Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Hedwig and the Angry Inch with Mia Schachter

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Hedwig and the Angry Inch with Mia Schachter · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
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• 2:26
  Speaker 2: The Bechtelcast. Hello.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Hello. Listeners of the Bechdel cast, you've tuned in to
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: the episode on Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Cut to four elderly straight people.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: And we immediately walk them.
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  Speaker 4: I have a guitar. I could do it.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh. If you would do the honors.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know if it's in tune, but maybe that
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: fits with the movie, actually.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I would not say that what I just did could
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: be described as in tune. Okay, wait. Welcome to the Bechdelcast,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: the podcast where we take a look at your favorite
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: movies from an intersectional feminist lens.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: My name is Caitlin Durante.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: My name is Jamie Loftus. But Caitlin, what the fuck
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: is the Bechdel test?
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: It's a media metric created by friend of the show,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Alison Bechdel. First appearing in her comic collection, Dykes to
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Watch Out For, in the 80s, has since become a
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: more mainstream media metric. There are many different versions of it.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: The one that we use is, do two characters of
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  Speaker 3: a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other?
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: And is their conversation about something other than a man?
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Take it home.
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  Speaker 4: Woo!
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  Speaker 2: Yay!
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  Speaker 3: Applause, applause!
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: And today we're talking about Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 2001,
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  Speaker 2: John Cameron Mitchell. Yet another movie as we celebrate our
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: tenure that you'd think we would have covered it by
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: this time, but we're doing it today. And we have
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: an incredible guest. So let's get them in here. Let's
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: get them in the mix.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Indeed.
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  Speaker 2: Well, actually, they've already been in the mix, unbeknownst to you.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: Literally the mix, if we're talking about audio mixing. They
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  Speaker 3: are an author, multimedia artist, and intimacy coordinator for TV, film,
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  Speaker 3: and theater. It's their mission to make consent education as
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: digestible and widely available as possible so that you can
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: identify your desires, needs, and boundaries better. and authentically express
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: them to others in your own unique voice. And they
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  Speaker 3: are the author of the book, How to Do Consent
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  Speaker 3: Without Sounding Like a Robot, that comes out September 15th.
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  Speaker 3: It's Mia Schachter.
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  Speaker 4: Hi.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome.
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  Speaker 4: Hi, thank you for having me. I'm very, very excited
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  Speaker 4: about this.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, we're so excited to have you.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here. We would love to hear,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: before we jump into the discussion, more about your book.
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  Speaker 2: Tell us more about it.
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  Speaker 3: Sure.
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  Speaker 4: It's published by North Atlantic Books. It's coming out September 15th.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: It's a book of essays and interviews about consent divided
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: by topic. So there's gender, sex, creativity, which I think
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: we'll end up talking about a lot today. I talk
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: about accountability and regret, what consent is and what it isn't. Yeah,
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: those are like the different parts within the book. And
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: then I have each part is punctuated by an interview
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  Speaker 4: with someone who, you know, who's like niche realm relates
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: to that topic.
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  Speaker 3: Very cool.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Very excited to get into it. Well, we'll link it
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: in the description for all of our, for all of
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: our listeners. I feel like this is a, this is,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: this is a perfect overlap. Well, with that, shall we
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: jump into Hedwig and the Angry Inch? What is your
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: history with this I guess film, stage production, whatever order
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: it came to you in.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Okay, I think I saw this movie for the first
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: time in college. And I was blown away. I grew
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: up on Rent. Like that was a formative musical for me.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: I was born in 1989. I was listening to that
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: soundtrack by the time I was like eight years old.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: I had the whole thing memorized. And then I found
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: Hedwig and it felt so... kind of, you know, aesthetically
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: and like tonally related. And I loved how it was
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: sort of like a musician's musical, you know, like it's
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  Speaker 4: not a full orchestra. There's like a rock band on
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  Speaker 4: stage and it's about a musician and it was very
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: like indie, but just such a stunning story. And then
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: I worked at a coffee shop in New York, um,
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: a chain called Think Coffee and And I was serving
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  Speaker 4: John Cameron Mitchell a triple espresso like most mornings.
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  Speaker 2: That's a very punk rock coffee order. I know.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: Well, and more punk rock, he was showing up in
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: a leather jacket with a motorcycle helmet.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: And then ordering a triple espresso? Okay, kind of terrifying.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. I know.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I know.
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  Speaker 4: But it was so exciting. I do think at some
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: point I worked up the courage to say, like, I'm
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: a big fan, you know? And then I guess, you know,
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  Speaker 4: every time I've, like, been in, like, a new sort
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: of serious relationship, I've been like, we need to watch this. Like,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: it's time to watch Hedwig, you know? It's like Romeo
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: and Juliet, the Baz Luhrmann version.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: A movie called The Apartment, which I also almost suggested.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: We've covered it before. It's amazing.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: One of my top, top favorite movies. Also so interesting
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: from like a consent perspective, especially like in the modern era.
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: And Hedwig. So it's just an iconic movie for me.
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  Speaker 4: And then I also recently wrote and starred in and
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  Speaker 4: produced my own musical. And it's very much, you know,
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  Speaker 4: a child of Hedwig. Like, my musical wouldn't exist without Hedwig.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, awesome.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: That's incredible. Wait, can we know more about the musical?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's about my sort of torrid love affair and
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: codependent relationship with a tapeworm that I had for a
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: few years. Yeah, unknowingly, until it came out. And so
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  Speaker 4: it's the story of me, like, discovering why I've been sick. Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 4: And then trying to like extricate myself from this relationship,
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  Speaker 4: both with this worm, but also like with the identity
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: of ill, of like chronically ill and disabled. And then
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  Speaker 4: also like as an artist losing this crutch that like
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  Speaker 4: allowed me to kind of hide and stay small and
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  Speaker 4: like not go to the party and, you know, just
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  Speaker 4: be like, I'm going to stay home and yeah like
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  Speaker 4: sort of losing that crutch and now feeling like there's
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  Speaker 4: nothing stopping me but me sure as an artist and
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  Speaker 4: then the the worm takes over the show and I
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: have to kind of work my way back into it
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: as a parasite would.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: That sounds so interesting that rocks that.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So much I want to see it that's so cool.
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  Speaker 4: Well, we're doing it again in November in Los Angeles
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  Speaker 4: at the Elysian Theater.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, we perform there all the time. We're both in LA.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, really?
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: Oh, well, then you guys should come.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. I love the Elysian.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: Great.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Back to Hedwig. Jamie, what's your history with the movie?
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  Speaker 2: I had seen it once before, and it was such
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: a great experience seeing it the first time that I
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: feel like I haven't returned to it because I think
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: I had a really optimal first experience. with Hedwig. But Mia,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: to echo you, I was also a huge Rent kid.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: I remember when I think Rent closed on Broadway. when
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  Speaker 2: I was in middle school and I lived in Massachusetts
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: and me and my best friends who were also twins
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: who were obsessed with rent, we like devised a plan
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  Speaker 2: to go. I just, it was like a big part
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: of my childhood. And also, you know, I think a
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: lot of kids, you know, like found rent and it
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: opened up all these other doors. And I think Hedwig
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  Speaker 2: for many of those same kids is one of the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: first doors you encounter. You kind of graduate from, From
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: being a rent child and then you become a Hedwig teen, maybe.
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  Speaker 4: Totally.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: But I don't know why, but it took me a
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: long time to see Hedwig. And the first time I
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: saw it was in a basement in Indiana early into.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Touring as a standup and it was just like this
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: awesome standup community in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was like
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: this big pocket of queer comics. And, um, I just
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: remember I was crashing with someone and they were like, Oh,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: we're gonna have a bunch of people over and watch Hedwig.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: And so it was like, it was optimal. I saw
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Hedwig in a room full of like former Hedwig teens
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: and who were so stoked that I had never seen it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: It felt, and we'll talk about all of the ways
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: that Hedwig is in conversation with Rocky Horror, but it
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: felt sort of like the experience of seeing Rocky Horror
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: for the first time, where it was just like, you know,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: for positive reasons and reasons that are more complicated, but
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: just unbridled enthusiasm that I had never seen it before.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: And like the night became about like, oh my God,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: someone's seeing it for the first time. How exciting. Also
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: a John Cameron Mitchell fan. The music is pretty unbeatable.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Even though I'd only seen the movie once, I have
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Hedwig's in my rotation. And there's also a lot to
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: talk about, and I'm excited too. Yeah, Caitlin, what's your history?
