Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Plato's Theory of Bisexuality

Read about how the song "Origin of Love" from the musical movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a primer on Plato's theory of bisexuality.

image credit: Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Freud uses the myth of the three human figures (taken from Plato’s Symposium) to illustrate the human instinct to return to a former state, which he calls the death drive, which, as seen by the myth, is fueled by the libido of desire.

“‘The original human nature was not like the present, but different. In the first place, the sexes were originally three in number, not two as they are now; there was man, woman, and the union of the two.’ Everything about these primaeval men was double: they had four hands and four feet, two faces, two privy parts, and so on. Eventually Zeus decided to cut these men in two .... After the division had been made, ‘the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and threw their arms about one another eager to grow into one.’” (Freud Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 69-70).

In the film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hedwig uses the same myth to inspire a song she calls “The Origin of Love.” 

Feel inspired? Use the lesson plan I added to the TpT catalog.

Lyrics from “Origins of Love”