HEDWIG is the story of an East Berlin boy who falls in love with American rock music, and men. One day as he’s sunning himself naked near the Berlin wall an American solider comes across him and they fall in love. They decide to get married so that Hedwig can leave the country, but to do this he must pass a physical inspection. This is the explanation for ‘the angry inch.’ The doctor he goes to botches the sex change operation and when he heals there is merely an inch long flub of skin.
Hedwig (John Cameron Mitchell who also wrote and directed it) and her husband move to Kansas where Hedwig is almost immediately left for a much younger boy. To get by she baby-sits and is paid to give oral sex. On a babysitting job she meets Johnny Gnosis. Hedwig, just starting up her rock career, collaborates with Johnny on songs and falls in love with him. But Johnny, being a God-fearing boy, is just as drawn to her charisma as he is repulsed by her lack of definite gender. In the end, Johnny makes it big and leaves Hedwig behind.
Cut to years later, Hedwig is in a band touring the same cities as Johnny Gnosis, and a legal battle is ensuing. We get the pleasure of seeing Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the bands name, performing in Bilgewater restaurants across the country. Hedwig is loud, lewd, and talented in such a way that the average album buyer cannot stand her. The music in this movie (and there is a lot of it, considering it’s a rock musical) tells a story. Each song explains a different aspect of Hedwig’s life and why she is so at odds with Johnny Gnosis. At two points in the story we are treated to one of Hedwig’s songs and immediately shown Johnny’s version of them, all weakened by his lack of authenticity.
One song in particular sums up Hedwig’s torment. It is called “The Origin of Love.” It’s about the time when the earth was flat and people were all physically attached to one another, as in having two sets of arms and two sets of legs and two faces on either side of their heads. Then one day the gods decide to split them in two. Hedwig is separated from his other half, the story explains. And now he believes that Johnny belongs with him, will fill that void.
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