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: I saw this for the first time during the great
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Caitlin movie binge of 2005, as I've seen many movies
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: for the first time. And I haven't watched it since.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Listeners of the show may know that I'm not the
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: biggest musical head. I do. I find that musicals with
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: like diegetic music are easier for me to digest.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: What does that mean?
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: So.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Diegetic audio is when the music is like coming from
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: within the story so like when they're playing a show
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: in front of a crowd that's like happening within the
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: context of the world and the story versus non-diegetic audio
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: is any audio that only the audience can hear versus
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the other characters within the world so when characters are
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: in a musical and they just sort of like burst
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: into song about their feelings or whatever and no other
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: characters are meant to really be hearing it. So for example,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: I love like Josie and the Pussycats where they're playing
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: like diegetic concerts and Spice World where they're playing... diegetic
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: songs and things like that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Got it. I feel like the best yardstick for like,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: because it, I feel like I was mixing it up
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: for years and the best movie to use as a
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: yardstick is Chicago because they have numbers that start non-diegetic
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: and then become diegetic. Like they have numbers that like
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: straddle it in a fun way.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: So Hedwig and the Angry Inch has diegetic songs, but
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: even so, something I'm just like really discovering about myself
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: is is that when someone, I just don't like to
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: watch people sing. I just sort of completely tune out.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: Unless it really pushes the story forward in a meaningful way,
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: which this movie does as well. There's a lot of
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: exposition in the music, but I mean.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of the songs are just straight up,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: and then this happened, but in a way that's awesome.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I know. What I'm saying is that
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: I appreciate elements of this movie, but I'm not the
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: biggest fan. So I'm the villain of the episode once again.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: You don't have to come to my musical.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: No, I actually like watching... a live musical on the stage.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Live. Titanic. Titanic. Oh, wow.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: I traveled across an ocean to see Paddington the musical.
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: I like like a live musical on the stage.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: So I will be there. Yes.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: We'll be in attendance.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: I should add to my history with this movie that
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: I did actually see John Cameron Mitchell do it on Broadway.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's amazing.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It was incredible. They like, they revived it and
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: they did it with a rotating cast of Hedwig's. So
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: like Taye Diggs played Hedwig.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: That's the Hedwig. I was like, that would have been
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: my Hedwig of choice.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: Well, I didn't know when John Cameron Mitchell did it
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: that Taye was, I think, next. Rent history there. So anyway,
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: I saw John Cameron Mitchell do it live and it
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: was incredible.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: That sounds amazing. Yeah. I wasn't sure because we've covered...
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Throughout the course of the show, there is an interesting
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: pattern of... Basically, I didn't know if the show started
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: on stage or went on stage.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: I think it started on stage. It did. And then
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: it became a movie, and then it got revived on stage.
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: And by the way, I realized this this time that
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: I watched the movie, because I watched it last week
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: in preparation for this, John Cameron Mitchell didn't write the music. No.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: I always just assumed that he did.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: I know. I feel like it's because he embodies... Hedwig
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: so fully that you just assumed. But it was like, oh, yeah,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: I guess you can't be good at that many things.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: Well, but he does sing, you know, like he is
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: obviously musical.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: So, but I don't know, maybe he just didn't feel
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: like he could write the songs.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah, he and a writer named Stephen
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Trask co-wrote the book for the original stage production. And
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: then John Cameron Mitchell wrote the screenplay for the movie.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: But then the other songs were written by... I didn't.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Write it down. Well, this is like another way that
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Hedwig feels more in... Because we've covered movies that have starred...
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Like movies that have... non-conforming gender main characters that started
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: as a movie and went to Broadway, usually with diminishing returns.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about Tootsie. I'm thinking about Priscilla, Queen of
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: the Desert.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Mrs. Doubtfire.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Mrs. Doubtfire and Toowong Fu all have become Broadway musicals.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: But I think that this sort of firmed up in
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: my head. I was like, oh, Hedwig is way more
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: like Rocky Horror because Rocky Horror was like stage to
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: movie back to stage and has like more of an
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: indie spirit than like a successful movie being turned into
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: a Broadway musical. Right.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Right. But anyways. Yeah.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: So, so we've, we'd all seen it before and I
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: think that this is the first time I've seen Hedwig
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: and the Angry Inch that I like knew who Miriam
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Shore was. So that was delightful.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: I don't, who is that?
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Miriam Shore plays Yitzhak. Yitzhak. Hedwig's husband. Oh, um, and
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: I really enjoyed her in the TV land series younger.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: And so I was like, wait, I reckon anyways.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: And right.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: I've seen her. She's been around for ages and I, I,
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: I forgot her name, but yes, I've seen her. I mean,
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: oh my God, I can't even remember what I've seen
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: her and I've seen her and she's just like ever
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: so present.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: If there's one, if there's one thing I love, it's
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: a Gen X character actor. And so that this movie
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: is rewarding in many, many ways.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Oh, and she was in just like, and just like that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: She's been in so many things and, and, and is so, um,
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: disguised in this movie.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Right yeah which i'm interested to talk about further as
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: well but yeah i guess should we get into the
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: recap but take a quick break first sure sure And
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: we're back. And here is the recap of Hedwig and
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: the Angry Inch. We meet Hedwig, played by John Cameron Mitchell,
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: the lead singer of a band called Hedwig and the
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Angry Inch. They are performing at a show that's at
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: like a family diner in Kansas city. And they are
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: like walking a bunch of people out of the room.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: This is like, this scene is so as I mean, Caitlin,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: I know you have this as well, but like as a,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: as a long standup comic who has performed in so
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: many rooms full of people who are just straight up
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: angry to see you.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I feel very seen, uh, by this movie and also
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: slightly triggered by it. We were like, oh, a restaurant
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: full of people who are like, get the hell out
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: of here.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, who didn't know a comedy show was about to
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: happen and then it's sprung on them and they're furious
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Well, doesn't she play... She plays at like an old
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: folks home at some point, like a nursing home at
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: some point.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Traveling artist PTSD.
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: She perpetually performs for audiences that do not want to
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: see her. Yeah.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Very true.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Which is like artistically like in very like the movie.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: And I love it. But I was like, damn.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: It hits. Yeah.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's part of why it hit
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: in that basement in Indiana. Cause we had sort of
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: just done a show that was not dissimilar to that setting.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: Okay. So people are walking out of this show and
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: it's implied that part of the reason, if not the
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: entire reason is that Hedwig is wearing a you know,
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: big exaggerated drag makeup and a big blonde wig. And
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: the people in the crowd are boring, queerphobic, straight people.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Hedwig sings a song about the Berlin Wall. We will
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: come to learn that Hedwig was born in Berlin in 1961,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: the year that the Berlin Wall was erected, and she
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: grew up in East Berlin. And we'll learn more about
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: that in a bit. But first, we get better acquainted
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: with one of Hedwig's bandmates slash her romantic partner, Yitzhak,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: played by Miriam Shore, who is upset because a famous
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: musician named Tommy Gnosis, played by Michael Pitt, comes on
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: the TV playing the same song that Hedwig and the
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Angry Inch just played. We will come to learn that
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: this is a song that Tommy Gnosis stole from Hedwig
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: and then we discover that Hedwig and her band are
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: on tour and they are like following slash stalking the
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: tour that Tommy Gnosis is doing and it seems like
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: and this will be later confirmed that Tommy was a
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: former protege of Hedwig but something happened between them and
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: they had a falling out The band's manager, Phyllis, played
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: by Andrea Martin of Everything.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Oh, big fat Greek wedding. Also an incredible singer in
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: her own right. And so interesting, like musical theater actress.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: And so interesting that she's in this show and doesn't
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: sing a peep.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But anyway, Phyllis tells Hedwig like, hey, maybe stalking
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Tommy isn't the best idea, especially because you're tangled up
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: in a lawsuit right now. because Hedwig is suing Tommy
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: for stealing her music. Then Hedwig and the Angry Inch
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: play another small show. We get an animated sequence about
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Hedwig pondering who her other half might be, There's a
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: reference to Plato's Symposium.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very heady. This is like, God, it makes
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: me wish I had seen this movie when I was
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: 14 because, you know, the Plato of it all would
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: have really been like....
