Hedwig, Part 2

by Rebecca, Greg, and Phil

As some of the group leaders from the last class discussion these are some thoughts and questions we compiled that we thought might be interesting in pursuing a further examination and analysis of Hedwig.

When looking at how relationships are constructed in Hedwig and how there is a continuous idea of power in sexual relationships, when put in context with the quote “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” did Hedwig corrupt her body and soul beginning with the botched surgery? As example, viewing her life path, it is a constant struggle of trying to attain power or regain what she thought was power. Also, is power equivalent to love when viewing this as a fucked up love story when there are no happy/healthy relationships? If there is no love is power actually real or just perceived? As another example: Tommy has the “power” but is completely unhappy and hiding from Hedwig, who is consistently seeking power through Tommy.

Another thought to be pondered is how the film utilized satire combined with camp/glam to humorist an otherwise extremely devastating and sad story. This combined with the musical breaks, which when looking just at regular musicals the songs are usually the “uppers” through their harmonies and melodies creating catchy and kitchy uplift, but Hedwig uses these musical breaks as explanations and covers for depressed story lines. This is done in an abrasive and in your face way completely ignoring what could have been a vague and more theological look and instead playing up the sad and sorry. Thoughts?

About the religious symbols in the film, our group seemed to touch on some of the religious aspects, but we didn’t come to any real answers. There is a good amount of talk in the film regarding Tommy Gnosis which consists of Jesus fish stickers, a cross on his head, and other various religious facets… this must have a purpose or symbolize something, right?

One of the topics are group found most interesting was the Origin of Love, which only depicts the idea of two individuals coming together to form a whole, and what that says about other non-monogamous relationships.

These were some thoughts of ours after the discussion, but for the other group or even maybe for our own group members, here are the discussion questions that Greg and I (Rebecca) brought forth originally:

1. Does the film take an essentialist or social constructionist perspective towards gender identity? Can you think of any examples?
2. The wig seemed to symbolize something greater than just a hairpiece. Any thoughts on what it might have represented?
3. Does the story end happily? Does Hedwig find what she was searching for? What is she searching for?
4. During the song “Origin of Love,” there are moving drawings that seem to portray a theory regarding the evolution of human sexuality. What did you take from the filmmaker’s view on human sexuality? Does this view on love and sexuality discredit other relationship identities?
5. What does the film have to say about the fluidity of sexual roles?
6. Would you take Sgt. Luther’s gummy bears if he offered them?
7. Upon my entrance into Israel I was bombarded by graffiti images of the Origin of Love graphics. As Hedwig is an Americanized film, though it does branch across East Germany before the Berlin wall fell, how do you think the Origin of Love speaks as a message that is cross cultural?
8. How do you see Tommy Gnosis as a modern religious icon with the imagery that is presented on him physically and with the multiple symbols that appear in the film? Examples?
9. How does the film portray heterosexual relationships? How does the film queer queer relationships into heterosexual relationships?
10. How does the campiness, glitz, glam, and shine of Hedwig and the Angry Inch progress the story with its visual glitter vomit? To clarify, how do the visual representations make or break the story? Do you think it would be as successful if it were not as over dramatic and bright?
11. Do you think Hedwig’s “angry inch” is a symbol for something more than the very physical reality of his “freeing” surgery?
12. The Origin of Love, while a beautiful song, doesn’t actually seem real in the movie as there are no happy couples or people who seem to have found their “other half?” How do you feel about the Origin of Love being one of the main points in the film, but not having any tangible evidence?

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You’re currently reading “Hedwig, Part 2,” an entry on Queer Rhetorics Blog

Published:: 02/25/2010 / 2:28 pm

Category:: Film

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This blog is for WRTG 3020: Queer Rhetorics. Write an initial comment about one of the active topics and, then, respond to other student comments at least 1 or 2 more times during the week. Don’t just throw your ideas into a vacuum. Ask questions and use the other comments as a jumping off point by answering questions, amplifying or complicating ideas, etc. You can also find this blog embedded at the site for our course: www.queerrhetorics.com.

