The writer and performer John Cameron Mitchell has a message for members of Generation Z: Stop playing it safe and embrace punk. Mitchell, who wrote “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” sits down with Opinion’s deputy editorial director of culture, Carl Swanson, to talk about what he learned touring around the country and talking with college students about rebellion.
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The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Please note: parts of this conversation contain strong language.
Carl Swanson: My name is Carl Swanson, and I’m the deputy editorial director for culture at Times Opinion.
We are only four months into the second Trump administration, so it’s too early to say what the cultural response will be, but it’s not too early to ask the question: What should the response be from art, music and from youth culture? The actor, writer and director John Cameron Mitchell recently wrote an essay for us with an answer to that question: “Today’s Young People Need to Learn How to Be Punk.”
Mitchell is the writer and performer behind “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” ——
Audio clip of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”: Thank you, my name is Hedwig. Please welcome those ambassadors of Eastern Bloc Rock, the Angry Inch, here they are …
The cult rock musical and film. He also wrote and directed the film “Shortbus,” which explores community, pleasure and sex ——
Audio clip of “Shortbus”: Look at all these people out there. They’re trying to find the right connection, and I personally expect a few blown fuses before the night is over, and maybe one of them will be yours.
Millennials probably know him from his role in Lena Dunham’s series “Girls,” playing a somewhat touchy book editor. I’ve known John Cameron Mitchell for about 20 years, and he’s with me today to discuss what he means by punk and what he learned touring around college campuses this year.
John, welcome.
John Cameron Mitchell: Thank you, Carl.
Swanson: Well, before we get into punk, I wanted to just talk to you a little bit about what you were doing in the last four months. Tell me a little bit about the tour that you did. What did it consist of?
Mitchell: The tour came about purely for economic reasons. Oh, I’m not acting anymore, I’m going to do a bit of teaching. I’ll cold-email a bunch of department heads of colleges that have some resources and say, “Hey, I’m available: film, TV, screenings, singing, gender studies — whatever you want to talk about, I’m available.” So I booked my own 14-college tour and a lot of the professors were even people I knew, who were part of my generation. And it started out just as a gig, or gigs, and almost immediately I realized we’re at a tipping point, certainly in academia, with old-fashioned pressure from the left and political correctness and then suddenly Trump, is now leaning on these same places for his own purposes — kind of bullying purposes — to shut them down from the right, censor wise. So you have this very narrow Fire Island wooden pathway that they can walk, and you go one side or the other, and someone might complain and you lose your job.
So I came in as an independent voice contractor in a way, and oftentimes the professors were like: We can’t talk about these hot-button issues, but you can.
Swanson: Do you feel like that was sort of an express part of what the ——
Mitchell: It was. Not everybody, but some of them, were like: Actually, kick their asses with love, John, let’s talk to them. You know, life doesn’t have trigger warnings or consent waivers; let’s talk from your point of view being someone who’s always been a bit punk in the way I’ve made things. Because the kids are like fetuses; they came up through Covid and they can’t look you in the eye. And they know it — they’re smart enough to even make fun of the fact that they’re trapped in their beds and wearing slippers all year round.
And everyone’s trapped in their identity, and they’re looking for trouble. They’re 20 years old and seeking the flaw out, almost like a cranky old granny. They were getting old before their time. In their rush to be correct, to help to correct the world, they started to correct each other and their friends because you don’t cancel a dictator that’s in charge, you cancel who you can, and that’s usually someone who’s in the room or online with you.
We started to correct our buddies to the point where a lot of people were like: I’m out. I’m afraid of being too corrected or canceled, so I’m just stepping out of the public discourse. I’m not talking about anything controversial. So I said: Guys, we’re separating ourselves. As one of the professors said, we’ve done Trump’s work for him by separating ourselves, seeking a purity that is not found in nature, a certain kind of progressive purity.
Swanson: Well, I think one of the things that’s interesting is the way that the trollish right has taken on that sort of punkish energy. And then the left, of course, became more puritanical, and in some ways conservative.
