"There's a lot of soul searching that Hedwig does about looking
for a romantic partner and trying to find wholeness and be
recognised for their music and their creativity;
it's not just a gender journey."
Stephen Trask
The plot of Hedwig & The Angry Inch is a cautionary tale against self-disbelief and needing validation from others. Time and again, Hedwig puts his faith and hopes in other people, and is invariably cheated and betrayed. In the end (of the film at least), he walks naked into the streets of his own destiny, stripped at last of all accoutrements of concern, insecurity, and worry. He doesn't repent, but at least he's free.
Because it was made during a time when people cared more about the quality of the art than the message it may or may not convey, Hedwig & The Angry Inch is also an unwitting, timeless indictment of today's Gender Identity Police, and the Stasi tactics they employ to silence dissent. Because he chose to portray Hedwig as a human being and not an identity ideologue or caricature, John Cameron Mitchell's performance is bereft of judgment, of both himself and others, even when he rages through moments of regret and confusion. He makes you feel the heart of the character, which has much less to do with his sexual preferences (not identity), and more to do with the universal human desire to be loved.
"John and I were very much talking honestly about our own journeys and
expressing them through this character that in many ways, most of
our audience didn't have a lot in common with. But the story
is so human and fundamental that people can figure out by
watching if they are on the wrong path or the right path."
Stephen Trask
The difference between "preferences" and "identity" is important. A human being who chooses to engage in any given behavior has much less in common with a caricaturized ideologue who makes this behavior a cornerstone of their manufactured identity, than he will with other real human beings, even if those fellow humans disagree with him and his choices. Indeed, most Gender Identity Police today deny the individual the option of having a choice; they will say that they were "born this way" and can't do anything about it. This predeterminist Sexual Calvinism steals the capacity for free will from its adherents, and tells them that, unless the benevolent forces of a perfect world conspire to work in their favor from now until the end of time, they are all condemned to a life of misery and perpetual misunderstanding, at best.
The side-effects of these individual decisions are sold as "liberation," freedom, joy, and the like, but when these happy side-effects fail to materialize, or can not be sustained in perpetuity, a reason must be found. Something, or someone, is to blame.
There has to be a solution.
Since they have been robbed of the capacity to choose, and therefore have no predeterminist reason to take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions and non-existent decisions, it never occurs to them that they are directly responsible for their unhappy, disconsolate condition. The adherents of Sexual Calvinism believe they have no choice. They must do the only thing their faith and ideology allows:
Blame other people, and burn them at the stake.
The old story.
The thumbnail of this video is a masterful expression of the exact opposite of this predeterminist denial trip. Watch the entire scene. For those of us who remember a time when gay people were cool (or could be), the camera zooming in on John Cameron Mitchell wearing a fur coat and miniskirt, singing a song of genuine, heartfelt brilliance (real art! I'd forgotten what it looked and sounded like) is genuinely beautiful. Because the character is real and not an agenda caricature, and presumes nothing and judges no one (not even himself), a scene that today would be burdened with unbearable, artless meaning and intent, and which is in fact hilarious, some guy's knobby knees sticking out of a minidress and fur coat while he laments his lot in life at a gig at a seafood restaurant (ah, humor. Remember humor?), the scene is genuinely beautiful.
Because the protagonist is gay, I don't want to say it's a "touching" scene, haha, but..... let's say... it strikes an emotional chord.
One that is true.
The first half of the video is the song "Hedwig's Lament," which laments the fact that his body and soul have been cut up into bits, and which ends with a list of people who have taken a piece, ending with the "rock star," who "took the good stuff and ran."
The second half of the video is the song "Exquisite Corpse," which is a literature term used to describe a poem written by multiple authors. An "exquisite corpse" is usually a forced, uninspired piece of Frankenstein lab work, with disparate lines stitched together haphazardly, written by people who may or may not share the same level of talent, inspiration, or vision. The exercise can produce some amusing, interesting results, but is generally a waste of time.
At least in my experience. Which does include a show at a seafood restaurant, incidentally. A gig's a gig.
The lyrics of "Exquisite Corpse" are as refreshingly honest as the depiction of the tuneful androgyne who sings them. I'll paste the first verse below; you can read the lyrics in their entirety HERE.
"Oh G--
I'm all sewn up
A hardened razor-cut
Scar map across my body
And you can trace the lines
Through Misery's design
That map across my body"
Exquisite Corpse
In addition to an acknowledgement of the possibility that gender surgery may bring misery to the patient, the bridge of the punk-rock masterpiece contains the lines, "through a tornado body, with a hand grenade head." The song also suggests that it's an "illusion" that there's a "will and soul," or that we can "wrest control from chaos and confusion." These days, the listener can be forgiven for thinking that this "illusion of will" is a form of Sexual Calvinism; while at the core this line indicates the hardening of one's heart that occurs when one refuses to repent from sin (any sin), however unwittingly, just above that it is surely nothing more than a simple expression of how it feels to be on a moving rollercoaster. While it's true that unstrapping yourself from a moving rollercoaster isn't really a choice, the decision to buy the ticket in the first place, is.
"Buy the ticket, take the ride."
