The Pink Opaque allows Isabel to vicariously live out her gender without having to make the hard choices that doing so in the real world would require (which she repeatedly refuses to do). But eventually drugs stop working, so to speak. A children’s TV show isn’t enough to stave off adult despair. As Isabel is no longer able to project the richness of her inner life into the show, it is revealed as it truly is, crass and artless.

Or alternately, or simultaneously, this is the final victory of Mr. Melancholy. Not only is Isabel shut out of the real world for good, the one link with her real life, her real self, has been drained of meaning. Isabel already lost her chance to escape with Maddie, and now the last remnants are taken from her.

But what aspect of the trans/genderqueer experience is this supposed to represent?

My interpretation:

Owen watching The Pink Opaque represents observing, exploring, and questioning her gender identity. That’s why when Matty (Owen’s inner female self trying to show her her real gender identity) first asks Owen to run away and she doesn’t follow her (doesn’t allow her egg to crack), the TV is shown burning during the scene where the police are investigating Matty’s disappearance (Owen burning her desire to question her gender identity anymore)

When Owen watches The Pink Opaque again as an adult, she comments on how childish the show seems nowadays, because she’s ashamed that she ever questioned her gender identity when she was younger, an experience many trans people who cracked their eggs in adulthood go through

There is no Isabel in the show because at that point, Owen had completely pushed down her desire to identify as a woman

Sorry if this is hard to understand I’m kind of illiterate

“Owen” isn’t real. Isabel is working through a series of false memories planted by Mr Melancholy in the midnight realm while maintaining a psychic connection with Tara while they are buried alive after getting hopped up on luna juice.

Tara as “Maddy” starts snapping out of it first. She watches her real memories as a TV show called The Pink Opaque. It’s not a real show. The only time Isabel/“Owen” is able to watch it live is when with she is with Tara. Close to her in the midnight realm. Isabel never watches the show live alone. Tara’s power somehow causes the memories to be captured by a VHS tape (vhs is also the abbreviation for their high school) and those are able to be shared with Isabel by gifting the tapes in a darkroom.

Time is all stretched out so the seconds in the real world are perceived as decades. Isabel mostly rejects reality and Tara trying to help, so Mr Melancholy has an easier job with the false memories being implanted. But at one point “Owen” wants to watch the series on a streaming platform, and so Mr Melancholy twists the show to be something benign with a few references from the real memories to make it plausible for Isabel, who really buys into the lies, unlike Tara.

Other people have more metaphorical and representative reads on the film, this is more of an as presented in-universe reason the show is different. Jane the director said in an interview that it was a direct reference to having watched the Buffy musical episode and having that experience where it wasn’t as remembered.

But the question I am most interested in, and that really drove home the horror, was:
Would you be able to voluntary be buried alive, on the word of an old friend that you haven’t seen in almost a decade, on the off chance that all of this is actually happening?
Or at what point afterwards would you try it?

“I know it’s scary. That’s part of it.” is one line that sticks.

Jane said after watching Twin Peaks the Return they really wanted to make something with a similar feeling of watching a trapped character and desperation wanting to see them escape, and that definitely came through as I was yelling at the screen for Isabel to run away with Tara, then to get buried, then to try anything.

Some people see the ending as hopeful, finally having an egg crack moment.

I see Tara after putting her heart back in, having giving it her best shot to save her friend, knowing she doesn’t get another chance, beside a dug up Isabel, holding her body, begging her to wake up.

But there are many other great interpretations from people I’ve read.

Childrens programming, especially if it has gone on for long enough can radically change in tone/execution and the show in the movie has run for 5 seasons. But I personally think the Pink Opaque of Isabel and Tara never existed but were used as a way for Owen to disengage from their gender noncomformity. When Maddie returns, she asks Owen if they remember the Pink Opaque and the emphasis on memory can be due to Owen memory hole’d trans experience which get painfully dug up.

I mean, who hasn’t lived out their queerness in derivative media/fanfics? I personally head canon the tapes that Maddie sends as tapes of her acting out her own version of the show or something like that since queerness is so tied to self expression and creativity.

One part of the movie I really hated was how Isabel acted toward her caregivers/Owen treats their parents. Also the fact that Owen being half black is never touched upon. Race and transness intersect really hard so it was odd that it never came up (though Justice Smith is an incredible actor and played his role of repressed egg to near perfection). I also didn’t like Maddie/Tara, I think her character was too melodramatic for me personally. But thats probably due to the fact that the movie captures the trans zeitgeist of the 90s and early 2000s where transness was near invisible in western society unlike today (mashallah)

Since you said it’s a general thread I have a couple questions.

What does Mr Melancholy represent? And why does it become “too late” for the main character?

I figured Isabel was a roleplay self-insert.