Mitchell: Puritanism is built into our American society, anyway. I mean, sadly, in a national way, I think, yes, Trump’s taken over a kind of adversarial, owning-the-libs agenda. He’s made politics into actual sports, and people have chosen their team. Even if they fail, the right has chosen Trump. We as progressive people are less forgiving of our leaders.
Swanson: Do you think that the kids realize that they can’t correct each other into the world being a better place?
Mitchell: Well, I think they’re starting to realize that, because of what happened in the election. And partially it was because of those people seeking purity that Trump was elected. Maybe they didn’t vote for Kamala Harris because she was tainted by Gaza. You know, right-wing people love to ignore the peccadilloes. They love to just trust, and they love a dictator; they love a daddy.
Swanson: So tell me about the kids this year — like, what specifically did they feel or say?
Mitchell: Well, they’re bewildered; they’re really stunned because these tools they have, which is online correction, don’t work now. They’re starting to realize there has to be a new way of thinking, and I was encouraging them to look to their youth. What is inherent in youth? The idea of hope, the idea of change, and even the idea of rebellion against older Gen Zs who are saying certain things. And I actually had young people saying: Well, how do we deal with fascism? The same way they said: How do we access the punk?
Swanson: Let’s roll back a little bit and talk about punk and your concept of it. Tell me about what punk meant to you. I know you grew up in a military family and you were a theater kid, moved to New York ——
Mitchell: Did Broadway shows, yeah, and I started doing TV.
Swanson: Tell me about that scene in New York at that time.
Mitchell: Yeah, well, before that was L.A., and there was a kind of underground queer scene there, too. And then I came to New York in ’90, and in the midst of this all, AIDS was everywhere. And as a young gay man, I was the first generation that came out sexually during safe sex.
So I was saved, in a way, whereas people a couple of years older, who came out in ’83, were not safe and were dying. So I had this weird optimism of youth, which I would see on my college tour, but also blunted by the mortality of my actual coming out and the negligence of the government letting us die. And so AIDS activism was truly punk. It was outside the system. It was using imagery in the way that punk bands would. And they took that kind of art into AIDS activism.
Swanson: It would be to shake people up. It was imagery that would ——
Mitchell: To remind people this was happening.
Swanson: It was transgressive, but also would shake people off their sense of: This is quiet. This is over there. You have to see this, you have to acknowledge it.
Mitchell: Yeah. This is happening around you.
Swanson: Do you think punk is inherently political, or do you think it’s transgressive first?
Mitchell: It’s not always political. People say it kind of sprang out of actually Detroit originally, with MC5 and Iggy Pop, which was a bit political there. So New York’s version of punk, which came later, was more hipster. It was more art-based: Patti Smith, Television, The Ramones. So punk came from all sources.
Britain did its own version that had some political element. That was “God Save the Queen, the fascist regime.” There were others, like Crass, who created their own little anarchist collectives. So there were different kinds of punk — fashion-y, political group — the punkness was stepping outside the approved system.
Swanson: Yes. And your definition of punk is about helping. It’s about community and helping people out. And that’s like part of the idea of D.I.Y. action.
Mitchell: Some would call it sometimes creative destruction. You know, burn that down so green shoots can come up in a different way sometimes. I disagree with burning it all down. But I love challenging. I’ve always loved questioning in a way that’s not “Look at me” and more like: We can make it better. It can be fun.
Swanson: Do you worry that you have to sort of keep an eye on your own punkishness to continue yourself, to model this?
Mitchell: No. Because it’s ——
Swanson: Do you feel like, is it instinct?
Mitchell: It’s making, it’s not presenting.
Swanson: But with this younger generation, having met these students on your tour and knowing their hesitation to embrace provocation, but also their eagerness to make change, what would you say embracing punk in 2025 should or could look like?
