On Thursday, Stamps School of Art and Design welcomed actor, writer and director John Cameron Mitchell to the packed Michigan Theater for “Is This My Story to Tell?,” a lecture on Mitchell’s career and activism. The talk was part of the Penny Stamps Speaker Series, a weekly art and design lecture intended to expose students to different creative fields and respected speakers.
Mitchell is known for his role in the musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” the story of a genderqueer singer who escapes occupied East Berlin to the United States, which he later adapted for the screen. Mitchell has also directed many other films, such as “Rabbit Hole” and “Shortbus.” He is also a podcaster, creating the podcast musical “Anthem: Homunculus” as well as a fictional podcast “Cancelation Island.”
While speaking, Mitchell had a picture behind him of Claude Cahun, a Queer French artist from the 1920s, citing the impact Claude and her wife, Marcel Moore, had on the art community in Paris.
“This is Claude Cahun, who, with her wife, Marcel — they took gender non-specific names — and they kind of busted out of the scene in Paris,” Mitchell said. “When they came in there in the ’20s, (it was) a boy’s club.”
Mitchell emphasized how dangerous political divisions can be, satirically referencing a statement by Elon Musk on an episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.
“If I was going to take over this country, I would separate people by identity,” Mitchell said. “First of all, that is easy. That has been done. I would invent the internet, and I would probably employ, as kind of an enforcer, someone who said that empathy is our greatest human weakness, as Elon Musk said.”
According to Mitchell, community involvement is crucial, speaking directly to student attendees about retraining their minds to be more accepting.
“I still have optimism in you — you have that in you — it’s not going to go away,” Mitchell said. “You can retrain yourself for a different way of thinking about doing the right thing, which is much less judging, and it’s much more active.”
Mitchell ends his lecture the same way he began, by singing a song from “Hedwig,” starting with “Wicked Little Town” and concluding with “Origin of Love,” alongside guitarist Jonathan Edwards.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Art & Design junior Michael Russell reflected on the importance of Mitchell’s lecture, especially in the wake of the University’s cuts to all diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“This was really impactful,” Russell said. “Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about politics and the state of our country, for obvious reasons. I’ve been having a lot of discussions with classmates, especially with DEI being rolled back recently. So just hearing somebody else come in and give an outside perspective about how they think the country is going right now, especially in comparison to the past, it was really interesting.”
Art & Design professor Heidi Kumao told The Daily she appreciated Mitchell’s commentary on the current political climate and his emphasis on unity.
“I like how he addressed the students kind of just head on, like where their generation is and also the ideas of bringing people together,” Kumao said. “This is a really trying time that we have in America where everybody’s being split apart.”
Daily News Contributor Cleo Sawhney can be reached at lsawhney@umich.edu.
