The Opinions - A Punk Survival Guide for Gen Z

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

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.Thoughts? Emails us at [e-mail] episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Kristina Samulewski. It was edited by Alison Bruzek and Kaari Pitkin. The rest of the show's production team includes Derek Arthur, Vishakha Darbha and Jillian Weinberger. Mixing by Sonia Herrero and Carole Sabouraud. 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. 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 more punk.

Mitchell is the writer and performer behind 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. Look at all these people out there. 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 better from his role in Lena Dunham series, girls, playing a kind of tetchy book editor. I've known John Cameron Mitchell for about 20 years. And he's with us today to discuss what he means by punk, and what he learned

from touring around college campus this year, John, John, welcome. Thank you, Carl. Well, before we get into punk, I wanted to just talk to you a little bit about, well, just, you know, what you were doing the last four months. Like, tell me a little bit about the tour that you did, what it sort of consisted of. Yeah, the tour came about purely for economic reasons. Oh, I'm not acting anymore. I'm going to, you know, 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, whatever. Screenings, singing, you know, gender studies. is 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, you know, my generation, and it started out just as a gig, you know, gigs. And almost immediately I realized we're in a tipping point, certainly in academia, with pressure, 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 kind of 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 some of them might complain, and you lose your job. So I came in as an independent voice contractor in a way, and oftentimes they were like, we can't talk about these hot button issues, but you can. Do you feel like that was expressed? That was sort of an express part of what the...

It was. Not everybody, but, you know, some of them were like, actually kick their asses with love, John. You know, actually, let's talk to them. You know, life doesn't have trigger warnings or consent waivers. Let's talk about from your point of view being someone who's always been a bit punk in the way I've made things about what their... Because the kids are, you know, like fetuses, they came up through COVID.

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, you know, wearing slippers all year around. And everyone's trapped in their identity and they're like looking for trouble. You know, 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 and then start to correct each other and their friends because you can't you don't cancel a dictator that's in charge you cancel who you can right that's usually someone who's

in the room yeah or online with you um we started to correct our buddies to the point where a lot of people were like i'm out i don't know you know i'm i'm afraid of being too corrected or cancel or this that so i'm just stepping out of the public discourse, I'm not talking about anything controversial. So I was like, guys, we're separating ourselves. You know, 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. Well, this is, I think, one of the things that's interesting is the way that the kind of prolish right has taken on that sort of hunkish energy. And then the left, of course, became

more puritanical, became more sort of like... Conservative. And in some ways, conservative, yes. 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. He's made politics into actual sports. Right. And people have chosen their team. Yes.

Even if they fail, right, they've chosen Trump. Yes. We as progressive people are less forgiving of our leaders. Do you think that the kids realize that they can't correct each other into the world being a better place? 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 he was elected. Right. They maybe didn't vote for Kamala, you know, because she was tainted by Gaza, you know.

Right-wing people love to ignore the peccadillos. They love to just trust and they love a dictator. They love a daddy. So tell me about the kids this year, like what specifically, like, what do they sort of feel like or say? Well, they're bewildered. They're really stunned because the tools they have, which is correction online, don't work now. They're starting to realize there has to be a new way of thinking. And I was encouraged 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 were 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? Let's roll back a little bit and talk about punk and your concept of punk.

Tell me about what that meant to you. I mean, you know, you were sort of a, you grew up in a military family. Yeah. And you were sort of a theater kid, moved to New York and was a, you know, Broadway shows, yeah, and started doing TV. Tell me about that scene in New York at that time.

Yeah, well, that, 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 was, you know, 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 years older who came out, you know, in 83, we're not safe and we're dying. So I had this weird optimism of youth, which I would see on my college tour, but also like 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. You know, it was outside the system.

It was using imagery in the way that punk bands would. And they took that kind of art into a. activism. It would be sort of to shake people up. It was, it was imagery that would, to remind people this was happening. It was transgressive, but also would like, it would shake people off their sort of sense of like, this is quiet, this is over there. Yeah. You have to see this. You have to acknowledge it. Yeah, this is happening around you. Do you think that punk is sort of inherently political or do you think it's sort of transgressive first? It's not always political. You know, people say it kind of sprang out of, actually Detroit originally with MC5.

Then Iggy Pop, which was more almost, it was a bit political there. So New York's version of punk, which came later, was more hipster, it was more art-based, Patty Smith, television, you know, the Ramones. When we first started, the bottom of what to do, we just had to write about what came natural. So punk came from all sources. Britain did its own version that has some political elements. Right? Absolutely. There were others like Krasse who created their own little anarchist collectives.

So there was different kinds of punk fashiony, political group, and the punkness was stepping outside the approved system. Yes. And your definition of punk also is about helping, it's about community and helping people out. It's not about, you know, and that's like part of the idea of DIY. Someone called 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.

Sure. But I love challenging. You know, 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. Do you worry that you, you have to sort of keep an eye on your own punkishness to get into yourself to model this? No, because it's active. It's making. You know, it's not presenting. But with this younger generation, I mean, 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? Well, obviously, they are plugged in to the matrix, to the internet, to their phones, and perhaps inextricably. as we know doom scrolling overload of information can paralyze you and depress you as opposed to what you it's hard to figure out what you 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 um 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. Right. And it's almost like their youth has been sucked out of them, especially the guys have been watching porn for five years before they have sex, so the sex is disastrous. Right. And they end up not having it. They're not dating.

I said, that's your homework. You know Yeah, so what is 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. You know, 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.

And making mistakes. And making mistakes. Without fear. 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. safe is when your body is in danger. The professors are like, you've got to feel safe

physically, but the best class is you feel unsafe intellectually, right? You're being challenged, and that's scary for some people. I mean, do you ever worry, in terms of what you learn from these kids, I mean, there are times when you're going, like, do you ever have that doubt? Like, wait, am I trying to tell people, it's something that made sense to me in my generation, but they grew up in a different context, and my solutions are not? I was nervous at first. I'm like, first of all, am I going to get canceled? How much can I say?

Am I going to upset them? Is the teacher's going to get in trouble? Right. But very quickly, I think my first one was Tulane and then it was LSU. Then it was UCLA, the belly of the Hollywood Beast. And I showed short bus there. You know, Phyllis Nodge, 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. You know, Hedwig Shortbus wasn't on their radar. So I'm like crazy punk queer grandpa saying. And try not to say things are better. It's more like what is now? What can we do now? So, John, do you think the left can be punk again?

And do you have hope? Well, there's so many lefts now. And, you know, in my hardcore 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. Right. 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 dejected by the situation is creativity generally with someone else. And creativity that is useful, not just a calling card for your career or a, you know, 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, because 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.

And, you know, I'm working on this play about Claude Cajoon, who is a very punk artist in her time in the 20s and 30s and 40s. and 40s, and she used her actual art to fight Nazi occupation of the island of Jersey in the English Channel. And her way was like to remind these young German soldiers, reminding them like, what the hell are you doing here? They would take pennies and with nail polish. They were older women at this point. In nail polish, they would write. Punk Ramos. Yeah.

They would write Victory Never on one side of the coin. And then on the other side, war without end. So almost voicing their fears, these German soldiers' fears, when does this end? What's going on? Why would Hitler stop?

You know, just saying, you're a human being. What are you doing here? Thanks so much, John. What a pleasure. Thanks, Carl. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple,

or wherever you get your podcasts. The Opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Veshaka, Christina Samuelski and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin and Alison Bruzick. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabro, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amon Sahota.

The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samuelski. The director of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.