Love You Stephen Trask

Rating: 10/10 (3 November 2019)

I've seen this movie dozens of times, and I always love it a little bit more each time I watch it. I probably saw it for the first time when I was thirteen or fourteen. Looking back on it now, I can see how, as a young person, this radical piece of media, a mixture of performance, theatre, film, and monologue had a profound impact on my understanding and ideas of sexuality, identity, gender, gender as performance, and the intersection of all these things. And for that, it will always be a part of me.
But the film also seems to grow older as I do. Each time I watch it, I catch some new layer, some previously unspoken nuance, that strikes me like lightning. Be it the musical in-jokes, the off-color political commentary, or the shaky way Hedwig ages throughout the film. I will never grow tired of this film, this character, this story, this life.
All that being said, this was the first time I watched this movie with my parents. And they loved it as well. And for their love of it, their wide-ranging understanding of how meaningful and influential it has been to me, I saw all the things they have meant, and all the ways they have influenced me, always for the better. Always with openness, understanding, warmth, and love.