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: I believe it's an Aristophanes story. I studied philosophy in college.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the Aristophanes two halves where people get split Yeah,
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: in Plato's Symposium, the playwright Aristophanes explains that humans were
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: originally spherical creatures with two faces, four arms, four legs,
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: and then Zeus punished them and split them apart, and
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: so everyone spends their lives seeking out their missing other half. Yeah,
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: it's like the soulmate origin story, that there is really
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: only one true love out there for you.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Right, and... I believe the title of the song is
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: The Origin of Love.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Sure is.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: And then Hedwig also reveals more about her childhood, that
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: she was raised as a little boy named Hansel by
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: a German mother and an American GI father who eventually
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: left after Hansel's mother kicked him out.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: For sexually abusing Hansel.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Yes. Which is, I think, more explicit in the stage
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: version than the movie, but I was... it feels pretty
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: explicit in the movie. Well, it's interesting because in the
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: original reviews of the movie, they're like, it's not explicitly said.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I, I felt differently, but I was okay.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that you're on the same page there. Cause
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: I was like, I feel like it was maybe not
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: in actual words, but it is like heavily.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, visually it's interesting. It is very downplayed. He's
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: sort of, They have clothes on in the bed. It
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: looks like they're sleeping, spooning. But then the mother violently
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: wrenches the father away and, you know, slaps him, punches
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: him and says out, out, out and tries to, you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: kicks him out of the house. So you know what happened.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: But we don't see. I think it's a beautiful representation
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: where like we know, but we didn't actually have to
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: see it.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah. It's all in the mother's reaction.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Right, so we get that bit of backstory, and then
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: we also learn that Hansel spent his childhood... listening to
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: and being influenced by American rock music. Back in the present,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: the next show that the band does is at a
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Menzies fair.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: Which is so funny.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: And no one's at their stage. There's one girl there.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: One person. During this performance, Hedwig reveals more of her
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: backstory and which is when she was in her early,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: late 20s, still living as Hansel, meets an American soldier
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: named Luther, played by Maurice Dean Wint, who takes a
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: liking to Hansel and offers up a bunch of American
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: candy and becomes Hansel's, like, literal sugar daddy.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, gooby bars.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: And then the two of them get together romantically and
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: devise a plan for Luther to more or less smuggle
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Hansel out of East Berlin to the U.S. So the
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: plan is that Luther will marry Hansel, but same-sex marriage
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: is not legal at this time and place. So Hansel
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: will take his mother's passport and start using her name, Hedwig.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: But also Hansel will need to have surgery to remove
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: his penis so that he can pass as a woman.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: And I hope I'm describing this correctly because Hedwig is
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: trans but more out of legal necessity than identity.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: Yes. This was something that I found... We can talk
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: about it more after we're done with the recap, but
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: I was particularly struck by her gender journey this time
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: watching it because I knew I was going to be
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: talking about it. And so I was thinking about, like,
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: you know, I want to have a discussion about her gender,
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: but it's definitely not going to be in the, like,
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: you know, what we would call... proper terminology like i
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: don't even i was thinking like i don't even know
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: if this movie would pass like glad's screening for transphobia
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: sure you know because it's like it's a totally bizarre
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: story that doesn't um yeah i mean i think it
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: sort of runs the risk of being accused of like
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: uh it's not really it's not a detransition story but
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: it's like it's not the kind of story that makes
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: you think, Oh yeah, like let's support, you know, if
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: you're trying to convince anyone that like trans people deserve
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: rights and that this is something you're, you know, that
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: a lot of people feel like they're born this way.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: And like, this is not the story that's going to
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: change your mind, you know?
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Which I kind of didn't remember exactly. Like my, my
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: vague memory of this movie from when I saw it
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: like 20 years ago, I was like, oh yeah, Hedwig
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: is like, it's not as though Hedwig always identified as
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: a woman and then had like gender affirming surgery.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: She transitioned for survival, but not the kind of survival
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: that we usually talk about with trans people being like
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: gender affirming care is like life-saving, you know, it's like
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: it was, it was for right legal purposes. It was
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: like under duress.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Well, it's also like, I, it's so true. Everything I've seen,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, I read a lot of analysis of this
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: movie and it's so so polarizing and whether the critic
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: and there's been so many gender non-conforming people and trans
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: critics who have written about this movie whether they're like
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: pro-con or somewhere in the middle the word messy comes
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: up everywhere as a positive or a negative and that's
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: just like inherent to the story because it's like I
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: don't even know I was like struggling with do we
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: talk about Hedwig transitioning or being transitioned because she, like
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Hedwig doesn't want to transition. Like there's no, we have,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: there's nothing about Hedwig that we're told Hedwig. It's so,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: it's so, it's just messy.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Cause it's like Hedwig, what we know about Hedwig is
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Hedwig wants to be an androgynous rockstar and Hedwig becomes
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: an androgynous rockstar and And then there's also all this
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: other shit going on. And like, it's just, it's yeah,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: it's messy.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Exactly. In any case, Hansel has surgery to become Hedwig,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: but the doctor botches the surgery and leaves Hedwig with,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: as she describes it, a one inch mound of flesh
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: between her legs, an angry inch, hence the name of
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: the band. And then we cut back to the present
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: and the band performs a song at a show about
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: the Angry Inch. And some of the crowd is horrified. Again,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of the people watching these shows are kind
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: of there by accident. And so a brawl breaks out
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: between the band and their fans and the queer phobic
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: audience members.
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: She's at like a trucker bar at this point or something.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: It's like, I'm like, who books this?
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Phyllis maybe should be booking different venues. There are, there
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: are queer bars all across the U S. Yeah.
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: Undoubtedly in the towns, the cities that Tommy Gnosis is
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: stopping in with his huge tour, there is for sure
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: queer bars.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does seem like Phyllis might be operating on
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: some old directories, maybe.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Anyway, we cut back to the flashback where shortly after
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Hedwig and Luther arrive in the U.S., Luther leaves her
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: for someone else, a young man. And this happens at
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: the same time that the Berlin Wall falls. And Hedwig realizes,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: oh no, if I had just waited a little bit,
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't have had to have that surgery.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: Can I talk about this scene? This scene was like,
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: it's the most heartbreaking, I think.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: I totally agree. In the whole movie.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: In the whole movie. Because she also doesn't say anything.
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: She's like slumped down in this like market lounger. Yeah.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: Next to a TV. Just kind of like, she looks,
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: you know, almost dead. And he's standing in the doorway
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: of their trailer. Like, they're living in an RV. He's
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: standing in the door with a twink.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: And the twink is carrying his luggage. Like, you know,
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: chases him out of the trailer. Barely, you know, struggling
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: with his luggage. And it's like, oh, he really just wants, like,
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: an assistant. Like, I don't know, you know.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: And then.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: Right, what you see, so they leave and you're left
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: watching Hedwig, she just like slowly turns her head to
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: the TV that's next to her that's playing the news
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: that the Berlin Wall fell. So she could have stayed
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: in Berlin, she could have not left her mother, she
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: could have not gotten this surgery, you know, and not
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: ended up like completely uprooting and destroying her life somewhat.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: Like all of this was for nothing. And it's just,
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: it's done almost entirely in silence. Agreed.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: It's just, it's devastating. It's so, and I think I
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: was trying to think of like other, it's also just
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: like such a specific devastation that I've never really seen
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: anywhere else of like Hedwig did everything that was necessary. necessary.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: But if the timeline had shifted by a year, it
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: would be just a totally different story. And I mean,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: there's so again, just speaking to and I hope I'm
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: not like, yeah, this movie is such a minefield. But
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: all of the ways that like Hedwig is, there's like
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: distance as Hedwig figures out who they are. That's also
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: a cultural thing, right? It's like, Hedwig is also caught
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: between this German identity and this very American identity that
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: is almost like on this viewing, I was like, oh,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Hedwig is almost like doing American drag as well. Because
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: it's like she's performing this Americanness. She's performing an American
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: rock star, even though when we cut back to Hansel,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Hansel is like almost comically German coded. like Gumi bears.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: And so it's just like, there's, there's all of these
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: different layers to who Hedwig is. And I feel like
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: obviously gender takes literally center stage in this movie, but
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, there's also like this big cultural
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: battle that is going on inside of Hedwig as well
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: of like, just where, where am I supposed to be?
