Look at the woman I've become: camp, gender and identity in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun and John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch

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Banks, Amy Ellen
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English and Comparative Literature

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The concept of female gender performativity is a cornerstone of contemporary queer theory. It suggests that manifestations of femaleness are stylized reinterpretations of socially constructed gender norms. An example of this can be seen in the campy, parodic performance of drag, but it is also reflected in the notion that women themselves are female impersonators. Both groups adapt traditional gender norms in ways that reflect the artificiality of manners of speaking, dress and decorum. Additionally, both groups can attain the subversive power that acknowledgment of such performativity allows. These notions are illustrated in the 1978 Rainer Werner Fassbinder film The Marriage of Maria Braun and the 2001 John Cameron Mitchell film Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The character of Maria Braun adapts her own femininity to the cultural, social and political circumstances that surround her. The character of Hedwig does the same, yet as a transgendered individual. An examination of the two films highlights many issues at the core of current Queer Theory and allows for insight into not only gender identity construction but into how identity as a whole is constructed.

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	Look at the woman I've become : camp, gender and identity in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun and John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch	2019-04-12	Public	Download