Hedwig Gender

948 Words4 Pages
Gender is evident in the film in “Hedwig’s and Angry Inch.” There are specific scenes throughout the film where gender takes place. The social construction of gender is relatable to Hedwig’s personal and historical journey because the sex change impacted which gender role Hedwig took on. In this essay I will be relating Lorber’s article “The Social Construction of Gender” to the film “Hedwig’s and the Angry Inch”, and I will also be discussing how the fall of the Berlin Wall had an affect/impact in Hedwig’s life. In the article “The Social Construction of Gender” by Judith Lorber she discusses how gender is socially constructed. Lorber states the differences between “sex” and “gender” which is that sex is a category you receive on the basis…show more content…
Yet gender like culture, is a human production that depends of everyone constantly “doing gender” (West and Zimmerman 1987). Gender is the roles, behavior, and activities that are to individuals by society and that is appropriate for their specific sex or gender it depends on everyone doing gender. According to Lorber gender as a process creates the social differences that define “woman” or “man.” Gender as stratification system, ranks men above women of the same race and class (Lorber, 280). Gender as a structure divides work in the home and in the economic production, legitimates those in authority and organizes sexuality and emotional life (Connell 1987, 91-142). In the movie “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” directed by John Cameron Mitchell, Hedwig born and raised in East Berlin during the cold war, in which communist have the power and control to everything. Hedwig under did a sex change transformation to marry Luther a G.I and be…show more content…
Hedwig says that he never had kissed a boy in his 26 years of living or had ever tried on women’s clothes “except one of his mother’s camisole”. After performing a sex operation by an unprofessional, which had no prior experience and left him with a “one inch mound of flesh”, he was not identified as either man or woman. After the sex change Hedwig took on gender roles, behaviors, and activities that society would call appropriate for females. For example in the movie Hedwig had never kissed a man, or had been in love, and lastly how he began dressing like a woman. Through out the movie he kisses a man; fell in love, and starts dressing as a woman. In the scene where Hedwig was performing the sex change song called “Angry Inch” while he was performing a fight broke out between the performers and audience members, the audience members fighting signifies how society views on an individual taking on gender roles that were their sex in this case inappropriate. Hedwig originally a male is taking a gender role of a female because of his sex

More about Hedwig Gender

Open Document