Fiction is a hallowed institution where we imagine ourselves as people that we are not … If you really want to follow that line of don't tell any story that's not your own, then you might as well cancel all fiction and only have autobiography."Punk and rock music has a long history with gender fluidity, "and Hedwig is just one little gemstone on that necklace".The most influential jewel? David Bowie, a lifelong idol of Mitchell's and an early champion who helped finance a Los Angeles production of Hedwig out of his own pocket."But it also implies a certain authority … In other words, he gets to decide And it sounds like it already has a pivotal scene.In 1991, Staley had a giant condom placed over the home of senator Jesse Helms in protest of his vehement opposition to funding AIDS research and safe sex practises."This horrible, homophobic senator couldn't get out of this big, inflatable condom," Mitchell gushes.From Hedwig to prophylactic protest, Mitchell is a life-long creator whose work is always interested in interrogating otherness."I want things to be not topical, but useful to the moment."John Cameron Mitchell Presents: Hedwig and the Angry Inch 25th anniversary screens at MIFF on Friday 21 AugustMitchell then appears at Sydney's Festival of Dangerous Ideas on Sunday 23 August.I'm Afraid Of Americans: A Bowie Song Cycle plays on Sunday 6 September at Sydney's Enmore Theatre and Wednesday 9 September at Melbourne Recital Centre