"On August 13, 1961, a wall was erected down the middle of the city of Berlin. The world was divided by a cold war, and the Berlin Wall was the most hated symbol of that divide. Reviled, graffitied, spit upon — we thought the wall would stand forever. And now that it's gone, we don't know who we are anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, Hedwig is like that wall! Standing before you in the divide between East and West, slavery and freedom, man and woman, top and bottom! And you can try and tear her down, but before you do, you must remember one thing...."
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a 1998 off-Broadway rock opera by Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell, adapted into a film in 2001 with Mitchell in the title role.
The story follows Hedwig Robinson, who at first appears to be a transgender woman. She's the head of the "internationally ignored" nouveau Glam Rock band The Angry Inch. They play in a string of failing seafood restaurants to small, hostile crowds while stalking the much more successful rock and roll icon Tommy Gnosis. Tommy – as Hedwig explains to her audience – stole her songs. Meanwhile, there's a lot of resentment within the band, particularly between Hedwig and her aspiring drag queen husband Yitzhak.
Hedwig retells her life story to her few fans, of being born in East Germany and listening to the "crypto-homo-rockers" of The '70s on American Forces Radio. Of how she made her way to the States and gained her titular angry inch. As Hedwig struggles to unite her male and female side – just when the city of Berlin is struggling to reunite itself – she discovers there's much more to unite in her identity: the East and the West, the grownup and the child, the old and the new.
Hedwig draws frequent comparisons to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and has garnered a similar cult following. The story draws heavily from both classical mythology and from the glam rock scene while providing new takes on gender and sex in pop culture.
The original off-Broadway run won a number of awards including at the 1998 Outer Critics Circle and the 1998 Obie Awards.
In 2014, Neil Patrick Harris and Lena Hall won Tony awards for their performances in the Broadway revival of the same year. The show itself took home prizes for Best Revival and Best Lighting Design, as well as nominations for Best Direction of a Musical, and Scenic, Costume, and Sound Designs. Andrew Rannells replaced Harris in the title role through October 2014, followed by Michael C. Hall. In late January 2015, John Cameron Mitchell returned to the role and was awarded the Special Tony Award later that year for his "outstanding success"
in the role. Darren Criss and Taye Diggs also played Hedwig during the show's Broadway run in 2015. Notable actors who have portrayed Hedwig in regional and international productions include Jinkx Monsoon, Sven Ratzke, and Oh Man-seok.
No relation to a certain snowy owl. Though Tara Gilesbie seems to think there is.
Tropes featured in Hedwig and the Angry Inch include:
- Abusive Parents:
- Hedwig's father tried to sexually assault her when she was very young. He got kicked out of the house because of it.
- Hedwig's mother is somewhat better but makes him play in the oven and throws tomatoes at him, which becomes a bit of a Brick Joke later.
- It's implied that there is tension between Tommy and his father General Speck, but it's not elaborated on.
- All for Nothing: The lengths Hansel goes to in order to leave Germany end up for naught. He ends up stuck with a botched surgery, Luther leaving him a year after they marry and the Berlin Wall collapsing.
- All Musicals Are Adaptations: Sort of. The film is an adaptation of the stage show, while the stage show grew out of a rock band/drag club act that John Cameron Mitchell started when he got annoyed that all drag performers just lip-synced to records.
- Ambiguous Gender: Yitzhak is played by a woman. The only unambiguous aspect of Yitzhak's gender is that they want to be feminine, but Hedwig forces them to dress as a man because she felt threatened by how good Yitzhak's drag act was.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: Just what gender Hedwig identifies as is debatable, though she tends to lean towards female pronouns rather than male ones. The sex change operation was for convenience in escape not because Hansel wanted to be a woman, but by the time we 'meet' Hedwig during the show she seems to identify more as a woman than a man - most noticeable in the way she refers to Hansel with male pronouns, but to her present self with female ones.