Hunter S. Thompson
This segment from the beginning of the film is also very interesting. In it, a young Hedwig is watching his favorite cartoon, titled Jesus Is Good. Enraptured, Hedwig tells his Communist, East German mother that Jesus "said the darndest things," at which point his mother slaps him and tells him to never mention the name of Jesus again. When he protests by saying, "but He died for our sins," his mother responds by saying, "SO DID HITLER."
The damage is done. Hedwig discovers Rock & Roll on American Forces Radio, and starts rocking out and dancing on his mother's bed. He discovers the "crypto homo rockers" like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and David Bowie, and dreams of going to America to take a walk on the wild side.
Wait..... What?!?
Did Hedwig just blame Socialism for beating his love for Jesus out of him in the name of Hitler, the trauma of which drove him into the arms of American Rock & Roll, which led him down the torrid road of gender dysphoria?
Without the slightest trace of forcing an agenda down anybody's throat?
Are you sure?
In this scene, Hedwig's literal Nazi mom offers to let him use her passport so he can get out of the country and marry his gay soldier and be free at last. Whether it's right or wrong, 2023 audience, mom isn't standing in his way. However, according to the soldier, they have to get married in East Germany, which will require sex-change surgery. Hedwig has his doubts, but the surgery is his only way out of the dreary Communist gulag that doesn't let him do anything. So he goes through with it.
The doctor botches the surgery, leaving Hedwig with the titular "angry inch" that nobody actually wants. According to the song, "the train is coming, and I'm tied to the track."
Also quaint by today's Sexual Calvinist standards is the way the enraged characters actually get in a harmless brawl. The straight customers of the seafood restaurant can't take any more sexually-explicit descriptions of the singer's "Barbie-doll crotch" while they are trying to eat, and the show devolves into a pugilistic display of deeply-seated rage, in which everybody gets to let off some steam. Before long, the fight turns into a relatively-harmless, slow-motion Rock & Roll food fight, and even though the band is involved in the fisticuffs, the song never misses a beat.
While today everybody in the brawl would have murderous hatred for each other, blaming each other for their problems, in the scene above, the anger seems to be more circumstantial. Maybe even temporary. Hedwig is permanently pissed that he got his dick chopped off right before the Berlin Wall was torn down, making the operation even less necessary than it already was, but he doesn't really wish any ill-will on the customers of the seafood restaurant, all of whom are apparently willing to try to eat dinner while a band of punk-rock drag queens is blaring away in the corner. Ah, the forgotten joys of a live-and-let-live society.
Wait, did I just say that Hedwig is pissed because his sex-change operation was totally unnecessary? Does the film say that he moved too fast with his decision, and that "good things come to those who wait?"
Yeah, I guess it did. Hedwig even dares to express his heartbreak and regret at the beginning of the scene. His look of incredulous shock is downright heretical by today's Sexual Calvinist standards. You mean, I went and did that for nothing? And now I'm scarred for life? Oh, noooo!
He even sings that he "wakes up" and "turns back to himself" at the end of the chorus, after trying on various wigs and costumes in an attempt to at least pretend to be somebody else. Not himself. Somebody else.
Crazy, right?
Hedwig & The Angry Inch has always been a brilliant work of art. The acting is great, the production is great, and the songs are great. I mean, the songs are really great. I used to love this movie. I can't watch the gay interaction scenes anymore, but that's nothing special; I can't watch straight-interaction love scenes anymore either. I find the theme to be gratuitous and disgraceful, even if it's Jennifer Connelly and Tom Cruise rolling around in the soft, silky lighting. But Hedwig & The Angry Inch is great in spite of this unwatchable, obligatory, thematically-consistent flaw. The criminally-underutilized Michael Pitt has an important role, and Miriam Shor's bearded pirate Yitzhak is fun to watch.
In spite of the heavy themes that run through the film like a concrete milkshake, Hedwig & The Angry Inch retains its sense of humor throughout. The characters are likeable, and many of the scenes are framed by a dry, riotous hilarity. The band of Korean Sergeants' wives scene in the video above is exceedingly, wonderfully humorous. And even though it may grate on the sensitive moral standards of today's Sexual Calvinists, I think Hedwig & The Angry Inch should be celebrated and watched until the collapse of civilization and the widespread chaos that ensues no longer make it possible. It's a stark reminder of how things used to be, before we abandoned our humanity for the greater good. It's also nice to remember a time when gay people used to be cool. Or could be.
Wherever you are, Stephen Trask, John Cameron Mitchell, et al., thanks for not preaching. While your successors have replaced your hilarious "Yankee Go Home... With Me!" wings...
With yet another tiresome diatribe about the virtues of Sexual Calvinism (one which is fringed with flames, incidentally)...
It's alright. The corporate collective almost always absorbs the original, idiosyncratic vision of the individual, eventually. Thanks for at least acknowledging that "it's not just a gender journey;" people today really need to hear it. And even though it may not live up to the standards of the Jesus Is Good show in East Germany, Superbook has some legit Christian children's programming. As you said yourself, "people can figure out by watching if they are on the wrong path or the right path." It's not too late to repent.
Cuz, y'know... Jesus is good.
Thanks for listening.
