I Saw The TV Glow is a coming-of-age horror movie in which teenagers Owen and Maddy uncover reality through their shared connection to the fictional TV show The Pink Opaque. Throughout the course of the film, it is revealed that Owen's true identity is female. This coincides with his conventional feminine role in the plot's development, as outlined in Kassabian's work on gendered scoring. Similarly, despite her true feminine identity, Maddy takes on a masculine role, driving the plot forward.

Director Jane Schoenbrun characterizes Owen and Maddy based on their real identities by associating them with non-diegetic popular music, scoring each with the inverse of their traditionally feminine or masculine instrumentation and style. Using Kassabian's work and Hagen's standards of scoring, I explore how Schoenbrun uses non-traditional popular scoring to establish Owen's character, reveal his traditionally feminine conflict of desire versus agency, and align him with his true identity. In contrast, the popular 'usic associated with Maddy utilizes traditional masculine scoring techniques, such as rhythmic emphasis, heavier orchestration, and aggressive lyrical content. By expanding on Jessica Green's framework of comparative musical analysis, I analyze the music of I Saw The TV Glow and compare it to music's usage in other films. In doing so, I inspect the impact of orchestration, stylistic considerations, and vocal timbre on audiences' perceptions of the characters' identity.