Word of God says that she is not specifically transgender, but something outside the gender binary. - Anachronism Stew: The stage show started around 1998 and ran for several years Off-Broadway. The film was released in 2001. The date of Hedwig's wedding and emigration to the US is 1988 and her marriage collapsed around the same time as the Berlin Wall in 1989. From there it becomes more vague. Hedwig's time in the trailer park takes place in the early 1990s, although (perhaps because they're homemade, or a dependence on second hand shops for her wardrobe) the clothes seem to be straight out of The '70s and The '80s. There's also no mention of when she met her bandmates, including Yitzhak, although the deleted scene hints that it's around the time of the Bosnian War (early 1990s). Made even more vague with the Broadway revival, which updates the story to set it in a Broadway theatre the night after ''Hurt Locker: The Musical'' closes.
- Angry Dance: Hedwig goes through an emotional breakdown during the song "Exquisite Corpse", and the song's choreography matches her emotional state - having her writhe on the floor and throw setpieces.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: When Tommy discovers the Hedwig's scars from her surgery, he's disgusted and suddenly feels conflicted about her. He admits he loves her, before ultimately abandoning her."I love you! I love you!"
"Then love the front of me, honey! Love the—" - Apology Gift:
- Tommy apologizing to Hedwig in "Wicked Little Town (Reprise)" explaining that he was "just a boy and you were so much more/ than any god could ever plan/ more than a woman or a man/ and now I understand how much I took from you" and in turn giving her the ability to finally see herself as whole.
- After "Wicked Little Town (Reprise)" Hedwig gives Yitzhak her wig, allowing him to express his femininity, which she previously forbid him from doing.
- Tommy says that his father gave him a very expensive electric guitar in an attempt to apologize for being "a pathetic little dictator".
- Artist and the Band: "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is also the name of Hedwig's band in-universe - the "angry inch" referring to Hedwig's scar after her surgery.
- Audience Participation
- During "Wig in a Box", Hedwig encourages the audience to sing along. The Broadway production projects the lyrics onstage for the audience to follow.
- One bit involves Hedwig spitting beer into the audience as a "rock and roll gesture". She follows this with a "punk rock gesture", where she spits the beer on herself.
- In the revival, Hedwig tells a story about "The Bishop of Broadway", a ghostly priest who appears on opening nights of future hit shows. She then points to an audience member sitting in a box seat and tells them that they're sitting in the priest's favorite seat, and asks them to let her know if the priest shows up. Later she checks back in with the audience member to see if the priest has shown up yet.
- Audience Participation Song: Hedwig encourages the audience to sing along to "Wig in a Box", complete with lyrics onstage so they can follow along.
- Back-Alley Doctor: Hedwig gets a fast, cheap, and completely illegal shady operation. Because of this, the surgery became botched, leaving Hedwig with the titular "angry inch".
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Hedwig describes herself as having a "Barbie doll crotch" after her botched sex change operation left her with a scarred mound of flesh.
- Big Bad Friend: Hedwig and Tommy bonded over a love of music, and collaborate on their music together. After their break-up, Tommy pillages all of Hedwig's music and discards her faster than you can say "plagiarist."
- Bilingual Bonus: "Gummi" is German slang for condom. The gummi bears, as a symbol for the power of adulthood, freedom, and sex, are extremely sexually loaded as are the rest of the candies mentioned in the song "Sugar Daddy".
- BSoD Song: After recounting her breakup with Tommy and being rejected by Yitzhak, Hedwig has a breakdown in the form of the song "Exquisite Corpse", where she laments that she feels like a stitched up collage of other people in her life, instead of her own person.
- Cerebus Call-Back: Compare the intonation of "I was born on the other side/of a town ripped in two" in "Tear Me Down" vs "Hedwig's Lament". In "Tear Me Down", it's a confident declaration of identity. In "Hedwig's Lament", it's a confession of her fractured self-identity.
- Crossover Cosmology: The Origin of Love features Zeus, Thor, Osiris, and some Indian god. They're all dicks.
- Destructive Romance: In a mirror of Hedwig and Luther's relationship, Yitzhak begs Hedwig to marry him so that he can leave Croatia. Hedwig agrees, but on the condition that Yitzhak never wear a wig, giving up the drag persona that upstaged Hedwig earlier. This starts an unhealthy relationship where Hedwig consistently verbally abuses him.
