Filmography
Jan. 16th, 2007 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyHedwig and the Angry Inch
Adapted from the stage show, this film tells the story of Hedwig (once Hansel), her botched sex change operation, her relationship with the now famous rock star Tommy Gnosis, his stealing of her creative talents, and the final resolution of the whole gender issue in a very odd way at the end of the film. So far, so shiny.
In some ways, I enjoyed this a great deal. Huge drag-queen costumes, wonderful songs (including one inspired by Alcibiades' speech in Plato's Symposium! With appropriate little cartoons! Excellent), cross-dressing all round. However, there were some things that jarred, and made this fun-filled glam-fest - well, feel a bit shallow, really. Its main concerns are with the nature of creative property, the finding of an identity of self, of coping through crisis and admitting when the next stage of coping with said crisis needs to be moved into (hence Hedwig's dramatic shedding of all the drag queen gloriana at the end of the film and walking out into the world, naked, without hiding behind all that artifice and false eyebrows). Unfortunately, all this means that some of the film's potential for dealing with the deeper issues never gets touched.
Problem the first - why Hansel/Hedwig gets gender realignment surgery in the first place. Answer - an American GI wants to marry him, but for him to pass the medical, he must become a her. Hansel's mother 'knows a man' who can do the job. And suddenly - badaboom, badabing - one Hedwig. Screw the idea of Hansel's personal choice in this matter, screw any actual need for gender realignment surgery, screw any discussion of any of the basic reasons someone might actually need that operation. It is forced upon Hansel, who really ought to have a bit more autonomy than he is given at this stage, and the rest of the film is about how he copes with that decision forced upon him by his mother and surrogate father figure (his real father was also an American GI). You could, I suppose, argue that the physical trauma inflicted upon Hedwig is equivalent to psychological trauma inflicted upon children by the unthinking actions of their parents, who have to work out that stress in exactly the same way as Hedwig has to work out her angst - but, dude. Gender realignment surgery is complex an issue enough as it is without adding in a basic unwillingness on the part of the patient.
Problem the second - in Hedwig's band, there is a guitar player/singer type called Yitzhak, to whom Hedwig is (apparently) married. He's quite pretty around the jawbones, but pretty darn effeminate, and has the urge to go and play the role of Angel in a cruise line's production of Rent - i.e. he himself is another starved drag queen, and obviously such a cabaret outfit only has room for one (Hedwig herself). Now, Yitzhak was a curiosity throughout the film - at the end, Hedwig hands her wig over to him, and he morphs into the gorgeous drag queen type, picking up Hedwig's paraphenalia as she discards it. But. Yitzhak is played by a woman - Miriam Shor. Now, she's very good, but there is again an unfilled promise here - I was quite expecting Yitzhak to reveal himself to actually be a woman living as a man, as Hedwig is a man living as a woman - which would have given a nice balance and an interesting dialogue to their relationship together. But no. Yitzhak, according to the film, is just another repressed drag queen. Yes, probably in need of the outfit in a more lasting way than Hedwig, who has other issues to confront - but again, it felt like a lost opportunity.
I think the film, and probably the stage show, decided to engage with the issues on one level, whilst leaving the deeper ones of sexuality, sexual identity and all that good stuff untouched. Which, in a way, is hardly surprising, as it's touch stuff and probably wouldn't make as appealing television, and might be harder to write good songs about. But I can't help feeling there's a whole depth to this left unplumbed. Thus, four stars - because, after all, the songs are good, and that plot's not half bad.
Adapted from the stage show, this film tells the story of Hedwig (once Hansel), her botched sex change operation, her relationship with the now famous rock star Tommy Gnosis, his stealing of her creative talents, and the final resolution of the whole gender issue in a very odd way at the end of the film. So far, so shiny.
In some ways, I enjoyed this a great deal. Huge drag-queen costumes, wonderful songs (including one inspired by Alcibiades' speech in Plato's Symposium! With appropriate little cartoons! Excellent), cross-dressing all round. However, there were some things that jarred, and made this fun-filled glam-fest - well, feel a bit shallow, really. Its main concerns are with the nature of creative property, the finding of an identity of self, of coping through crisis and admitting when the next stage of coping with said crisis needs to be moved into (hence Hedwig's dramatic shedding of all the drag queen gloriana at the end of the film and walking out into the world, naked, without hiding behind all that artifice and false eyebrows). Unfortunately, all this means that some of the film's potential for dealing with the deeper issues never gets touched.
