Hedwig and the Angry Inch

I’m going to preface this review and analysis of this movie by saying I am a huge fan of musical theatre which in turn makes me very critical of the execution, the music, and the casting. Usually I have an understanding of the directors choice, but I have never seen something this bad that made me want to claw my eyes out when I watched this movie version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Maybe it is because of my perspective that caused me to just not get this musical, but this movie was definitely hard to watch. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a story about A transgender punk-rock girl from East Berlin who tours the U.S. with her band as she tells her life story and follows the former lover/band-mate who stole her songs. The reason she becomes a transgender person in the first place is because to legally become a U.S. citizen a young boy decides to marry a man from the military but must undergo a transgender operation so they can enter the U.S. without any issues. The term “Angry Inch” comes from the flop of the operation as the male member wasn’t completely removed.

Aside from the music in this “rock musical” being awful, the story telling being in a dull monotone voice, and the story visually being told through some weird cartoon slide shows, I feel like this is a poor representation of people who are transgender. If I was a member of LGBTQ community watching this I feel like I would be appalled at this movie. Again, maybe it’s because of my perspective, but I don’t think they could have made a more abstract character that I feel may be made out to feel like a mockery of the community, especially the “Angry Inch” part.

There is a stage version that Neil Patrick Harris plays Hedwig that I’d be interested to see mainly to see how the character is portrayed and to get some better vocals in their as well. However, another reason this movie is really rough for some audiences is because if the content of the musical. Hedwig is a very sexualized character the entire movie which seems on purpose but there is a part of the movie where A transexual babysitter masturbates a teenage boy who is in the bathtub and a teenage boy puts his hands down the front of a transexual’s skirt and recoils in horror at the mutilated genitals.

Again, maybe I’m completely wrong, but I am interested to see the reactions of those in the LGBTQ community because it may be viewed as empowering. The music was so bad in this movie so I was already turned off anyway, which made the musical an uphill climb for the get go. If you are a fan of musical theatre and are looking for something different then go for it but you need to go in with a very open mind…