‘I Saw the TV Glow’ Director Says It’s A ‘Deep Honor’ to Finish Behind ‘Jackass Forever’ On Top Films of the 2020s
A sensitive, ground-breaking and haunting psychological horror/drama has almost as much artistic value as Johnny Knoxville giving himself a brain hemorrhage by trying to perform a magic trick for a charging bull.
On Monday morning, IndieWire delivered the online film community its most clickable piece of content in months as it attempted to rank “The 100 Best Movies of the 2020s (So Far).” Right now, Cinephile Twitter is alight with hot takes on whether Celine Song’s 2023 romance/drama Past Lives is way too high or way too low on the list, coming in at #40, and the indie-headed hipsters of the film community are crafting their dissertation-length diatribes about why the inclusion of the big studio blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick in the top 10 is a win for fascist filmmaking.
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But for all the engagement-generating controversy that the respected film criticism outlet’s half-decade ranking has stirred up, somehow, the most unlikely neighbors on the list are also the most civil of cinematic companion pieces. After fans of the bold and critically adored A24 film I Saw the TV Glow pointed out the hilarity that such a layered and nuanced work of art would fall to #28 when the stunt comedy feature film Jackass Forever landed at #27, director Jane Schoenbrun came out in reverential support of their film’s company in the high 20s:
In their write-up of the ethereal I Saw the TV Glow, IndieWire wrote, “Schoenbrun’s first movie is one of the rare coming-of-age films that manages to embody the full dread and possibility of self-recognition, and for that reason it almost immediately resonated with an audience of people — trans people in particular — who’d been waiting for something like (Schoenbrun’s debut feature) We’re All Going to the World’s Fair since before they had the language to know how much they needed it.”
Contrast that with how IndieWire justified putting Jackass Forever one spot in front of Schoenbrun's film, as they called the fourth Jackass film “a work of art in which nostalgia and shock go as well together as old friends and pig ejaculate” and a “plotless clip reel of brilliant American idiocy.”
Maybe that’s the true beauty of the movie medium: an evocative, atmospheric indie film about identity and self-actualization can stir up almost as much emotion and enthusiasm from its audience as did a movie where professional athletes take turns attacking Danger Ehren’s protective crotch cup. And, while I Saw the TV Glow and Jackass Forever may not appear to have all that much in common on the surface, that’s not to say that the respective films’ fandoms can’t overlap.
As one of Schoenbrun’s followers wrote, “both queer art.”
