Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is an off-Broadway musical theater play (1998) and film (2001) about a fictional rock and roll band. The text was written by John Cameron Mitchell and the music and lyrics were by Stephen Trask. It has become something of a cult hit. It draws on the androgynous glam rock era of David Bowie, as well as influences from Iggy Pop and the later gender bender fashions of the early 1980s. It also draws on Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium, as well as the New York punk culture, which largely grew out of the Squeezebox club in the early-mid nineties, where the show was repeatedly workshopped by Mitchell and Trask before opening at the Hotel Riverview in 1998.

Analysis

There is a lot of misunderstanding and debate as to whether this is a musical/movie about a transsexual or a drag queen/genderqueer. Many people consider Hedwig to be a transsexual due to her having gender reassignment surgery; however, her reasons for having this surgery appear entirely situational rather than being related to her gender. In addition, Hedwig's start was as a drag character of Mitchell's. Other people take Hedwig as a Queer symbol for Queer identity, as a figure of gender variation and freedom to choose your identity according to your heart's desire. Hedwig's genderless (or multigender) partner in the movie, Yitzhak (Miriam Shor) is also reference to that issue. The best source of information on the history of Hedwig and the Angry Inch is interviews with John Cameron Mitchell, including those found on the DVD.

Related Topics:
Transsexual - Drag queen - Genderqueer - Gender reassignment surgery - Queer - John Cameron Mitchell - DVD

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