Logan 2.25.10 / 9pm

I’m going to wait to see what kind of discussion occurs in general, but I feel the need to bring up the use of pronouns on all the blog entries about hedwig. So far, I haven’t seen anyone use gender neutral pronouns – ze or hir, and instead people asking lots of questions and say s/he or she or he or “it.” I know people are using “it” to try and not say she or he, and i know gender neutral pronouns are an uncomfortable thing for people to work into discussions, but it’s driving me crazy so I just felt like I should say something. And yes, I’m sure this is part of the bigger question, how does hedwig identify etc etc…but i’m just saying.

Logan 2.25.10 / 9pm

http://web.archive.org/web/20080125184239/www.get-hed.com/html/about/index.html

as a follow up, i tracked down the official website and the synopsis uses female pronouns. we can throw that into the discussion…

Kevin 2.26.10 / 7am

I think the point is that Hedwig isn’t gender neutral. It seems like it would be insulting to fail to gender Hedwig, as gender is an imperative part of her character. While it can be argued that this metamophoses throughout the story, it boils down to, in the end, what Hedwig identifies as. While pronouns like he or she might not be able to properly express both the biological and social aspects of Hedwig’s gender, I feel like this is what makes her queer. In using a proper gender neutral pronoun, we’re taking away some of the power that Hedwig’s own queerness has.

1. Logan 2.26.10 / 12pm
  
  Kevin,
  I definitely understand what you’re saying. Personally, I find myself using female pronouns for hedwig. I feel obligated to bring up the devil’s advocate argument about gender neutral pronouns, which is that they are very queer because they screw with binary.
  
  The point, as I’ve always understood gender neutral pronouns, is to take away the possibility or assumption that someone is either male or female and those are the only two choices, not to remove gender completely. It’s really a linguistics thing that I don’t know all of the etymology about, but the point of using gender neutral pronouns in queer spaces/queer writings/texts/films etc, is to question the assumption that someone would be either male or female and basically to allow for the possibility that they may identify as neither, both or something different, and in fact, a lot of people say hey, we don’t know how hedwig identifies.
  
  The thought behind using gender neutral pronouns is to take away the assumption that “s/he” leaves and to stop from the way that people often default to using male pronouns
  
  . I’d say hedwig is a she. I’d love to ask hedwig how ze idenfities. Neutral is neutral, not gone, if that makes sense. It’s not erasing hedwigs gender, its acknowledging we dont know. In my experience, gender neutral pronouns are super queer and make people really uncomfortable because they hate not knowing what box to place a person in. More than anything, I can’t stand to see people use the word “it” so that’s what brought me to this and I felt like it was a valid question since this is a queer rhetorics class.
2. Austin 2.27.10 / 4pm
  
  I agree with Logan, in that gender neutral pronouns have more possibility to empower. Referring to Hedwig as ze, as Logan points out, is counter to how she is presented in the movie. Hansel is he, Hedwig is she – but as far as the end of the movie, when her tattoo is reunited and she walks through the alley alone, neither really Hansel (since the surgery) or Hedwig (naked without the wig, the make-up, the eight track…), I think pronoun usage can be called into question. Hedwig walks down the alley, looks both ways – as though examining two choices (man or woman?), and then continues straight ahead, denying those options and seeking a third way.
  
  Where I do have a problem with gender neutral pronouns is not the pronouns themselves, but the name for them. Gender “neutral”? Isn’t that diminutive? Neutral colors are worn because they go with everything, the antithesis of a statement. There’s implied complicity. Switzerland is the most famous neutral state, choosing neither Axis nor Allies, and so is right and wrong at once. A car can be in drive, or in reverse, but if it isn’t doing anything, it is in neutral, idle… “It” dehumanizes, objectifies, disempowers. It is a gender neutral pronoun.
  