- Diegetic Musical: The musical's framing device is a concert performed by Hedwig, so all the songs are diegetic performances in the context of the concert.
- Double-Meaning Title: The Angry Inch of the film refers to the "angry inch" left by Hedwig's botched sex-change surgery, and the name of Hedwig's band.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Luther sees Hansel lying naked face down, and assumes he's a woman. He only realizes his mistake when Hansel turns to face him.Luther: "Hansel, I can't believe you're not a girl. You're so fine.
- Dying Dream: The end of the film takes on a more surreal and abstract tone, ending with Hedwig walking naked down an alley into the street. Some interpret this ending as a dying dream after Hedwig died in the car crash with Tommy.
- Easy Evangelism:
- When Hedwig listens to the radio together with their mother and the presenter talks about Jesus the mother turns it off. Little Hedwig says very serious (like a strong believer in Christianity would sound like): "But Jesus died for our sins!" The mother replied: "So did Hitler."
- Later on Hedwig talks to later to be Tommy Speck. He said to Hedwig (in a similar way of absolute seriousness) something like "Did you accept Jesus Christ as your savior?" - just to explain immediately that Jesus died to protect the people from God - who was so cruel that he expelled Adam and Eve from paradise for wanting knowledge about what was wrong and what was right.
- Easy Sex Change: Subverted. Hedwig's mother describes the operation as "a simple cut and paste job," but the surgery is done with little preparation by a shady doctor who botches the surgery.
- Erotic Eating: Luther seduces Hansel with American candies. The song "Sugar Daddy" uses a barrage of candy-themed innuendos as Hedwig describes the beginning of her relationship with Luther.
- Epileptic Flashing Lights: Used in the Broadway revival at the end of "Exquisite Corpse", adding to the chaotic feel of the song and masking Hedwig's costume change into Tommy.
- Establishing Character Moment: The first four seconds of the movie perfectly nail down exactly who Hedwig is by having her walk confidently to the alleyway entrance of a building while dressed to the nines, then toss her umbrella aside as she enters as if she expects someone to catch it for her.
- Fake Boobs:
- The final scene of the film reveals that Hedwig's bodice is stuffed with tomatoes.
- The script for the stage version has Hedwig removing two tomatoes from her bra and smashing them on the floor.
- The song "Angry Inch" refers to Hedwig having "tits of clay", referring to her being given fake breasts to complete her sex change.
- False Soulmate: Hedwig spends her entire life searching for her soulmate - the other half that completes her. She first assumes it's Luther, then Tommy, then possibly Yizhak. By the end of the show, she realizes she's her own complete person who doesn't need a soulmate.
- Follow the Bouncing Ball: Hedwig encourages the audience to sing along to "Wig in a Box". In the film, the lyrics are accompanied by a bouncing wig. In the stage production, the lyrics are projected onstage.
- Foreshadowing: In "Sugar Daddy," Hedwig (then Hansel) tells Luther, "If you buy me the dress, I'll be more woman than a man like you can stand." A year after their marriage, Luther leaves Hedwig for a man.
- Gainax Ending: The final number of the show involves an extreme costume change, in which Hedwig appears to turn into Tommy. Did Tommy come to the theater? Is Hedwig Tommy? Does Tommy really exist? Does Hedwig? Is Tommy singing to "Wicked Little Town (Reprise)" to Hedwig? Hard to say, though the creators seem to lean towards Tommy and Hedwig both being real, separate people.
- "Gaining Confidence" Song: "Wig in a Box" shows Hedwig's transformation from dull cashier to glamorous rock-star as she develops confidence in a feminine persona.
- Gave Up Too Soon: Hedwig leaping to escape East Germany instead of waiting another year for the wall to collapse ends with her dumped by Luther on their anniversary.
- Hijacked Musical Number: At the very end of the opening number "Tear Me Down", Yitzhak attempts to upstage Hedwig with a very high and long riff. Hedwig angrily marches across the stage and unplugs his microphone, and finishes the song by herself.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Hedwig jokes about when she had to prostitute herself to survive."I returned to doing odd jobs, mostly the jobs we call blow. I had lost my job at the Base PX and I had lost my gag reflex. You do the math!"
