The Affinity for Competition
One of the most central tropes of Hedwig and the Angry Inch revolves around the main character’s competition with her ex-lover, Tommy Gnosis. Throughout the film, Hedwig claims to have authored many of the songs that Tommy, now a rock superstar, is performing in his stadium concert tour. Hedwig, in contrast, describes herself as “the internationally ignored song stylist barely standing before you” (Mitchell, 19). In the play, she is playing fleabag hotels, and in the movie she is making a national tour of Bilge Water Seafood Restaurants; in any case, she is hardly touring at the level that Tommy is. Beginning in the first scene, she presents a flood of negative persuasion to her audience:

I wrote every song on that album! And by the way, the tabloids got it right. He was driving, he was on blow, he was getting blown by yours truly, and he did hit the schoolbus full of deaf children. One survived – now blind. I taught him everything he knows – and has apparently forgotten – about rock and roll … (21)

She further relates their conversation that night: “We talked about the disappointing sales of his second album – the one he wrote without me” (Mitchell, 35). Hedwig, while presenting herself as an underdog, constantly proclaims her own excellence as a superior song writer. The impetus to win by reclaiming her intellectual property provides an organizing element for both her story and her oratory. She also clearly resents the prestige that Tommy has gained, and wishes to claim it for herself by persuasive means. In the above examples, she makes the claims that not only is he the lesser writer, but also the lesser entertainer.

Aside from considerations of oratory, both drag and rock carry strong elements of competition in their traditions. Almost any public drag performance includes competition, rather implicit or explicit. Most familiar are the drag beauty competitions in which participants compete for Realness or Fabulousness. (See Jennie Livingston’s 1992 film Paris is Burning.) Even in a theoretically supportive, noncompetitive format, such as a charity benefit drag show, both participants and spectators are constantly evaluating those in drag: How real does she look? Can she pass? Who is dressed in the most surprising manner? Who has created the most persuasive representation of womanhood? Who delivers the best, most artistic, most convincing performance? Who is the most entertaining?

Rock band face similar competition, regardless of performance strata. Internationally known bands compete for the media title of “Biggest Band in the World.” Local bands regularly participate in “Battle of the Bands” events sponsored by local clubs and radio stations. The criteria are, really, much the same as those in drag events. Which band are the most convincing rock stars? Who provides the best performance? Who displays the most authentic artistry? Ultimately: Who is the most entertaining?

The presentation of Hedwig’s story, being a drag rock opera, combines all of these elements. Hedwig met her boyfriend, Yitzhak, at a Croatian drag competition. Throughout most of the film, she protects her reputation as a woman by forbidding the more beautiful Yitzhak from wearing drag as long as they are together. By insisting that they appear in public together only as a man and a woman, Hedwig seeks to remove the element of competition between them and reinforce her persuasive stance of being a more-or-less authentic woman. (“He was good. He was too good. His applause drowned out my introduction and I refused to go on” (54).) By placing herself constantly in competition with both Yitzhak and Tommy, and by constantly debating the relative merits of their abilities as songwriters and entertainers, she incorporates the standard public elements of rock star competition. Hedwig consciously constructs her oratory to reinforce her ideals of originality, creativity, and excellence – and ultimately, superiority over everyone she encounters.

The Propensity to Become a Spectacle
Its Proclivity to Excess and Exaggeration
Poulakos and Poulakos note: “Epideictic rhetoric was also influenced by the culture’s fondness of, and delight in, exhibition. … Developed along the lines of a spectacle, epideictic rhetoric helped create the awareness that words do more than call forth the world; they also create and display symbolic worlds of human design and purpose” (64). The exaggerated elements essential to the rock opera form create an alternate universe, one that is indeed “of human design and purpose.” These elements are often purposely exaggerated and excessive. Words and text alone would not be sufficient to create the world of Hedwig; exaggerated clothes, gestures and lyrics all contribute to the spectacle of the storyline. These elements also apply directly to the character of Hedwig. Her entire persona and ethos are built on an exaggerated notion of feminity constructed in the hopes of causing a spectacle: the blond Farrah hair, the bug-eye glasses, the outlandish rock-whore clothing. Her discourse is also constructed to create an event by shocking and attracting an audience:

(modeling a fur coat) You like this pelt? Some bitch stopped me on the way in, “What poor, unfortunate creature had to die for you to wear that?” “My Aunt Trudi,” I replied (54).

(spits beer into audience) That was a rock and roll gesture. Actually that was a heavy metal gesture. Want to see a punk rock gesture? (fills mouth with beer; a threatening pause; then she pits it all over herself) It’s the direction of the aggression that defines it (53).

One day, I am curled up in the trailer with my usual late-afternoon constitutional of grain alcohol and Brita. I like to be good to myself (62).

Hyperbole is a definite aspect of exaggeration in discourse, as Poulakos and Poulakos note (65). The dialogue in Hedwig depends heavily on hyperbole as a device (as demonstrated in the examples above), and so does the entire film exhibit hyperbolic tendencies, with its strong color scheme and loud soundtrack. Hedwig and Tommy don’t meet in Junction City, Kansas – they meet in a “wicked little town” (74). As Hedwig finds her salvation during the closing song, she sings:

Rain falls hard
Burns dry
A dream
Or a song
That hits you so hard
Filling you up
And suddenly gone (75)

Of course, rain does few of these things in real life. Plato might have argued that such lyrics cross the thin line that lies between enhancing reality and distorting it. In the context of the exaggerated world that Hedwig inhabits, such lyrics seem entirely appropriate. They convey emotional truth in a heightened manner that is entirely appropriate within the larger context.

Susceptibility to the Propagation of Dominant Values
The story of Hedwig, while highly unconventional, does reinforce some dominant cultural values. One of several organizing tropes in the piece is the concept of the soul mate. The song Origin of Love, which appears in both the stage production and the film, (see Appendix) is a retelling of Aristophanes’ speech from Plato’s Symposium. The film also includes an extensive cartoon sequence that dramatizes the tale of humankind’s separation into separate sexes and explains that our doom is to constantly search for our other half. Hedwig spends the majority of the film looking for her other half, first in Luther, who rescues him from Berlin and arranges for the sex-change; then in Tommy, who abandons her; and finally in Yitzhak, who she gently leaves at the end. This strongly reinforces the dominant cultural notion of “The One,” that one person who will complete each of us.
Cameron’s construction and portrayal of Hedwig as an exaggerated and alienated rock star also reinforces the hegemonic notion of transsexual as freak. (The character of Hedwig is conscious of her freakishness, and plays upon it: “My new fragrance: Atrocity. By Hedwig” (35).) However, the character is transformed at the story’s climax, ripping off her dress and wig and showing herself to the audience merely as what s/he is. Her salvation comes from removing any trappings of excess and exaggeration, and the final shot of Hedwig shows a naked figure walking down a dark city alley toward a semi-lit street, rebirthed by embracing both sides of him/herself. Plato, which his objections to hyperbolic rhetoric, would most likely approve of such an ending.