Fun Home Theme of Identity
With this graphic memoir, Fun Home, I feel like a central theme to Alison Bechdel’s life was her growing up and discovering her Gender Identity and sexual orientation through coming of age and how that identity differs from society’s expectations. These expectations seem to be enforced by mainly her father figure within her life, her dad Bruce. Alison has over time experienced shame and discomfort in growing up conforming to her female body and identity. When she admires the way a woman wearing male clothing looks, her father’s bitter tone of questioning if she wants to look like that pushes her away and creates a sense of guilt in genuinely feeling like she doesn’t belong in her body. Moreover, her going through puberty only heightens this sense of annoyance she feels as a woman going through the changes women go through. In addition, Alison also finds it shameful when she’s attracted to a picture of a nude female model which only intensifies her father’s projected thinking on her.
I find it interesting how Bruce is like the symbol of society’s enforcement on exploration of homosexuality and identity while he himself isn’t driven by conservative principles but rather his own struggle with his identity. It seems like with Bruce, he wants Alison to be driven by a feminine and girlish identity because he’s only expressing his own sense of femininity within her. Additionally, Bruce going through his own coming of age perspective is drastically different from Alison’s, and we can see the progression in both of their stories. Alison, when she’s enrolled in college at Oberlin, she’s subjected to a much more open community and way of thinking and allows her to properly and freely explore herself with honest and public relationships, and leading into adulthood, is finally open with her identity and sexuality. Bruce on the other hand keeps his identity secret which ultimately leads to uncontrolled behaviour and self-destructive tendencies, leading to his likely suicide.
It’s pretty interesting looking at two narratives which, at first started through the same phase of denial and self-deceit but ultimately separating paths and seeing the difference in adulthood between Alison and her dad Bruce.
You depict their dynamic really well, and it makes you wonder how things could have developed between them if they only had more time. It seemed like just as they were getting to know each other as people and as adults, Bruce's life came to an end. It's really unfortunate because I saw great potential for development in that respect, and potentially an avenue for Bruce to be more honest with himself as well as his family now that he doesn't feel he's going through this internal struggle alone. Good points!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis, the difference between how Alison interacted with her environment and the society she was in, and how Bruce did, is pivotal to their experiences. I also think it was interesting how they kept growing closer and apart and closer again throughout their lives - when Alison was young, he barely interacted with the kids; when she took his English class, they grew close; they grew apart again in college as Alison experienced so many new things and left her childhood behind; and then somehow they found a connection again when she came home and talked with him genuinely about his sexuality for once. Leads me to lean toward Bruce's death being a suicide, as he had finally opened up to Alison and perhaps felt that was a weight off of his shoulders and a task done.
ReplyDeleteit is definitely a painful irony in this book, the way that Bruce is such a potent force for conventional gender conformity as his daughter is growing up. There's definitely a healthy dose of "Do as I say, not as I do" going on here, but we can also more charitably read his impulses as motivated by a desire to protect Alison in some way. At least, her mother's initial response to her coming out suggests that these are her concerns: she knows that Bruce has had a miserable double life, because his homosexuality is so at odds with his prevailing society, and she doesn't want Alison to have to suffer the same way. Of course, it's not an acceptable alternative, by most of our lights, that Alison would have to live an insincere and closeted life in order to avoid homophobic backlash, and we cheer when she confidently goes to New York and forges a life for herself as a public and unapologetic lesbian. But we can see where her mother is coming from, given her own experiences. And maybe this same motivation applies to Bruce in some measure as well.
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