About the story :
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a 2001 American musical comedy-drama film written for the screen and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Based on Mitchell's and Stephen Trask's 1998 stage musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, it accompanies Hedwig Robinson, a gay[5] East German rock singer.[6][7] Hedwig subsequently develops a relationship with a younger man, Tommy, becoming his mentor and musical collaborator, only to have Tommy steal her music and become a rock star. The film follows Hedwig and her backing band, the Angry Inch, as they shadow Tommy's tour, while exploring Hedwig's past and her forced gender identity. Mitchell reprises his role as Hedwig from the original production.


"The Origin of Love" is a song from the stage show Hedwig and the Angry Inch and subsequent film. Stephen Trask wrote the song, which is based on a story from Plato's Symposium. In the Symposium, a party is being held in which a series of speeches are given paying homage to Eros, the Greek god of love. "The Origin of Love" is taken from the speech given by the playwright Aristophanes. According to the speech, long ago, humans were composed of two people stuck back-to-back, with two faces and eight limbs. Male-male humans came from the Sun, female-female humans from the Earth and male-female humans from the Moon. The gods, out of jealousy, split them in half. Now, throughout our lives, we are always trying to find our "other half", and sexual intercourse is the only means we have to put the two halves back together; this desire to be one person again is what we call "love". However, it is impossible to fully rejoin two people because it is our souls and not our bodiesthat most desire to be reunited.


The animation that accompanies the song in the film version was drawn by Emily Hubley.