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: Displaced in so many ways.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Right. And I mean, I feel like Luther is also
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: a fascinating character because he, when he approaches Hansel, he
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: seems to think that Hansel is a cis woman. Right.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: It says like, Hey girl. And then is sort of
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: surprised to see that Hansel has a penis, but that
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: doesn't deter Luther. Luther, who is an American soldier, which
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: is like supposed to be the embodiment of men, like masculinity,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: but he's clearly queer and, you get the sense that
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: Luther never loved Hansel, more just like fetishized him. Yeah.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: So for Hedwig slash Hansel to make this huge sacrifice
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: for someone who didn't even love them is like, so,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: and so Hedwig is very, very depressed about this. And
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: then what follows is a song that seems to be
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: about like, making the best of this situation, putting on
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: makeup and wearing wigs.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: Put on my makeup. Yeah, that's one of my favorites.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: It's really good, especially the sing-along bit at the end.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: It's so campy, too. I love it.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So back in the present, the band continues to
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: stalk Tommy Gnosis' Torf. And things are getting tense among
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: the bandmates. Hedwig yells at someone that you can't put
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: a bra in the dryer. It'll warp! And then Hedwig
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: starts to divulge the backstory about Tommy. where Hedwig used
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: to be Tommy's babysitter when she was in her late 20s,
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: and Tommy was 17. Uh-oh, that's something we'll also talk about.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, she was babysitting his baby sibling, who I
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: would imagine is from his dad's new family. He hates
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: his dad. And so Tommy was around, but she wasn't
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: his babysitter. Was my impression.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: That makes sense. Even so, he is underage.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: It plays into a lot of negative stereotypes around queer
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: people as well.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: Like it's just as predatory.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: So we'll talk about that. What's happening in the meantime
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: is that Hedwig is like getting back into her love
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: of music. And so she takes Tommy under her wing
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: and Coaches him and teaches him about music and also
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: grooms him both hygienically and predatorially. And they develop a
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: romantic relationship. Although Tommy avoids Hedwig's angry inch until one
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: day they start getting more physically intimate and he dies.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: discovers it and freaks out and then Hedwig berates him
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: for not accepting her as she is and then he
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: kind of storms out and they break up back in
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: the present Hedwig's bandmate and partner Yitzhak announces that he's
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: leaving because he got cast in a production of Rent
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: and wants a divorce from Hedwig iconic crossover.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: Rent is a recurring theme in this show too yeah.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's a motif for sure. And Hedwig is furious
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: and rips up Yitzhak's passport. He's an immigrant from somewhere
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: in Eastern Europe, I think maybe Croatia.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: Yitzhak also makes me think Jewish, which, you know, just
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: the German background there is interesting, like the German-Jewish coming
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: together thing. Also confusing gender stuff, because later Yitzhak is...
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: a woman in a dress being like passed around by
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: everybody in a crowd, right? At the end, like towards
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: the end.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: Wait, I might've missed that.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: I thought that was, I thought that was Hedwig.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: No.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Did I?
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: It's Yitzhak.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Oh dear.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: So then she rips up his passport and, um, what
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: was I going to say about, oh yeah, that it's
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: like a step too far for a lot of people,
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: including Hedwig. Andrea Martin Phyllis, the tour manager, where they're like, oh,
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: you're like a despicable person. It's like she's crossed a line.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Hedwig.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: has some anger issues, we'll say. And Phyllis quits. And yeah,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: things are very tense in the band. And then Hedwig,
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: who has started working as a sex worker, has a
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: brief reunion with Tommy, who again has become a famous
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: musician by stealing Hedwig's songs. they reunite and like sort
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: of reconcile very temporarily, but then paparazzi see them together
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: and take photos that get published in gossip rags about
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: how Tommy was with a trans sex worker, which Tommy denies.
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah. He says, well, hold on. Can I insert?
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: So right before that, Tommy pulls up in a limousine
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: to pick up Hedwig while she's working working as a
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: sex worker and she gets in the car and again
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: in silence he takes his album and it says like
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: songs written by tommy gnosis and a sharpie and he
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: puts a little carrot and writes out like by hedwig
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: i don't remember her last name robinson robinson the idea
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: being he's trying to kind of make peace here right
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: and say like you know let's be collaborators again And
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: then through, I actually don't remember what happens, but they
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: end up on kind of a bender, right?
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. They're like driving around together and then they crash
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: into each other.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: A truck and that's when you know page six their
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: faces their mug shots come up and he says i
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: don't know that woman i've never met her in my
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: life and he's suddenly like swearing her off again yeah
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: um so it's like it's a huge betrayal.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: For sure yes but then Hedwig goes on talk shows
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: such as the Rosie O'Donnell show to, which.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: I think is pulled from an actual clip of the
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Rosie O'Donnell show during the off Broadway run prior to this.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Cause I read that. Yeah. That Rosie O'Donnell had like the,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: the production of Hedwig on the show and it like
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: caused a bunch of assholes to be upset about like
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Hedwig and the angry inch on daytime TV. So I'm,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming it's a clip from that.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: Don't know for sure, but, Either way, Hedwig is talking
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: publicly about her experience, her side of the story, and
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: becomes famous in so doing, and performs a big show.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Although at the same time, Hedwig seems to be kind
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: of unraveling. And she rips off her wig and dress.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: And then this is where things start to become surreal.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: So I might need some help with what's going on exactly.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: But Hedwig goes to watch Tommy perform, but it's not
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: clear if.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: I think at this point we're in, like, dream world.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Dream world, yeah.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: In this scene, they seem to kind of reconcile again.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: And then we see Hedwig perform with her band once more.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: But this time she's doing so dressed kind of as Tommy.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: And I had to look this up, but what seems
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: to be going on here is that Hedwig created her
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: other half. So that reference to Plato's Symposium and finding
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: your other half, it's that she created her other half
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: out of herself.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: This is also like, there's like a fight club interpretation. Yeah.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: That they were the same person the whole time.
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: Yes. And when I showed this movie to my partner-
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: I had never thought this before, but at the end
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: he was like, so did she die? And I was like, what?
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Whoa. Okay.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: Wait, now that I think about it, because they wrote
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: the same songs.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: They're on the same tour, more or less.
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: In the same cities. Whoa. I know.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Damn.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: It changes.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: That would help resolve some of the messier elements of
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: the movie also.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm also now lost in someone's Tumblr synopsis of this,
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: where they're saying that, you know, you said Hedwig looks
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: like Tommy, and it's like, has she been Tommy the
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: whole time? Mm-hmm. And Michael Pitt, to cast Michael Pitt,
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: I mean, he is like an exceptionally kind of androgynous
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: 90s star, you know. He was like in the vein
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: of Leo in that time. I don't want to be mean,
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: but he was kind of like Leo-lite, you know.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Leo wasn't available. It happens.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Right. That's interesting. I hadn't seen that interpretation and– I mean,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: there's so many ways to look at this movie. It's
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: like there's a trillion interpretations, but that would make sense
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: of like Hedwig looking at a younger version of themselves
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: and like reconciling with a younger version and like all
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: of the pain and confusion, which is definitely, I think,
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: a nice thing to consider and not that hurt people
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: hurt people, which is like what I think the more
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: surface reading of it ends up. being so tough. I
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: was really surprised. I, I think I was just like
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: so drawn in by the music and the, the vibes
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: on my first viewing all those years ago that, um,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, the relationship between Hedwig and, you know, like
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: it's just so tremendously complicated in a way that, you know,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: we're so tuned to be rooting for Hedwig. But like Tommy,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: I'm rooting for Tommy. I feel for him, you know.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: Something that also we haven't addressed here is that Tommy
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: is like a really religious Christian.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: And so he like, first of all, that's like part
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: of his aesthetic. Like he, she draws the cross on
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: his head. And that becomes, like, his sort of go-to, like, branding.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Very rock star vibe, though. I feel like, yeah, rock
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: stars in Christianity.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: Yes. And then he talks about, like, in that scene
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: when he comes home so angry about his dad, he
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: talks about something, I don't remember, but, like, in Christianity
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: that he's, like, sort of trying to, like, justify them
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: being together and, like, Hedwig being the way that she
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: is through this, like, biblical... lens do you remember this.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: Eve was made out of adam.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: Yes eve was made out of adam right and like
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: why would eve just wanted to know things he says
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: like why would we punish and then right that comes
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: back again later in that moment and hedwig is just
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: like i don't need to explain this in some like
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: godly terms like i just am who i am and
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: she's like love the front of me honey you know
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: that line that's like so crushing But my partner's interpretation
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: of her dying is coming back to me. I think
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: he thought that she died in the car crash.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: And so then everything after the car crash.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: Everything after that.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: Interesting.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: Because, I mean, if you think about it, in what
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: world in the early 2000s would an ostensibly trans woman die?