- "I Am" Song:
- "Tear Me Down" is the opening number, and the audience's introduction to Hedwig. Throughout the song, Hedwig compares herself to the Berlin wall, as she stands in the divide between man and woman."I'm the new Berlin Wall, baby! Try and tear me down!"
- "Wig in a Box" shows Hedwig stepping into her current rockstar persona, becoming more confident in her self-expression."Look at the woman I've become."
- "Tear Me Down" is the opening number, and the audience's introduction to Hedwig. Throughout the song, Hedwig compares herself to the Berlin wall, as she stands in the divide between man and woman.
- "I Want" Song:
- "Origin of Love" is a subtle one, establishing Hedwig's desire to find her "other half."
- "Wig in a Box" also describes the women she wants/pretends to be while wearing various wigs.
- Jerkass: Hedwig consistently verbally abuses and tears Yitzhak down throughout the show. She cuts him off when he sings, prevents him from wearing wigs, and in the film she destroys his passport.
- Jesus Was Way Cool: "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior?" "No, but I love his work."
- Killed Offscreen: The fate of Phyllis Stein, Hedwig's unseen manager (portrayed by Andrea Martin in the film), after Mitchell returned to the role for the Broadway production. About two-thirds into the show, Mitchell's Hedwig launched into a rather absurd monologue about how Phyllis died during a "routine face transplant". Subsequent Hedwigs do not give this monologue, but do refer to Phyllis as their "late" manager.
- Larynx Dissonance: Yitzhak, Hedwig's second husband, is traditionally played by a woman. His distinctly feminine voice is the only giveaway underneath the fake facial hair and men's clothing, which emphasizes how he is a feminine person who is forced to act masculine.
- Medium Blending: The film features an animated segment during "The Origin of Love", depicting the myth from Aristophanes' Symposium. In the stage production, this is achieved by having an animation projected onto scrim fabric, so that the animation and the performer can be seen at the same time.
- Mind Screw:
- The film's ending takes an abstract turn after Hedwig and Tommy crash into a news truck. The Angry Inch is performing in Times Square, when suddenly she appears on an empty stage, where Tommy apologizes to her through the song "Wicked Little Town (Reprise)". Then, just as suddenly, Hedwig is back with her band, who is all wearing white. In the final shot, Hedwig is walking alone, naked in an alleyway, and her tattoo transforms from a split face into a whole face. The movie up to this point is fairly grounded, so this turn for the abstract adds a lot of ambiguity to the film.
- The play's ending is also much more abstract than the rest of the show. Hedwig has a breakdown in the form of the song "Exquisite Corpse", where she seemingly transforms into Tommy. He begs for forgiveness through the song "Wicked Little Town (Reprise)", and then turns back into Hedwig, who has a new sense of identity. It's unclear how much of this is abstract, and how much is literal.
- Mrs. Robinson:
- Hedwig initiates a relationship with then-17-year-old Tommy when she is at least thirty.
- As an added bonus, when Hedwig married Luther Robinson, she took his last name—therefore, she really is a Mrs. Robinson.
- Musical World Hypothesis:
- In the stage version, all of the songs are diagetic (with the possible exception of "Wicked Little Town (Reprise)")
- The film, however, has a few music numbers that seem to be renderings of Hedwig's imagination. "Wig in a Box" is a flashback to an epiphany conveyed as a musical number, and the final four numbers ("Hedwig's Lament," "Exquisite Corpse," "Wicked Little Town (Reprise)", and especially "Midnight Radio") are presented in a Mind Screw that could be any combination of Diegetic, All In Their Heads, or Adaptation.
- Mythpunk: The story heavily references Aristophanes' speech from Plato's Literature/Symposium, in which he tells a story about how humanity used to be composed of two people combined, but they were split in half by the gods for their hubris, and that is why people feel "whole" when they find their partner. Hedwig strongly believes in this story, and spends her whole life searching for her "other half" so that she can finally feel complete.
