!!!This features spoilers for the films; Godzilla: Minus One, AKIRA, and I SAW THE TV GLOW!!!
Throughout my life my nightmares have been uniform. The same scale, same size, and same shape, simply shaping color. By that I mean, what makes them nightmares always stays the same. This vague impending doom, an apocalyptic event that I can't help but stare at until it's my turn. If I think back hard enough, I can recall the only nightmare that has stuck with me since I was a child. The dream involved me as a child running around with the Scooby-Doo gang at the spooky amusement park. At some point during the investigation that I was apparently helping in, I got separated... then I came to witness the mystery we were trying to solve had no answer. It had no "man behind the mask" whatever haunted thing it was... it was real. An unstoppable force, left for me alone to face. I can still recall the feeling of fear washing over me, like getting hit with a wave of water at the beach, and the undertow tossing you around while you tumble helplessly under the water.
To this day, I don't have dreams often. If I do, they are just like that, nightmares of impending doom. Which is why when I watched the 2023 film "Godzilla Minus One" I left the theater shaken. It might be because I watched the "Minus Color" version of the film so its black and white form made it feel more separate from our reality. It allowed my brain to fill in abstract colors. Those apocalyptic nightmares I have been accustomed to, were being painted right in front of me on the silver screen. In the very name of the movie "Minus One" represents the victims of Godzilla, already at zero following World War 2, being helpless to the wave of terror that is the Kaiju. The feeling of hopelessness and lack of control over their own fate sticks with me now months after leaving the theater. The film’s expression of the kaiju mostly from the eyes of its victims. The scale of the already giant creature was magnified to look even greater from the eyes of a single person running away from it. A perfect depiction of the type of nightmares I've had my whole life.
Another film that instilled the feeling of helplessness was the 1988 Film adaptation of "AKIRA", carries horrors within it that were relevant during the original manga's inception in 1982. Horrors that strike a powerful chord with me over 42 years later, when I re-watched it for the first time as an adult. I first watched the movie as a 15 or 16 year old who was ignorant to the world around them and ignorant to themselves. The fear of losing your humanity has never hit me, I think I have too much humanity sometimes. What scared me watching AKIRA in 2024 was the escalation of violence and power. Throughout the film we see large scale protests, and extreme levels of violence enacted as riot control. Protests and marches are ever relevant in all of our lives over the past few years. We see the delipidated yet futuristic city of "Neo-Tokyo", covered in anti-war and anti-weapon graffiti. When the main character Tetsuo unlocks his psychic abilities, we see shining military vehicles with hundreds of soldiers and decorated generals.
The polished, healthy, and organized system reads as much scarier to me than the boy with dangerous psychic powers. The film shows us directly the separation of classes in this society, from the rusted metal and trash fires for warmth to the shining weaponry of the military. I couldn't help but see similarities between our real world and the fears of the writer Katsuhiro Otomo had over 40 years ago. In terms of international affairs, the last 6 years or so have felt like a powder keg waiting to go off and there are pyro-maniacs everywhere.
The helplessness of the Neo-Tokyo residents to all of this destruction, and how the organization meant to protect them was ultimately what escalated the violence and wiped out the city. As a NYC resident, I see every day the violence enacted to my peers and community by the ones supposed to protect us. AKIRA does not tell me to fear the supernatural, it begs us to fear the dominating class.
I struggle to find a film that hits me in a way that "I SAW THE TV GLOW" has. The film is written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun. It follows two lost high school students whose connection to their favorite television show drives them to question their reality and identities.
"...it feels like someone took a shovel and dug out all my insides. and I know there’s nothing in there, but I’m still too nervous to open myself up and check. I know there’s something wrong with me... My parents know it too, even if they don’t say anything.
Do you ever feel like that?..."
When those words hit my ears I felt like I was punched in the gut.
The response the character receives is simply
"Maybe you are afraid of what's inside of you".