  Wouldn’t calling them gender-free pronouns (and with that, gender-free bathrooms) better gesture towards the radical nature of ze and hir? (As I type this, the red underline appears under both words – for wordpress, they are illegitimate.) These pronouns reject gender as essential, pointing out that the space between “he” and “she” is far less important than the space outside. To call them gender-free pronouns implies an unshackling, a success against tyranny, against gender understood as just he or she, one or the other.

Demy Tabangcura 2.26.10 / 2pm

I guess this can connect with your religious symbols and such, but this popped in my mind when I read the portion of your post that dealt with the religious aspects of the movie. I find it interesting that Tommy is given the name Gnosis, by Hedwig, which means knowledge. But more specifically, gnosis deals with spiritual knowledge. Gnosis refers to “insight into the infinite” and a “mystically enlightened human being.” What is interesting about giving this name to Tommy is that he at first lacks musical knowledge and thus learns from Hedwig, indicating the acquisition of knowledge, but it seems interesting to bestow him with such a name as gnosis because Hedwig seems to be the authority and origin of knowledge in terms of music. And also, Tommy denies knowledge, the knowledge of having been acquainted with Hedwig and thus denies not only Hedwig as a physical being, but the possibilities that Hedwig opens with her body. Hedwig is the limen, the threshold upon which binaries teeter, and her body is almost like a gateway to limitless possibilities beyond the constraints binaries and categories instill. And it is just interesting that Tommy denies this knowledge and refuses acceptance of Hedwig and the possibilities when his name clearly means knowledge, and therein lies the irony. But what does this irony suggest about knowledge and those who deem themselves readily available to seek and acquire it?

Kevin 2.26.10 / 11pm

It’s definitely an interesting topic and I’m glad you brought it up. I admittedly had no prior experience with gender-neutral pronouns (“prior experience” being ignorance to the point of not even knowing they existed). I have the unfortunate habit of siding with Burroughs on most issues of language so I can get a bit bullish when it comes to even attempting to define things; I prefer language to be fragmented and meaning to be obscure to the point of meaninglessness so it can’t constrict our understanding of the world with the rigidity most words yield to. It’s not that I’m worried that it doesn’t accurately express queerness, it’s more of a fear of that queerness is becoming expressible.

Kevin 2.28.10 / 9am

“Wouldn’t calling them gender-free pronouns (and with that, gender-free bathrooms) better gesture towards the radical nature of ze and hir? (As I type this, the red underline appears under both words – for wordpress, they are illegitimate.) These pronouns reject gender as essential, pointing out that the space between “he” and “she” is far less important than the space outside. To call them gender-free pronouns implies an unshackling, a success against tyranny, against gender understood as just he or she, one or the other.”

This would solve the issue for me as well. Instead of reinforcing the binary it deconstructs it, as it posits that gender is immeasurable rather than a numerical designation between ‘male’ and ‘female’ on a slide-rule.

What I’m also curious of is where the rejection of gender stems from; is it simply a rejection of the stigmas attached to genders, or is it an ultimate rejection of biological gender? IE:
“1. Does the film take an essentialist or social constructionist perspective towards gender identity? Can you think of any examples?”
I’m having trouble seeing it as a matter of “or”. Especially with the closing scene, I found that the film seems to present something of a unity of the two, recognizing that gender is, ultimately, simultaneously definable by both biological and social structures. To reject either is to reject a necessary part of identity; you both perform gender and are biologically gendered. The angry inch represents the initial schism between these for Hedwig, yet the persistence of the inch also sets the biological component as an immutable aspect of self.
Inversely, it may very well be that neither actually matter, as suggested by Austin and Logan’s points on gender neutral/free pronoun usage. Is it possible to say that gender simply is? In attempting to define it within the structures of the two, I may be committing the same folly as the gendered pronoun. Perhaps gender is neither biological or social; it’s something that can be adopted as a part of self, or it can be simply ignored.

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Hedwig, Part 2

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