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don’t be a bummer, babe

#i love him #yes i do #benjpierce

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@ buff girls and fat girls and broad shouldered girls and girls with guts and muscles and otherwise big bodies: ily and u look good

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not to be gay or anything but i really want to make out with a cute girl on my lap

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#pentatonix #family

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HAPPY PRIDE MONTH! Never forget that you are loved, appreciated, and beautiful. We will always be by your side. Love always wins. #Pride2017

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#superfruit #my babies

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𝓓𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓜 𝓕𝓔𝓔𝓣 [x]

#wowza

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Because black is beautiful no matter what they’re saying.

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#cute pup #i love

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i want a gf so badly omg. it's been abt a year without a relationship and i'm tired. i want cuddles and kisses and hand holding and everything in between. i just miss it

#jill speaks #i'm sad

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Can I keep you in mind?

#pretty

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Does anybody ever get so discouraged as a musician that they just want to throw their instrument and give up..? Does anyone ever think they aren’t good enough to be in the ensemble or studio they’re in..?

THIS NEEDS TO STOP!! Yes, we, as musicians, always want to play our best. And we always want to perform well. But if anyone or yourself makes you feel like you’re not good enough, don’t give in. Practice a little harder. Prove to them you were meant to play this instrument. Prove to yourself that you’re meant to play this instrument! And HAVE FUN!

#needed this #we got this

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Understanding the End of Hedwig

I have read, in a lot of places on the internet, people saying they don’t get the ending of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Which is fair, it’s quite odd and confusing but I also think it’s worth understanding, because I think the message is truly beautiful. As with all art, it’s open for interpretation, and Hedwig is very layered so you can either skim the surface or dive in deep.

So the ending. You have a choice – the short version (brief, vague) or the long version (where I delve into the storyline, the songs and the parallel that is Yitzhak).

The short version of it is:

The play is about identity and self-acceptance. Hedwig spends the musical searching for his literal other half, the person who will complete him, make him whole. What he is actually searching for is acceptance, love and identity. (He says early on that “it’s the geography of human contact. The triangulation of a pair of eyes on my face, the latitude and longitude of a hand on my body, these are the only clue I have to my place in the world.”) Hedwig’s struggle with his identity comes of a climax (bud-dum-shh!) when he accepts himself, without the wig, or the heels, just him. The metaphor of him morphing into Tommy is that Tommy is a representation to us the audience as the other half of himself that he was trying to find and in accepting himself he becomes whole. In the musical, Tommy & Hedwig are played by the same actor forming a visual representation to the audience that he was whole the entire time. Taking this further, you could argue the part of himself he wasn’t accepting was the male part of himself.

So, Tommy represents the other half of himself that he wasn’t accepting, so in taking on Tommy’s appearance but still being Hedwig we see him accept himself as a whole.

The long version:

I repeat. As with all art, it’s open for interpretation. And for clarity, I have seen the original off-Broadway bootleg, the feature film, the new Broadway production with Neil Patrick Harris, JCM & Darren Criss. I have not however read the book.

For me, the musical is about identity and self-acceptance. One of the most important songs to the plot is “Origin of Love” it lays out Hedwig’s whole underlying belief system through out the narrative of his life. Throughout his story he is searching for his “other half” the one that was taken from him ‘when the earth was still flat and the clouds made of fire’ and Zeus “split them right down the middle… cut them right up in half”. He sees his other half as someone who would understand him completely expressed in the lyric “the pain down in your soul/Was the same as the one down in mine”, so his search for his other half is his search for acceptance.

You may have noticed I use the pronouns “him/his” as opposed to “she/her”. Obviously, this is a tricky issue and could I have a chat, I’d ask, however my reasoning is as follows: From the play we know Hedwig was born Hansel Schmitt, a biological male and forced to have a sex change in order to escape East Berlin. John Cameron Mitchell has said in an interview that Hedwig never identified as female, he is not in fact a transgender female – though biologically he is. So, in desperation to find his other half he sacrifices a large part of his own identity and embraces a female identity, however his still identifies as male hence I use “he/his”.

One of my favourite songs of the musical is “Wig in a Box” and I really love the performance aspect the Broadway Production added, particularly Darren Criss’ interpretation. The key line in the song is: “And pull the wig down from the shelf Suddenly I’m Miss Beehive 1963 Until I wake up And turn back to myself” (Wig in a Box) The important thing to get from this song, is he puts on a lot of wigs in his life but it’s only when he removes the wigs, when he’s putting himself to bed, is he truly himself. Hedwig – a stunningly well picked name – is a character, a persona he hides behind because he struggles to accept who he is. All that in your face attitude, it’s an aggressive way of hiding.

Now, this post is about explaining the end of the play, I’m getting there. But there is another significant character in the musical – Yitzhak. Yitzhak’s story runs both as a parallel and a contrast to Hedwig’s.

The parallel comes as both Hedwig and Yitzhak, in order to escape oppression, they had to give up a part of themselves – a part of their identity. For Yitzhak, it was the female part, the drag queen persona. In the musical, Hedwig is played by a biologically male actor, whilst Yitzhak is played by a biologically female actress. This is very, very important as even though both characters are born biologically male – deep down what they identify as is reflected by their actor. Hedwig looses his penis – the physical representation of his male identity, whilst Yitzhak looses the wigs, the female part of his identity. The Contrast.

Now, the parallel of Yitzhak’s story obviously means the end of his story is a reflection of the end of Hedwig’s. Which is why I think it’s important. (On a side note: Yitzhak’s whole story is shown much better in the onstage musical, particularly the revival. When I saw the feature film, which is the first version of Hedwig I saw, Yitzhak’s whole story was lost on me. I was completely bemused and confused when he was auditioning for Rent or something? It’s just one of the layers that I think it was difficult to replicate in the film.)