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: shoot up to superstardom in such a queerphobic society at
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: that time. So maybe it is sort of like a
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: post-death fantasy landscape.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: I see the vision. Yeah.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: Maybe, maybe.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: There's just so many.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: I know. I also am reading, okay, like this is
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: not what I thought was going on with the Yitzhak thing,
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: but I'm, I wonder who this cute, sweet person writing
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: on Tumblr about this show. Like, who are you? So
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: that Yitzhak is, in fact, a trans woman. And so
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: the beginning of the movie where Miriam Shore is playing
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: a man, that that's someone who wants to transition to
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: be perceived as a woman. So... Yitzhak and Hedwig begin
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: to embrace themselves as they really are. And Yitzhak is
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: allowed to transition to be a woman.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: To being a woman.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which is so interesting. And also, like, the casting
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: here is... Because I feel like now, if that was...
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: If that is, in fact, the story, now they would
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: cast probably a trans woman who was okay being in
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: drag as a man. Yeah. So that when she, you know...
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: becomes what her true self is, if we're going with
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: this interpretation, that she is actually herself as a trans woman.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wasn't sure what exactly was the intention with
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: the Yitzhak character because it's a cis woman actor. Miriam Shore.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: Playing a man. So I wasn't sure if we were
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: supposed to interpret Yitzhak as trans masc or if just
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: because gender queerness is already such a prevalent theme in
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: this story. Yeah.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: It's like one of the many things that like the
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: 2001 of it all kind of muddles.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: Because I'm like, is it simply just that the filmmakers
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: were like, what if we have a woman play a man?
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: Because why the hell not? And then I found a
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: quote from John Cameron Mitchell talking about him and his
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: co-writer Stephen Trask developing and casting the character of Yitzhak.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: And so he says, quote, Stephen thought we really needed
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: a female voice. So he suggested, why don't we have
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: a woman playing a man? And then we met Miriam Shore.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: There was no question that Miriam was head and shoulders
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: above the rest in the auditions. she had this perfect
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: balance of believable butchness and an incredible voice. Unquote. He
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: goes on to talk about how talented of a vocalist
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Miriam Shore is, but that's kind of the only thing
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I found as far as insight about Yitzhak's gender. So
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: I'm leaning more toward The filmmakers just wanted to play
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: around with gender in their casting choices, which I'm here for.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: And I like that Yitzhak is very open to interpretation.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I wasn't entirely sure what the intention is.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: And sometimes that's because the answer is there kind of
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: wasn't one.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: Shrug. Exactly. Okay. And then what happens at the end
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: of the movie? And then we'll take another quick break
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: and get really fully into the discussion. But as this
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: big show is happening, that Hedwig and the Angry Inch
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: are performing with Hedwig looking like Tommy, Hedwig gives the
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: blonde wig, or a blonde wig, similar to what Hedwig
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: had been wearing.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: Passes the crown, so to speak.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: Over to Yitzhak. And then the movie ends with another
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: quite surreal moment of Hedwig... More appearing as like Hansel
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: walking naked down the street at night.
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: Away from us. Yeah.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: The end.
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: So that's the movie. Let's take a quick break. and
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: then we'll come back and and really dive in and
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: we're back where shall we start Oh boy. Mia, is there,
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: where would you like to begin?
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I touched on it while we were
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: doing the synopsis, but I was really struck this time
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: around by Hedwig's very complicated gender journey that like certainly
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: doesn't follow, you know, any like common trajectory and, you know,
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: turns everything we know on its head about like, and
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: certainly the arguments that are used to like change policy
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: around trans people, like this story might even, um, you know,
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: kind of.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Like things back a bit jeopardize.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: But I think it's incredibly necessary because even though this
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: isn't a true story, like things like this have happened.
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: And it's also interesting because there's like, um, you know,
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: there's like conspiracies around like forced transition. And I think
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: this is a really great example of what that could
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: look like that's more likely than any trans person forcing
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: anyone to transition, which is like the sort of conspiracy idea.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: Well, I think what might inform why this gender journey
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: that the character of Hedwig goes on is so messy
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: as many critics have described is the sort of conception
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: of this story where, and I pull, I'm pulling a
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: lot of this from an oral history of this, like
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: the original stage production and then the movie and then
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: the Broadway stage production is, an oral history in Rolling
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Stone compiled by Jennifer Wood, where many of the key players,
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: including John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, were interviewed. And
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: so basically what happened here is that these two became friends,
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, They're hanging out at
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: this place called The Squeeze Box, where Stephen Trask worked
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: at the time. This was like the early, mid-90s. And
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: John Cameron Mitchell was interested in performing there. But it
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: was a drag club. So Stephen was like, well, I
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: can get you a gig, but you'll have to perform
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: in drag, which John Cameron Mitchell had never done before.
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: So he starts thinking about what this character could be
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: that he creates and what that might look like. And
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: he developed a sense of a character that was loosely
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: based on a babysitter he had from childhood named Helga.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: who he later found out was also a sex worker.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: So Hedwig, the character started to come together from that.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: And then John Cameron Mitchell was also thinking, okay, well,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: if it's me performing in drag, how do I explain
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: all of this? How do I explain this Helga like
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: inspired Hedwig character? And so, and I'm just pulling a
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: quick quote here from the Rolling Stone oral history, John
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: Cameron Mitchell said, quote, I started thinking more about the
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: character and the transgender aspect, the sort of castration angle,
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: and the involuntary sex change just came to me, unquote.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: So it all just kind of.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: Happened.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: Created like conceptually. And then John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: Trask started working on songs for this Hedwig character to sing.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: And they started piecing the show together and they would
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: put it up at different small venues around New York City.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: They would polish it over the course of a few years.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: Eventually it gained a bit of a cult following. A
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: film adaptation was in the works and then kind of
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: the rest is history. But that was the creative conception
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: of this character in this story.
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: Interesting. I mean, that origin story actually like supports the
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: interpretation that Tommy Gnosis and Hedwig are in fact the
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: same person because John Cameron Mitchell was the Tommy character
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: in his own life.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: And then is now playing the babysitter. Right. So that
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: he's both, you.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: Know, it's, Something that I, I mean, because I'm so
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: much of this, I just want to talk about it
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: with both of you and continue to read and figure out,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: because it's just like, it feels like you could be
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: on a journey with this movie forever, kind of. But
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: what I feel very clear on, at least, is that
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: at least a big issue with the conversations around Hedwig
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: is the lack of alternative representation, right? Especially in 2001,
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: there are barely any movies that are centered around gender
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: nonconforming characters. And so for one of the biggest movies
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: centered around a gender nonconforming character to be so messy and...
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: I totally understand why there's so many critics that have
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: a lot of frustration and resentment towards this movie because
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: there are reads of it that sort of argue that
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: it's catering to queer panic narratives, even though I don't
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: believe it was intended to be that way. but I
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: think it like has everything to do with not even
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: so much John Cameron Mitchell, although there is the argument
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: of like cis gay men, but John Cameron Mitchell's non-binary.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: It's all very complicated. All I'm saying is like this
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: movie being the one that is lifted up and that
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: like enters the mainstream canon, I can understand people's frustration
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: with that because there were so few mainstream alternatives about
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: a gender non-conforming character at this time.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Right. And the ones that did exist were completely centered
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: around panic, whether it was like Silence of the Lambs
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: or Psycho or The Crying Game.