Up to this point I've discussed a fictional nightmare of a monster and destruction, an external nightmare of political unrest and military violence, but this.. is an internal nightmare that I face directly on a daily basis. I guess I should clarify something: I am trans. If you're anything like me you didn't know what that meant growing up. Being trans was nothing more than a shitty punch line in a comedy movie. I simply felt different, like something was off. I spent a lot of time in middle school and high school trying to push this part of myself away. The only time I truly came out to someone during this time was a high school girlfriend. My trust was betrayed and before I knew it, each of our respective schools heard about this secret of mine. The character of Maddy in the film was ousted for being a lesbian by her closest friend and was essentially ostracized because of it. I was lucky that high school boys didn't think too hard about a "strange rumor" and I was even more lucky to have a few people reach out and tell me that they were sorry for the situation and that they respect me and whatever identity I so had.
This situation unfortunately was all it took for me to want to keep this private, only telling those close to me, but never my closest friends I spent every day with; That would be too real and too dangerous. "I SAW THE TV GLOW" blurs the lines between reality and the TV show the characters are obsessed with. Years after disappearing, Maddy returns to get their friend to come with them, leave their reality and go to the fictional one... yet which was which? In fear Owen panics and runs away leaving Maddy to return by herself. As Owen runs home, he runs past chalk drawings in the middle of the street that reads:
One final warning for Owen...
The film tells us directly, there is still time to reach actualization, to be yourself. At points, I felt like it was too late for me, I thought well I am 20 something years old and I'd be so behind other trans people who had the strength when they were younger. I started my transition in March of 2023 at 25 years old. The character of Owen took a different path and chose to live in denial, and even tells the viewers directly.
"It was time for me to become a man, a real adult... and that's exactly what I did. I even got a family of my own... I love them more than anything.."
Owen utters these words with no emotion, pure dissociation in their face and voice. Immediately followed by them dragging a heavy television into their home by themselves. A direct metaphor for the weight of this identity and how it is slowly killing them.
Twenty years later, a graying hair, dry skin, chapped lipped and wheezing Owen, still works at the arcade they did so many years earlier. They struggle to breathe at every turn, despite the environment and guests being filled with color and flashing lights, Owen's struggles almost gray out the entire scene. When Owen finally breaks, the world around them collapses, people stop moving, yet the burning candles quickly fizzle out. Owen screams begging for help. It isn't until Owen is in the bathroom, and cuts open their own chest, that they feel any sort of reprieve from this distress. Owen opens their chest and inside is... nothing but TV static... just like they said all those years ago. Yet Owen smiles.. finally seeing their true self somewhere. After years of repression, a violent moment of bliss is not enough to free Owen of their guilt and shame. The shot is interrupted by a loud wheeze from Owen as we see them immediately put their work shirt back on and stumble out in a daze. Owen mumbles "sorry" to every arcade guest, who doesn't pay them any attention, Owen might not even be real, or is everyone else not real. Sorry over and over again buried in wheezes and mumbles. Then the film ends.
"I SAW THE TV GLOW", does not give you relief from its warning, there is no happy ending. The film feels like a parable or warning. There is still time... but not an infinite amount of time. I personally see the film as an allegory for Trans Identities, but there is no reason why this cannot resonate with anyone who has had a battle with their identity of any nature. Despite years of nightmares built up, the scariest is the one I face on a daily basis even as I write this. The fear of helplessness to be myself. Everyday that I exist, I overcome that fear.
Each of these films are masterpieces in my opinion, each exploring the same fear through different methods. The fear of helplessness - helpless to stop a raging monster, helpless to resolve political violence, and helpless to be your true self. Each is terrifying in their own ways. I don't feel helpless, but I fear that feeling. I've felt it in the past and I don't wish for it to return. Art always was and always will be an expression of the human experience, and fear is a part of that. If you have yet to watch any of these films, please dedicate some time to do so. I'm certain none will leave you disappointed, maybe just a little scared.
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