Villain or Victim: The Portrayal of a Homosexual Father in Fun Home

Josh Kravets

Professor Ionata

English 902

18 November 2015

Villain or Victim: The Portrayal of a Homosexual Father in Fun Home

        Alison Bechdel, in her graphic novel Fun Home, has quite the challenge trying to portray what it was like to grow up with a father who could not openly express his sexuality, while running a funeral home and attempting to raise his children. She never clearly characterizes him, as she most likely still struggles to understand who he was. Instead, through the use of graphics, letters, and allusions, Bechdel depicts a character that the reader attempts to, unsuccessfully, label as a victim or villain throughout the whole novel. His internal dilemmas greatly affect the relationship he had with Alison, and ultimately lead to Alison’s maturation into a person with quite the resemblance to the father she felt so uncertain about.

        Bruce Bechdel, Alison’s father, had a tendency to bring about false appearances. This can be attributed to the generation in which he grew up, which was unwelcoming of homosexuality. He was forced to closet his sexuality, and ended up marrying and starting a family. Bechdel portrays Bruce as being a very emotionally distant father and their relationship lacked the intimacy that she so desired. All the attention that was missing in Bruce’s relationships with his children was found in his love for their house. Bruce was obsessed with restoring their old Victorian Home, and maintaining it in top condition with fashionable decor. Along with the his attempts to keep an old home looking adequate, he also tried to keep his broken family looking like they had the picture perfect life. An ideal example of the false appearances he tried to show to the public can be found in a drawing where Bruce is taking a picture of his family all dressed up for church and the mother says, “Mass will be over before we get there” (Bechdel 16). It is clear that they were not a family that was very devoted to church, but the picture told a different story. Bruce was trying to hide more than just an old home and weak connections with his family; his tendency to make things appear different than what they really were stemmed from deeper secrets he attempted to conceal: his sexual orientation and his sexual relationships with underage boys. Bruce had affairs with teenage boys, one even being the children’s babysitter Roy. Bechdel never condemns her father in the novel for having those inappropriate encounters, which makes it very difficult for the reader to sympathize with or demonize Bruce.

        This extreme focus on proper public appearances took a toll on Alison. Like many children, she began to resist certain values her father attempted to install in her. From an early age, she would rebel against this idea that everything had to look perfect according to society’s standards. A couple of Bechdel’s graphics display her father and her eating at a restaurant when Alison was very young and a woman dressed in men’s clothing walks in. Bruce turns to Alison and says, “ Is that what you want to look like?” (Bechdel 119). Alison of course says no, but in reality, she saw herself in that woman. Alison eventually realized she was homosexual as well, and the reason isn’t because she wanted to rebel against her father’s obsession with appearances, but Bruce’s obsession could have very well played into Alison’s desire to differ from society’s norms. This development of a resistance towards mainstream influences remained prominent during Bechdel’s whole life, as she found comfort in things like the developing gay communities in New York, things which her father was all too familiar with as well.

        Bruce’s attempts to suppress Alison’s strong signs might seem hypocritical since he had to painfully suppress similar feelings. Bruce most likely was attempting to channel his inner desires to express femininity through Alison. If this is true, then Bruce and Alison had a system of using each other to express their inner feelings throughout her entire childhood. Her desire to be masculine became evident at a very young age and since her father would not allow her to dress that way, she would pick out clothes for him just like he did for her. Bechdel illustrates this back and forth channeling in a series of drawings where Bruce tries to put pearls on Alison, and shortly after Alison picks out a vest from a catalog for him (Bechdel 99). This strong parallel is reinforced when Bechdel says, “Not only were we inverts. We were inversions of one another” (Bechdel 98). Even with the obvious signs that Alison showed of being homosexual, Bruce still kept his wall up. It is sorrowful to think their relationship could have been enormousy better if Bruce just opened up to her at a younger age, as they would be able to relate and overcome their obstacles together. Instead, his decision to internalize his feelings towards his family forced Alison to go on a much longer and more difficult road of self discovery, as the graphics in the novel show her looking at books about lesbians in libraries (Bechdel 75).

It is only when Alison writes Bruce a letter professing her sexual orientation that he decides to let down his guard. He answers with slight approval, saying “Everyone should experiment it’s healthy” (Bechdel 77). This might seem insignificant, but it is this moment when Bruce’s false appearances begin to fade. Once he realizes he doesn’t need to pretend anymore, Alison and Bruce have their most intimate and honest conversation. It is shortly after he receives the letter, when Alison is home from college. At this point, Alison is aware of her father’s history with men, and she decides that they should be completely honest with each other. Bruce speaks very hesitantly, and the conversation doesn’t last long, but they relate with very similar experiences in their lives, like cross dressing. In one of the drawings, Bruce tells Alison, “I’d dress up in girls’ clothes”, then she excitedly replies, “I wanted to be a boy! I dressed up in boys’ clothes!” (Bechdel 221). This meaningful moment helped solidify Alison’s self identity and gave her parental support and the intimacy that she longed for.

Bruce’ s homosexuality is one of the things that kept Alison and him so isolate from each other, while also being one of the strongest connections that they shared. It kept them distant because of his trouble trying to cover it up when Alison was a child, but once it was out in the open, they finally could relate. The magnitude of this parallel is made obvious in Bechdel’s drawing of three photographs: one is Bruce on top of his frat house sunbathing, the second (which is lying in between the other two photographs) is Bruce in a lady’s swimsuit, and the third is Alison posing on a fire escape in a picture that was taken by her lover (Bechdel 120). Bruce and Alison share a striking aesthetic resemblance in the two outside photos, and both are smiling, while the photo in the middle is somewhat covered up by her comments. According to Héléne Tison, “... the photo of her father in drag appears instead to play a transitional/translational role between them: Bruce clad in his “women’s bathing suit” (like Alison on page 102) bridges a gap between father and daughter…” (354). This interpretation puts their connection into one image: Bruce dressed in a women’s bathing suit, where he looks “lissome, elegant” (Bechdel 120). The bridge is gapped by Bruce’s inner desire to be feminine, which Bechdel was very understanding and supportive of. This brought them together, and by the appearances of the photos, made them extremely similar.