ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how Hedwig and the Angry Inch, both as a text and a phenomenon, invigorates a thematic motif of 'in-betweenness'. Hedwig and the Angry Inch developed first as a stage musical conceived by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask. The chapter considers use a Deleuzean framework to introduce the notion of in-betweenness in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a number of in-between spaces that are magnified by the film's implied identity as a rockumentary. It suggests that Hedwig and the Angry Inch blurs boundaries of drag/rock, authenticity/artifice, sincerity/pastiche, celebrity/ordinariness, fantasy/autobiography and gender/transition. As a crossover between the aesthetics of musical theatre, punk and drag performance, Hedwig and the Angry Inch inhabits a similar in-betweenness, an ambiguous position that is reflected in its main themes. The soundtrack of Hedwig and the Angry Inch is eclectic, but within its diversity there is a notable lack of pop – a form often seen as inauthentic and the antithesis of rock.