- Pun: Hansel delivered what he called a "brilliant lecture" on rock 'n' roll and East German philosophy entitled "You Kant Always Get What You Want." Extended in the revival with the subtitle "But If You Try Sometime, You Might Get What You Nietzche."
- Punny Name: Phyllis Stein, the band's manager. Also Yitzhak's original stage name (which also
Crosses the Line Twice), Krystal Nacht. - Radio Song: "Midnight Radio" is about the magic of radio and rock 'n roll, and about how it brings together "all the misfits and the losers."
- Rage Against the Heavens: "Origin of Love" has a lot of elements of this, cursing the gods for splitting people in two so that they're forced to spend their lives searching for their soulmates."...like two pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit together but are jammed together and left on a table by... (railing at the heavens)... SOME DANGEROUS SHUT-IN WITH TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS!"
- Recursive Crossdressing: When Yitzhak finally gets his "dream" of becoming a drag queen. The role is traditionally played by a woman dressed as a man, who reverts to dressing as a woman/drag queen at the end of the show.
- Recycled Set: In-universe. In the Broadway revival, Hedwig's performance takes place in a theatre that just produced a musical adaptation of The Hurt Locker. Hedwig convinced a producer to let her perform with the show's set.
- Reincarnation Romance: The subject of "Origin of Love", adapted from Plato's Symposium, is how men and woman (and men and men and women and women) were once joined together as one person and the gods cut them in half for hubris; love therefore comes from meeting your past-life other half.
- Sad Clown: In the stage play, Hedwig has a running joke going on where she asks her audience if she's laughing or crying. It becomes clear after a while that she's grinning so hard because if she'd ever give into crying, she'd pretty much kill herself."I laugh because I will cry if I don't."
- Shout-Out:
- "And then there were the crypto homo rockers: Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, David Bowie...."
- "Here's to Patti, and Tina, and Yoko, Aretha, and Nona (Hendryx), and Nico and me."
- The entire song is a fairly obvious tribute to Rock 'n' Roll Suicide.
- "Wig in a Box" directly references LaVern Baker and uses some of her style.
- Hedwig shouts "Tommy, can you hear me?" when talking about Tommy Gnosis.
- The 2014 Broadway Revival adds references to David Belasco, John Barrymore, Marlon Brando, Tim Curry and Mark Rylance as well as a slew of shoutouts to shows that had previously played at the Belasco before Hedwig's "special one night only performance."
- Separated by the Wall: Hansel and Luthor (an American stationed in East Germany) are both on the East side of the Berlin Wall, but in order to cross over and move with him to America, Hansel must become Hedwig to marry him. The song "Angry Inch" details the botched sex change operation, and the song "Tear Me Down" explicitly compares Hedwig to the wall itself — "Ladies and gentlemen, Hedwig is like that wall! Standing before you in a divide between East and West, slavery and freedom, man and woman, top and bottom."
- Storyboard Body: Hedwig has a tattoo of what looks like half of a face, symbolizing how she's searching for her other half. The end of the movie somehow has the tattoo become whole, as she finally learns how to accept herself as she is.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Luther initially takes the sunbathing Hansel for a girl when he sees him from behind. Hansel corrects him somewhat dramatically by turning around and revealing that he has a penis.
- Unusual Euphemism: "My bishop in a turtleneck" is used as a euphemism for a penis. Used once more in the stage show, after which Hedwig congratulates herself on a successful running gag.
- White Void Room: In the film, the song "Midnight Radio" is performed in a completely white room, with the band members all wearing white.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: At one point, Yitzhak just shouts that Hedwig should just write her own songs instead of constantly stalking Tommy.
- Word Salad Lyrics:
- Several verses in "Exquisite Corpse." Some stanzas are coherent ("Inside I'm hollowed out, outside's a paper shroud, and all the rest's illusion"), but then you get this verse:
''A random pattern with a needle and thread
The overlapping way diseases are spread to
A tornado body with a hand grenade head
And the legs are two lovers entwined!- Of course, word salad is what an exquisite corpse is supposed to be. A coherent one actually ruins the point of the exercise.