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: But I, I really try not to look at works
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: of art that way personally, because I am an artist
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: and I try to like look at the artist and
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: what they're trying to do. And I think that, you know,
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: like saying to an artist, like, people aren't ready for
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: this conversation or something is like yet another form of
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: censorship personally.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying like the
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: way that the media environment of the time received it versus.
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: Like, that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying that you're
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: saying this. I'm saying like, yeah, that, that critique to me,
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: like I, I generally don't want to look at things
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: that way. Like, because I want to think about like,
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: I'm not saying this is what you're doing, Jamie. I'm
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: saying that, like, people are very eager to critique things
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: that way. And it sounds like what you were reading was,
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: you know, that kind of critique. And I think that
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: there's so much value to this movie. And even though
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: it may, you know, we keep using the word messy. Like,
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: even though it may have, it certainly wasn't like painting
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: a trans woman or a gender nonconforming person. person if
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: we're not so sure like how Hedwig would identify also
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: like the language at the time was very different like
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: it's not painting her in a good light but she's
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: a it's a depiction of like a real person like
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: a complex person with like a total you know full
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: like interiority as opposed to someone who's like the serial
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: killer like axe murderer total tertiary character Totally.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: And then I think that there's elements of Hedwig that
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: I've seen criticized. And again, I guess I'll just like
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: cite some of the pieces that I'm looking at. We've
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: cited her reviews on the show before. Sally Jane Black
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: did a review that was like addressing her complicated relationship
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: with this movie over time where she got a lot
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: out of it as a younger person and then grew
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: frustrated with it as time went on, which is, valid
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: um and i'm also looking at an i believe it's
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: an auto straddle article or sorry it's in indie magazine
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: botched surgery forced transition and gay fear how hedwig hurt
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: trans representation just to get a feel for what these
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: arguments are one that i i that chafed with me
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: a bit was i guess i like hedwig is lashes
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: out tremendously at the people in her life in this
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: movie in a way that makes a lot of sense
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: to me. Like, I think sometimes it's like, and we've
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: talked about this on the show before, there is like
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: a resistance to seeing a marginalized character acting out because
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: there's so little representation. When I think at least we're
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: given all the information we need to understand why Hedwig
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: is lashing out in this way.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Traumatic backstory.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: The shit this character has been through. Yeah. And that,
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: you know, in the story, like, I guess maybe it's
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: post-car crash death quote. mark in this dream sequence however
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: you choose to see it that hedwig's character is met
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: with understanding and forgiveness by the people that hedwig or
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: hansel or wherever we we land who knows um yeah
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: has hurt in their life and like I guess, yeah,
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: the one criticism that I really kind of was like, well,
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like, well, she's so cruel to her husband. Like, absolutely.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: You know, tearing up the passport. Diabolical. But also so
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: obvious why she would do that. She is so pathologically
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: terrified of abandonment because she's been abandoned so many times.
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: Desperately clinging.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: And so it's like so much of Hedwig's behavior that
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: it's fair to be critical of, but it's like, in context,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: it's all there. Right.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. And not, it doesn't like excuse the behavior.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: It's really bad behavior. You know, she like needs help,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: you know, in many kinds of help, like anger management therapy.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, she, she's, she's not represented as a
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: likable person, which I think is, is interesting as just,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: just an artistic choice, a dramatic choice to like make
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: the stock. She's sort of the, what do they call that?
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: Like the aunt, Not the antagonist.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: Like an anti-hero.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, anti-hero.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: Like, you don't like her when you're watching them. Like,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: I'm not like, oh, I want to be her friend.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: She's so cool. You know, like, I'm like, whoa. Yeah, like,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: you had a really rough life and you're taking it
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: out on the people around you. I would be scared
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: of you. But it's very, in that way, it's like,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: you know, it's a picture of a flawed world. And
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: I also think, to look at this in a... To
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: continue with this, like, gendered lens, if her character were
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: a man, you know, these anger issues would read very differently. Like,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: we see these difficult men. You know, Tony Soprano, the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: guy from Breaking Bad. Like, we, as audiences... very often
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: we're like so much more forgiving of these like incredibly
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: difficult men.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: And we're way harsher critics of difficult women. And I'd
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: say even harsher critics of gender non-conforming people and trans
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: women in particular.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: For sure. Women of color.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: Women of color.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: Well, going back to the people who maybe in their
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: younger life would watch this movie and appreciate the representation
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: of any woman genderqueer person because again there was so
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: little else and even even though Hedwig as a character
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: is I mean they've got an angry inch and an
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: angry outlook on life personality.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: I mean yeah an angry soul yeah.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah but I totally understand audiences admiring and seeing themselves
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: in this character especially because again there were so few
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: genderqueer characters in film at the time and And again,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: even fewer who were actually characterized as complex, dynamic human
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: beings with backstories and interiority. So even though audiences might
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: not look at Hedwig and think, I want to model
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: my behavior on how Hedwig behaves and treats people, there
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: was still obviously plenty of value in the character of
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: Hedwig from a representation and visibility point of view.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Totally. There's also a ton of gender non-conforming or trans
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: artists who love this movie. And I mean, I like this.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: I was reading through just like my personal, this is
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: my sample size, but like Vera Drew really, really enjoys
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: this movie. A writer I love very much, Harmony Colangelo
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: makes a strong case for sort of what we were
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: talking about earlier, where this, Like the issue here is
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: the lack of other representation versus Hedwig being someone to
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: culturally vilify. And I think that, I mean, in that way,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: it again sort of feels very in conversation with Rocky Horror,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: where there's, I think we see very similar narratives around
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: people who are, and especially queer people who are still
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: figuring out like who they are. being really drawn to
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Rocky Horror as a young person, especially the closer to
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: it coming out, because that was what there was. That
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: was as close as you could get in a mainstream
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: sense in a suburb or whatever at Blockbuster to finding
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: a story about a gender nonconforming character, even if that
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: story is extremely messy.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: It doesn't like Frankenfurter kill people.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: Sure does. Sure does.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: And I think, doesn't he call him, or she call,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: they call themselves a transvestite.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like using outdated language.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: But it was also made in the 70s.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: And also, not for nothing, both of what these movies
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: also have in common that I think make people very
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: forgiving of the trickier elements are great soundtracks. Great soundtrack.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: Great costumes.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Great performances.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: Absurdity.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: Fun camp.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: I'm also thinking about the ways that like, as the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: culture changes and the language changes, the critique sometimes, like,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: comes with the language. Like, for example, you know, someone
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: like Gertrude Stein, totally gender nonconforming person, but there wasn't, like,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: language for that at the time. And so, you know,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: transphobes now are not, like, hating on Gertrude Stein. because
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: in all the history books like she's talked about as
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: a woman right you know whereas like with this i
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: mean i could even see had hedwig come out or
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: something like this story at an earlier time we wouldn't
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: be talking about her as a trans woman we would
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: be talking about her as like a man who was
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: forced into this because of the politics at the time
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: for safety and And it would just be like a very,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: very different story. But this was the 90s and the gender,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: you know, gender bending was like the terminology in the 90s.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: And like this was a very gender bendy story. But
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: I'm also, you know, as I watched it this time
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: was really struck by the fact that as far as
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: we know, there's not a single actually trans person. or
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: gender non-conforming person in the cast. Like Miriam Shore.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: Well, John Cameron Mitchell uses he, him pronouns still, but.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: He said he prefers the term androgynous.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: Uh-huh.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: But I don't know if he would have identified that
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: way back in 2001 when the movie was coming out
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: because he came out as androgynous in, I think, 2022. Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah. My guess is that he would have identified as
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: a gay man.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: As a gay man.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Which is, again, like a lot of similarities with Rocky
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: Horror where it's like a story of a gender nonconforming
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: character who... you know, at the time, or at least
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: it would have appeared at the time as being told
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: from a cis POV. Yeah. I think again and again,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: I just come back to like, I, I do understand
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: the criticisms around, especially like the idea of like this
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: very traumatic transition that is inherent to this story. But
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: I can, you know, I see very much the point
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: of view of gender nonconforming and trans viewers being like, okay, well,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: this is getting like this tremendous platform and stories about
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: trans people just existing in the world. I mean, very
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: much just don't exist in 2001 for sure. So it
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: is like a very specific cultural moment, but that's, again, that's,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: that's not on John Cameron Mitchell. And I do want
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: to point out that three first names is kind of.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: It's always a red flag.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: It's kind of the ultimate red flag. I've, I'm troubled
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: by people with two first names, but three is just ridiculous.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: What about people with last names as first names?