So in “Exquisite Corpse”, Hedwig goes nuts, everything goes a bit ballistic, he’s confused, frustrated and angry. In the original onstage production he physically tears his dress off removing the wig and fake boobs. Then we move in to “Wicked Little Town – Reprise”. (This is my favourite song.) And it is so frustrating that in the feature film because Tommy Gnosis is cast as a different actor to Hedwig it doesn’t quite capture the same meaning as the onstage production. I understand why it was necessary though.

This is where things become very open to interpretation. Has Hedwig become Tommy? Have they reformed to become one? Actually put themselves back together? Is it just a symbol of Tommy finally understanding Hedwig? Potentially, all of the above.

For me, it’s a metaphor. The reworded song lyrics show Tommy is trying tell Hedwig that he understands what Hedwig’s gone through, he realises how hard his life’s been and how much he’s had taken from him in life. At the same time it’s Hedwig coming to terms with everything he’s gone through.

“And there’s no mystical design No cosmic lover preassigned. There’s nothing you can find That can not be found. ‘Cause with all the changes You’ve been through It seems the stranger’s always you Alone again in some new Wicked Little Town.” (Wicked Little Town - Reprise)

Hedwig has finally accepted himself. He’s been searching for somewhere to belong all his life but everywhere he goes he gives up parts of himself to not recieve the acceptance he desires in return. His mother never cared for him, his husband left him after him giving up his penis, Tommy left him after taking away his music.

“Know in you soul Like your blood knows the way From you heart to your brain Know that you’re whole“ (Midnight Radio) He has accepted he isn’t half of a whole but is whole himself. He doesn’t need anything else, be it the wigs, the heels, the make up or even another person.

The metaphor of him morphing in to Tommy is that Tommy is a visual representation of the other half of himself, the half he was trying to find and in the end it was him that actually needs to accept himself. Tommy is the symbol of the missing part of himself, he needed to accept.

So finally, in Midnight Radio he gives Yitzhak the wig that Yitzhak has been craving the entire play (“I’m bearing my soul here and you’re masturbating with acrylic hair!”) Yitzhak is allowed to embrace his true self just as Hedwig learns to embrace himself. Hedwig leaves the stage as Hedwig but looking like Tommy.

The play is about identity and self-acceptance. I think it’s beautiful because it’s something so many people struggle with. Be it your gender, orientation, body image or even if you’re a heterosexual, cis-person simply trying to accept yourself in your own skin. As I said, not everyone’s going to interpret it the same way as me, but hopefully this might help one person get Hedwig.

(Just as a last note: pronouns for Yitzhak are tricky as its never resolved if he/she identifies as female in a drag queen sense, or a transgender way. I went with male pronouns as they’re used in the musical.)

#whoa #i love the way this was explained #hedwig and the angry inch

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Check, Please! Sophomore Year #18 - Goodbye for the Summer - Part I back«  start  »next

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#YXHHSUSJSI #IM DEAD

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Check, Please! Sophomore Year #6 - WGSS120 / HIST376: Women, Food, & American Culture

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my entire life i was told that boys are violent but girls are worse because we’re “catty.” i was told that a catty girl was my enemy, that they used whip tongues in place of fists to start things i couldn’t erase of out my skin. i saw this cattiness wherever i was told it would live. it was in pretty girls with nice lipstick and it was in the girls who studied too much to ever come to the parties and it was in my own group of friends. when i came home crying about something, i was often reminded that girls are catty bitches and if we were boys we’d just punch each other and be done with it. 

but it was boys who first started making fun of how i looked, of what mess my face was like, of the fat on my thighs. and it was girls who showed me how to apply makeup, patiently waiting with me in the bathroom mirror to show how not to cry while i applied it to the waterline. they agreed to go on diets with me even when they hated salad. they agreed to scoop buckets of ice cream into our bellies at midnight when i was upset about something minor.

it was boys who were snippy about my grades, it was a man who first said that because i was a girl i was bad at math and i’d stay that way. it was boys who started making fun of the one time i got a 34 on a math test when my mother had been in the hospital the night before. it was girls who held my hand during this, who stayed with me through hours of library studies, who explained over and over in gel pens and pretty handwriting exactly what i was missing. it was girls who taught me to color-code and to highlight and how to stay up all night, it was girls who cheered with me when i got nothing lower than a B. 

it was a boy who taught my friend that she could talk down to me like i was trash. it was a boy who started drama between us. it was a boy who wouldn’t listen or talk it out or find a solution. he’d say angry hurtful things and expect us to listen. it was girls who fixed me after this. they taught me how to make good and positive friends. how to stay away from the girls who really are toxic ones. how to be proud of others and not competitive. how to give genuine compliments, how to accept them, how to be comfortable with who i am and what has happened.

i was told all my life that there was a “type” of girl to avoid. she was probably wearing ugg boots and shorts or drinking a latte or picking out lush products or doing literally anything that girls like to do for themselves, she was catty. girls are catty. when they fight, it’s a catfight. (the majority of fights i saw were either physical or two girls sobbing while apologizing. the speaking beforehand was just the standoff because nobody was ready to take the gloves off). 

girls, i find, are defensive. we wear our hands up, waiting for the hit. girls who are sick of getting hit get “bitchy.” they are fierce, they take what they want, they’ll mess you up for saying the wrong thing about their friend. and girls, who are unwilling to simply take insults without lashing back with something: they’re catty. and when boys bully others and spread nasty gossip and start drama: well, they’re just boys. they’ll fight it out, or something. 

how much i regret believing that girls weren’t my safety net. how many friends i was scared to make because i was intimated by them. so many loving people. out of fear of what? of a tongue someone else has tattooed on them?