Problem the first - why Hansel/Hedwig gets gender realignment surgery in the first place. Answer - an American GI wants to marry him, but for him to pass the medical, he must become a her. Hansel's mother 'knows a man' who can do the job. And suddenly - badaboom, badabing - one Hedwig. Screw the idea of Hansel's personal choice in this matter, screw any actual need for gender realignment surgery, screw any discussion of any of the basic reasons someone might actually need that operation. It is forced upon Hansel, who really ought to have a bit more autonomy than he is given at this stage, and the rest of the film is about how he copes with that decision forced upon him by his mother and surrogate father figure (his real father was also an American GI). You could, I suppose, argue that the physical trauma inflicted upon Hedwig is equivalent to psychological trauma inflicted upon children by the unthinking actions of their parents, who have to work out that stress in exactly the same way as Hedwig has to work out her angst - but, dude. Gender realignment surgery is complex an issue enough as it is without adding in a basic unwillingness on the part of the patient.
Problem the second - in Hedwig's band, there is a guitar player/singer type called Yitzhak, to whom Hedwig is (apparently) married. He's quite pretty around the jawbones, but pretty darn effeminate, and has the urge to go and play the role of Angel in a cruise line's production of Rent - i.e. he himself is another starved drag queen, and obviously such a cabaret outfit only has room for one (Hedwig herself). Now, Yitzhak was a curiosity throughout the film - at the end, Hedwig hands her wig over to him, and he morphs into the gorgeous drag queen type, picking up Hedwig's paraphenalia as she discards it. But. Yitzhak is played by a woman - Miriam Shor. Now, she's very good, but there is again an unfilled promise here - I was quite expecting Yitzhak to reveal himself to actually be a woman living as a man, as Hedwig is a man living as a woman - which would have given a nice balance and an interesting dialogue to their relationship together. But no. Yitzhak, according to the film, is just another repressed drag queen. Yes, probably in need of the outfit in a more lasting way than Hedwig, who has other issues to confront - but again, it felt like a lost opportunity.
I think the film, and probably the stage show, decided to engage with the issues on one level, whilst leaving the deeper ones of sexuality, sexual identity and all that good stuff untouched. Which, in a way, is hardly surprising, as it's touch stuff and probably wouldn't make as appealing television, and might be harder to write good songs about. But I can't help feeling there's a whole depth to this left unplumbed. Thus, four stars - because, after all, the songs are good, and that plot's not half bad.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 04:30 pm (UTC)anyway, point being, the concept was that Hedwig tore away someone else's identity because it might detract from his/her own. I don't know if that makes a difference to you, but it changed a lot of the movie for me.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 07:10 pm (UTC)anyway, point being, the concept was that Hedwig tore away someone else's identity because it might detract from his/her own.
That fits in with the way later he's dead keen on the wig and gives a history to him wanting to drag up as Angel. I still think having him as a him doesn't quite take the opportunity. I also think that Hedwig's domination of the identity of her band was made quite clear by the tearing up the passport scene, but yes, this would have made it clearer earlier.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 08:27 pm (UTC)Not entirely this, I think, though definitely that's important. But also simply that Yitzhak was a better drag queen than Hedwig (one reason why the character is played by a woman rather than a man is to help make that clear, though it's more obvious in the stage show--also the stage show involves a VERY quick costume change and a man couldn't have done it as fast as necessary), and Hedwig can't stand that. There's a rant in the original Broadway production in which Hedwig seems to be trying to convince Yitzhak (or herself) that Yitzhak has power by virtue of being a Jewish man married to a German woman, despite it having been made clear at every turn that Hedwig does her utmost to take away whatever power Yitzhak has at any opportunity. Yitzhak's response is, shall we say, less than polite.
(the Rent/passport subplot only exists in the movie, though I thought it added a lot)