie inflicts on the viewer, Owen’s experience is mirrored in someone else. This acts as a direct reminder to the queer and/or trans audience members that no matter how hard it gets, they are not alone.
Ultimately, whether you relate to the queer or trans experience or don’t, I Saw the TV Glow makes you question if you’re being your most authentic you, and it warns you to confront that question before it’s too late.
It also has a banging soundtrack.