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think that that's kind of charming. I don't
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: know why.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: Like a man named Smith or something.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: I knew a kid in high school named Newman. Like
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: his first name was Newman.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: Or like a Parker. Kind of fun.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: Sure. Yeah.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: You know, I, of course, everyone's allowed to have their
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: opinion and their critique. And I just, in my life,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: in the last, I don't know, five, six years, like
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: as an an artist and like really coming into that
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: part of my own identity. Like I've noticed that like
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: the less I critique and judge and like look with this,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: you know, microscope for like what I can say is
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: wrong about something, the less I think people are doing
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: that to me. So I've just tried to be in
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: the practice and my partner is really good at this,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: like being in the practice of like really looking more
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: for what I like and appreciate than what I can
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: you know, shit on. And again, Jamie, like, I don't
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: think you're doing this, but I've just, when we're talking
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: about the critique that's out there, I think there's any
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: number of, of counterpoints to it, which is like, yeah, there, um,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: you know, one for me is like, yes, there was
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: not a lot of media about centering gender nonconforming and
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: trans people at the time, but this, this movie showed
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: that there is a market for that, that there is
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: an audience for that. And that it may be kind
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: of cult-ish, but like this was a pretty successful, you know,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: given its, like, budget. Like, it was a small movie.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: It didn't cost a lot to make. And it has
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: left such an impression.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: It's in the Criterion Collection. Exactly.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: Exactly. So, like, yeah, there's problems with the representation and everything.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: and the story itself and it could bring up, I
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: get why it would even be triggering to people and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: why people would feel like this is not the conversation
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: that we want to be having about transness, but it
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: has made so much room for deeper, more complex conversations
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: and shown that there are people who are going to
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: want to, you know, consume that kind of art, which
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: I think is like, that is revolutionary.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: For sure. Yeah. I, I agree because as we talk
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: about on the show all the time, um, There are
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: movies that we sort of classify as like stepping stone movies. Yes, totally.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: That like pave the way for more nuanced representations. And
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: this movie feels like one such example. The thing about
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: this movie that I struggled with more was the predatory nature,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: the big age gap between Hedwig and Tommy and that
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: being presented without... comment or criticism.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: Do we, you said he was 17. Do we know
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: that he's 17?
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: It's said in text.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: Okay. Hedwig says it like I met him. I met
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: him when he was 17 and I was in my,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: I think early, late twenties, I think like 26 or
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: 27 or something. Yeah.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: A decade over. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: So he is under age and their first meeting is
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: Hedwig's Not asking for consent and assaulting him in the bathtub.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: Well, I just want to paint a broad, like a
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: more clear picture.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: Hedwig is in the other room. We're watching Tommy Gnosis
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: in the bathtub, watching Hedwig pacing back and forth with
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: the baby, jerking off. Hedwig comes in. finishes him off
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: and drops her card in the bathtub. You know, this
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: isn't meant to make it like any less bad. It's
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: just there, there's a broader, I think as in she's
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: noticing that there's perhaps desire for her. Obviously it's statutory
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: rape regardless, but he's jerking off like looking at her.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: Fair.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: That does not equal him giving consent. to Hedwig touching him.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: Although he doesn't like.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: He doesn't ask her to stop and doesn't say no.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: So it's, it's murky. It's another messy thing, but even so,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: as we said, it's a statutory situation. And that, again,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: that's just presented as perfectly fine and normal. Right.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: Which to me felt more, I mean, I think that the,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: the clear outside of just like that is, uh, not
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: a good dynamic regardless of what the, like of the
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: people involved, but that like, it does present sort of
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: another queer panic archetype. I also feel, and this is not,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think we are all kind of on
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: the same page here about it. I think that viewed
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: from the lens of the androgynous rock star, this was
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: incredibly common to see. I mean, like look at David
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: Bowie's personal history too, is like there is, And in
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: a way that, like, I'm not even, like, giving the
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: movie a pass, like, certainly not, but because I don't
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: think that this, that Hedwig, like, thematically really ends up
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: doing very much with examining this, but, like, the idea
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: of a rock star, or even someone with a rock
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: star persona, regardless of gender, preying on teenagers, I mean,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: there is just, like, that is the history of rock stars.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately, yeah.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: But I don't think that the movie is really commenting
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: on that as much as just presenting Hedwig in that
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: legacy is the wrong word, but in that pattern of,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: because I was trying to like, it's so, because this
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: movie is just so open to a million interpretations that
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: I like in a scene like that, it's like, there's
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: all of the ways consent is not given. It's extremely murky.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: And it's like, well, what is, what is this scene
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: like trying to say is kind of a fun exercise
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: in Because I think that there's a way of seeing
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: it that is clearly interpreted as presenting a queer panic moment.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: And there's a way of looking at it that is
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: like Hedwig doing the thing that rock stars do by
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: preying on someone underage.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: And then it's framed comedically with like the button on
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: the end of the scene of like throwing a card
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: at him. So, yeah, that that relationship, I struggled.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she's also, like, she's in, like, a mothering role
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: with him, a mentoring role with him creatively. Yeah, she
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: totally grooms him. And the power dynamic where, like, she's
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: the babysitter. I mean, it's just incredibly messy. It's also,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: in this movie, the way that, like, Hedwig is not
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: a likable character, and yet she has this villain of Tommy, where, like, she's,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: you know, she's been also acting in a way that's, like,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: not okay towards Tommy, right?
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't view, as I was watching this,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: I was surprised and challenged by how, I don't view,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't view Tommy as a villain. I mean,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: I think I understand why Hedwig does because the creative
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: theft is pretty fucking unforgivable and also, you know, his
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: manifesting kind of her worst fear by denying her publicly.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: and denying both who she is as a person and
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: denying her artistic influence on his life, both of which she,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, she, Hedwig's whole thing, understandably, is that Hedwig
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: wants to be loved completely and has never been loved completely.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: And I guess part of what I view the end
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: scene and the removing the clothes and the wig and
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: all that stuff is like Hedwig choosing to fully embody
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: and love themselves because no one is going to do
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: it for you kind of thing. But with Tommy, I, I,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: I have tremendous sympathy for him because it's like, think
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: about like how, and I think that the movie, even
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: though Hedwig sees Tommy as her op, I don't think
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: the movie sees him that way in a way that
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it because like Tommy is, you know, a
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: very Christian sheltered teenager who, is put into this very...
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: Hedwig has the power in that relationship. Right. And it
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem like Tommy has other people in his life
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: he can turn to. So there's also this... And that's
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: not Hedwig's fault, but Hedwig becomes Tommy's lover and it
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: seems like guardian and creative steward. Teacher, yeah. So it's
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: just like... it's, it's hard to look at Tommy and
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: be like, well, fuck him. He sucks. Like he does
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: something shitty that feels very in step with the time
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: this movie was made in. And I think like, I
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: don't know, I guess I, my reading of the movies,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: I don't think that the ending, whatever happens at the end,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: whether it's like, I guess we're getting into Titanic territory now.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: Is it a dream or does she die? Either way?
