Also known as: How Previous Trauma Can Influence Your Behavior in Human Relationships Until You’ve Pushed Everybody Away, but Make it Fashion.
I first saw Hedwig in high school and I loved it. The soundtrack is killer, how the story is told through flashbacks and current musical performances is compelling, it’s unique as hell, and everything from the costumes, makeup, sets, and how it is shot is fabulous. Every time I watch it, I can’t believe it exists and I can’t tear my eyes away.
Hansel was born in East Germany, and raised by a emotionally distant single mother. He loves western rock music, like Bowie and Frank Zappa. In his mid-20s, he meets an American solider who becomes his literal sugar daddy, luring him into a relationship using trail of gummy bears.
St. Luther Robinson proposes to Hansel and offers to take him to the states, but in order to get a marriage license, Hansel will be subjected to a medical exam. He agrees to undergo a sketchy sex reassignment surgery, assume his mother’s identity, Hedwig, and travel to Kansas with his soldier husband. On their one-year anniversary, Hedwig’s husband leaves her for a younger man. Even after the divorce, Hedwig continues to present herself as a woman, almost as a form of escapism.
She takes odd jobs while attempting to pursue a career in her first love, music. She meets a 17-year-old boy named Tommy during one of her babysitting gigs, who is fascinated with Hedwig and her story. Tommy is questioning his religion, and instead of living in ignorance, he is inspired by Eve’s quest to “know shit”. Hedwig and Tommy begin a relationship (Yeah… we’ll get to it) and Hedwig educates him on the history of rock and teaches him to play the guitar. She creates his persona, Tommy Gnosis, and they compose several songs together.
As their relationship progresses, Tommy discovers that Hedwig’s body healed poorly from the unregulated back alley surgery she was coerced into getting, and she was left with an 1in mound where her genitalia should be. He rejects her, goes on to form his own band, and becomes wildly successful off of the songs Hedwig had written for him even though he has absolutely no charisma and cannot sing.
Being the bitter queen Hedwig is, she files a lawsuit against Tommy for songwriting credits and forms her own band, The Angry Inch, which tours the country playing shows within earshot of Tommy’s own concerts. Her adorably sweet manager gets her gigs at low-stakes places like Bilgewater seafood restaurants, and festivals like the Menses Fair (9th stage!). She builds a small cult following who wear foam hats much like a cheese head, but shaped like Hedwig’s signature wig.
One would think this lawsuit would be easily winnable, since Hedwig’s songs are intensely personal, reference her past growing up in Germany during the Cold War and her botched surgery, but whatever. Hedwig is unapologetically confrontational and honest in her performances, and they truly are a joy to watch.
Hedwig’s mental state is erratic during this time, oscillating between lashing out at the people trying to help her, or being completely uncommunicative. The only times she seems to open up is during her performances, telling her new fans the story of her life, and the many ways the people around her have betrayed or failed her.
NO WIRE HANGERS, NO BRAS IN THE DRYER!
Fairly certain this is a gif of me drinking Zima. So many classy things happened in Lapeer.
When Hedwig has succeeded in pushing away her current husband, her band, and her manager, she reverts to sex work to earn a living. Tommy seeks her out and apologizes for not crediting her on the album, and expresses interest in making it right. They get involved in a car accident during their reunion, and the press picks up the story. Hedwig wins the lawsuit now that there is proof they knew each other, and that Tommy surprisingly grew up in Kansas and not in a foreign country during a communist regime.
Hedwig’s band reunites and is now popular enough to be featured on late night television. While playing their last show, Hedwig has the epiphany that her pain is not an excuse to hold back the people who love her, and gives permission for her husband to leave her and become the marketing director of a major publishing company join the touring cast of RENT. She imagines Tommy apologizing for his part in her story, acknowledges that maybe she had expected too much out of him as he is a literal child, and walks down the streets of New York, totally naked, as if stripping away the performance and learning to make peace with herself.
Hedwig clearly has unresolved trauma from her childhood, her botched sex change, her husband leaving her alone in a foreign country, and her mental and emotional investment in Tommy backfiring. But the most intriguing thing about Hedwig is that her actions are not defended in this movie. She places a romantic filter on her relationship with Tommy, a boy she used to babysit. It’s hard to ignore this power imbalance as she tries to mold this kid into someone who fits her needs. When he ultimately rejects her body, a body born out of a traumatic life-altering experience, it is truly heartbreaking. But it doesn’t change the fact Hedwig is searching for a mature man in someone who doesn’t have the emotional capacity to be in a functional relationship with her, nor the ability to communicate that, either. Instead of processing the feelings Tommy has for Hedwig, whether they are romantic or not, he shuts her out of his life completely, making a lucrative career out of the knowledge she gave him.
Hedwig turns this pain outward, wearing out the goodwill she had established by sharing her story with others and gaining allies. She marries a man who she routinely ignores and holds his own future hostage because she doesn’t want people to leave her. She drags her entire band around the country stalking Tommy – a boy she exploited when he was underage. Hedwig’s past doesn’t excuse this behavior, and the movie doesn’t try to paint any of it in a positive light. It effectively shows how the inability to process her pain can manifest in abusive acts toward other people, and that Hedwig can only move on when she stops letting her past dictate her future. Only then can she make amends to the people she has hurt, and move on and try and heal and accept herself.
This movie is excellent, please seek it out.