Mitchell: Well, obviously they are plugged into the matrix, to the internet, to their phones, and perhaps inextricably. As we know, doomscrolling an overload of information can paralyze you and depress you, as opposed to — it’s hard to figure out the minimum that you need to know to not just feel like you’re dropping out. I just read a few headlines and then move forward with my projects, you know?
But I am fascinated by culture and how it changes and by youth’s reaction to it. Because youth implies suspicion of status quo and seeking to improve, as well as seeking all experience: sex, drugs, congress, art and part of that youth thing is also defining yourself.
And it’s almost like their youth has been sucked out of them. Especially the guys who have been watching porn for five years before they have sex, so the sex is disastrous. And they end up not having it. They’re not dating. I said, “That’s your homework.”
Swanson: [Laughs.] Yeah. Tell me, what is your homework?
Mitchell: The metaphor of having sex is what I taught them. And sex, the metaphor is social intercourse. It’s: Go out there when it’s a little bit scary. Give it a shot. See what that person’s up to. If you’re not a leader, seek out someone who is. Volunteer. Help out, figure it out. Make your art piece. Make it fun. What’s out there?
To me, youth is punk inherently; it’s about questioning the status quo. It’s about experiencing as much as you can. It’s about trying out new modes of clothes and activity and political things, too.
Swanson: And making mistakes. Without fear.
Mitchell: Right. And there is a lot of fear among young people now of IRL, because it’s uncontrollable. It might make them feel uncomfortable, which they have dubbed unsafe.
Uncomfortable is not unsafe. Unsafe is when your body’s in danger. The professors are like: You’ve got to feel safe physically, but the best class is you feel unsafe intellectually. You’re being challenged, and that’s scary for some people.
Swanson: Do you ever worry, in terms of what you learn from these kids? Do you ever have that doubt, like: Wait, am I trying to tell people something that made sense to me in my generation, but they grew up in a different context and my solutions are not ——
Mitchell: I was nervous at first, like, first of all, am I going to get canceled? How much can I say? Am I going to upset them? Are the teachers going to get in trouble? But very quickly, I think my first school was Tulane, and then it was L.S.U., then it was U.C.L.A. — the belly of the Hollywood beast — and I showed “Shortbus” there.
Phyllis Nagy, who’s a screenwriter, said: John, go in there. No trigger warnings. Let’s show them a little bit about where you come from in the ’90s. So I came in, they didn’t even know who I was, necessarily; “Hedwig,” “Shortbus” wasn’t on their radar. So I’m like a crazy punk, queer grandpa, saying — and trying not to say things were better. It’s more like: What can we do now?
Swanson: Do you think the left can be punk again, and do you have hope?
Mitchell: There are so many lefts now, and you know, my hard-core communist and even socialist friends say they’re suspicious of all that, the political correctness. They’re like: That’s not left. That’s just rearranging the deck chairs. And it’s getting in the way of the actual work that needs to be done.
The only thing that has ever made me feel better when I’m dejected by the situation is creativity, generally with someone else, and creativity that is useful. Not just a calling card for your career or that’s fitting into the system. So it’s like stepping out of social media, getting into a place of making something happen in your neighborhood. That’s why I live in New Orleans. I don’t feel it being as possible in New York. I think the small cities and the big towns are the future of creativity in America.
I’m working on this play about Claude Cahun, who was a very punk artist in her time, in the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s. And she used her actual art to fight Nazi occupation on the island of Jersey in the English Channel. And her way was to remind these young German soldiers: What the hell are you doing here?
They would take pennies, and with nail polish — they were older women at this point — and they would ——
Swanson: They were punk grandmas.
Mitchell: They would write “Victory Never” on one side of the coin. And then, on the other side, “War Without End,” so almost voicing these German soldiers’ fears: When does this end? What’s going on? Why would Hitler stop? And just saying: You’re a human being. What are you doing here?
Swanson: Thanks so much, John.
Mitchell: What a pleasure. Thanks, Carl.
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This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Kristina Samulewski. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Carole Sabouraud, Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The director of Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
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