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: I don't think it happens. I think that like, wherever
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: Tommy ends up, I don't think we really know. I
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: think that like, this is Hedwig's internal battle to just
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: reconcile with the people who she's hurt and been hurt
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: by so that she can move on.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: I think that Tommy from like a, you know, story
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: writing structural standpoint, like for drama to give Hedwig like
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: a sort of frenemy, like rival. Yeah. you know, it
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: creates drama, it creates tension, but I completely agree with you, Jamie.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: Like I don't see him as he's, you know, he's
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 4: a kid. Yeah.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: He's, um, he's a survivor of grooming.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: Right. And he like is then launched into stardom, which
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 4: so many people think is like so covetable and enviable.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: Like how could you ever complain about that? But it's
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 4: incredibly isolating. It's incredibly, it can be terrifying and, You
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 4: have eyes on you all the time.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: He has religious trauma. And I also think that if
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: you're putting yourself in Tommy's headspace, the creative theft is
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: not the most unforgivable thing that happens in the movie
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: to me. And I think in some ways, there's a
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: way to view it that it's like Tommy is... can
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: be viewed as, and has been viewed in certain readings
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: as a victim. And like, this is maybe his way
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: of sort of getting back at Hedwig by, I don't know.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's, there's so many ways to look at it.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: Indeed.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: Any, anything, anything else you want to talk about? I mean,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: we could talk about this movie for a hundred years. Um, yeah,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: I know that was all of my, uh, those were
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: all my big, my big things.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we've covered mine as well.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think me too. I mean, I really do
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: love this movie and in all of its flawed glory,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: you know, I think it shows us so many different
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: perspectives and like watching a kind of torture, two different
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: kinds of like tortured artists figure out how to make
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 4: their way in the world given all these like the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: things that shape them.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: And again, this movie is a like stepping stone. yeah
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: movie is is really important and again like paved the
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: way for later representation of genderqueer.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: Characters yeah it'd be interesting to see like a remake
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: of this movie and how they would go about it
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: yeah i.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: Wonder yeah well uh does this movie pass the Bechdel
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: test you know I.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 4: Was wondering like how because it depends on how we
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 4: view the genders of these people you know right like
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: if Hedwig is always actually Hansel in there.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: Well I also think like because the version we use
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: and I'm like it feels so silly to get pedantic
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: about the Bechdel test like who cares but you know
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: Hedwig is I think like undeniably a gender non-conforming character
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: and so for me i'm like gender non-conforming character like
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: it's two people of a marginalized gender talking to each
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: other about something that's not a man so i think
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: it passes.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah and yitzhak as well regardless of how we view
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: their gender like it's definitely non-conforming right yeah.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: So i would say yes yes yeah passing yeah yeah
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: and then comes the bechdel cast nipple scale where we
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I think because
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: of this movie's legacy as a piece of queer cinema that, again,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: paved the way for later representation that's perhaps less potentially problematic.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: But again, this is the nature of so many of
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: these films. movies of like a stepping stone nature is
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: that there's plenty of things to criticize about them but
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: they're also sort of ahead of their time as far
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: as especially like mainstream representation goes so i say taking
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: that into consideration i'll give it like three or two
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: and a half i do feel like It needs to
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: be docked pretty significantly because of the predatory grooming relationship
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 3: with an underage character that is presented without comment or criticism.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: I'll go two and a half. This is a tricky one,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: but yeah, two and a half. And I'm going to
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: give them two. One to Andrea Martin.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: One to.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: Miriam Shore. And then I'll give my half nipple to
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: John Cameron Mitchell.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: Um, I think I'll, I'll go right down the middle to, uh,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: due to mess, uh, just due to mess. But I
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: think like there, it's undeniable that this movie is tremendously influential, uh,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: is still like a quarter century later starting a lot
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: of conversations and also paved the way for a lot
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: of filmmakers and a lot of movies. And the soundtrack
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: goes fucking nuts. So that's sort of all I have
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: to say on the matter. I'll go two and a
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: half as well. And I'm going to give two to
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: John Cameron Mitchell. I do think he is a genius.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: And I'll give the other half to Steven Trask, another
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: queer icon who is not on screen, but a great writer.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: And also a non-binary person who generally uses he, him pronouns.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: Got it.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 4: I don't know how it works to give certain people
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: the nipple.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: It's just us. If you want to pay tribute to
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: something or someone in the movie.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 3: Don't overthink it.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting to me that, like, Caitlin, you feel
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: like there's no critique of the relationship being underage. Because
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: I feel like that's in there, even though it's not, like,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 4: directly spoken to.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, in something as serious as a predatory relationship
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: with an underage person... I feel like there almost needs
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: to be pretty explicit condemnation of that by someone in
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: the story.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: I guess I guess where I maybe this is. Well,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: let me know what you think. Like, I think that.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: for me, like I, I'm not, I, I think it's
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: interesting that because we're so with Hedwig, the whole movie,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: and we see whether it's in Hedwig's head or not,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: everyone forgives Hedwig for what, for what people do to Hedwig,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: but Hedwig doesn't really make amends with people for the
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: numerous shitty things that Hedwig does. And again, it's like,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: I think that that, that people's mileage will just vary
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: on that.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Um, well, I guess, I mean, I think this
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 4: movie gets docked because it doesn't address, well, it's almost
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: exclusively white people. The only person of color in the
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 4: story is.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: Luther.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 4: Hedwig's husband.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: And then there's, like, the Korean backing band that.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 4: Hedwig works with.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: They're so good.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: They're great, but... Barely there.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: They're in one scene. We don't really know anything about
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 3: these characters. Right. And then they disappear from the story.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's almost like a joke that he's backed
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 4: by this, like, Korean girl group. And then, you know,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 4: the casting of her husband as... black feels more like
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 4: colorblind casting to me than some, like an intentional, like
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 4: it wasn't written with that in mind. Um, so for
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 4: me that the movie definitely gets docked for that. It
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 4: also like, you know, just doesn't really, yeah. Like intersectionality it's,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: there's no like discussion of, yeah. I mean any, anything else,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: like there's some class stuff and I don't think every
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 4: movie needs to hold all of these, but, um, but it's.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: Not, But there was potentially room for things.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 4: That don't appear. So, I don't know. I want to
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 4: give it a three, I guess, just because I think
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 4: it opened doors and really, like, blasted down walls for.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: The way the Berlin Wall fell.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: That's right. It tore down walls. For gender nonconforming people
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 4: and for stories and, you know, not just, like, in
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: the story itself, but, like, as a film... in that
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: moment of time, it, it really paved the way for
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: like so much of the media that we've had since
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 4: that can tackle these themes more deeply as a result.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 4: So that's where I, yeah, that's.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: Where I land.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: Hell yeah.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you for having me.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: This was so much fun.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Where can people follow your work, buy your book,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: et cetera?
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 4: Um, I am on Instagram at consent.wizardry, though I'm considering
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 4: changing it to just my name. So if you can't
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 4: find me there, you can just search my name. My
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 4: website is consentwizardry.com. I'm on Substack as unsolicited advice. You
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: can also search my name. And Consent Wizardry will take
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: you there as well. And I teach classes for... people
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 4: pleasers for artists for um people who want to learn
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: to teach consent uh and my book is available like
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 4: pretty much everywhere books are sold but you can also
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 4: get it specifically through the North Atlantic Books website which
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: I would recommend um you know very preferable to Amazon
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 4: or like a giant chain yes how to do consent
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 4: without sounding like a robot it'll be out September 15th Yay.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: Congratulations.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: That's really exciting.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: Indeed. Of course.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: And you can follow us on Instagram at Bechtelcast and
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 3: you can support the show by signing up for our Patreon,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: aka Matreon, at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast, where we release two
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 3: bonus episodes every single month on... an amazing genius theme.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 3: Matrons get voting rights to pick which movies we cover
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: and all that good stuff. It's all for $ 5 a month.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: And what a damn good special that is.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: So true.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: Never changed. Never changed. And with that, let's strip naked
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: and walk into the abyss or heaven question mark.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: Or heaven. Hmm. Towards the light.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: Bye. Bye. The Bechdelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: and produced by me, Jamie Loftus.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: And me, Caitlin Durante. The podcast is also produced by
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: Sophie Lichterman.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: And edited by Caitlin Durante. Ever heard of them?
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: That's me. And our logo and merch and all of
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: our artwork, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: Ever heard of her? Oh, my God. And our theme song,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: Iconic. And a special thanks to the one and only
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: Aristotle Acevedo.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 3: For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com.