Fun Home is an account of Alison Bechdel’s life with her father Bruce. She
reminisces about her childhood and her coming of age, all the while acknowledging
the large role he played in it. The fact that he was a closeted gay man was
revealed to Alison later in life. Learning this provided her with insight into
much of his behavior, particularly that towards her childhood home. In Fun Home, Bechdel’s house represents the
façade that her father upheld to mask his true sexual identity.
Bruce Bechdel
dedicates most of his time to perfecting the appearance of his home. The
restoration completely occupies his mind, as evident in the comic panels. He is
always absorbed in activities such as choosing drapes, adjusting decorative
mirrors, and ordering ornate chandeliers. In fact, Bechdel describes his
passion for refining the home as “libidinal,” “manic,” and “martyred.” These
descriptors are accompanied by a cartoon of Bruce carrying a support beam. His
posture is burdened and almost seems to suggest that he is a slave to this work
of bettering the house.
In fact, he may
feel this obligation to the house’s appearance because he relates it to the façade
of his own identity. He desperately wants to uphold the appearance of an ideal
father and husband. In order to do so, he represses any indicator of his own
sexual identity. To Bruce, the perfect appearance of the house parallels his
own façade as a straight man.
His fervent
dedication to the home’s impression is accompanied by an unwarranted anger at any
disorder. This provides further evidence that he sees the house as representing
himself. When his son is not orderly in arranging the Christmas tree, he
responds in anger. He also responds with an unjustified spanking after seeing
that a vase has been moved to close to the edge of a table. Hitting his
children for such small matters seems to be a vast overreaction. These account
and others like them show that Bechdel’s father takes any kinks in the home
personally and is desperate to remedy them. His over-the-top reactions indicate
that the order of the home has a deeper significance.
The significance
of what the house represents to Bruce can also be seen in Alison’s reaction to
his behavior. She resents his obsession with appearances and refuses to comply
with it in her own life. In fact, Alison
comes to abhor useless décor and has no patience for maintaining the façade of
their home. This difference between how they view manufactured appearances parallels the way
in which she and her father deal with their “non-traditional” sexual orientations.
Whereas Bruce has hidden his sexual identity away and built up an appearance as
a traditional family man, Alison comes out and identifies openly as homosexual.
Their sexual
orientations may actually be used as an argument against viewing the home as a
representation of Bruce’s pretense. Some may argue that his preoccupation with décor
is simply a result of his having an effeminate personality. They could say the
same for Alison’s lack of interest in maintaining appearances. As someone who
identifies more with masculine qualities, she could just not be interested in
home decoration.
However, this
argument fails to take into account the extent to which Bruce invests his life
into home improvement. No generalizations about “typical” gay man behavior go
so far as to explain Bruce’s complete obsession with the home’s appearance. In
the same way, the stereotypes of lesbians cannot account for how Alison feels
toward the upkeep of false pretenses. More importantly, these generalizations
regarding behavior are not valid explanations for an individual’s conduct. In
the cases of Bruce and Alison, viewers must analyze their behavior as personal choices,
rather than conditions of their sexual orientations.
Finally, Bruce
could not seem to control the longings afforded to him by this orientation. This
is evidenced by the fact that he continued to have affairs and pursue other
men. He was unable to restrain this aspect of himself. However, he was able to
control how others saw him. Dedicating himself to maintaining his masquerade
provided him with a sense of control. He viewed the house in a similar way.
Obsessing over the décor and upkeep of the house represented his greater
internal struggle and provided an external avenue of control.
The comic’s
portrayal of how Bruce regarded his home revealed that it represented his performance
as the ideal, straight husband and father. The house required copious amounts
of maintenance, as it reflected the attention with which he had to attend to
his own personal façade. His dedication to maintaining the perfectly matching
drapes and flawless flower beds mirrored his own determination to maintain his
appearance.
Overall, I think this is a solid argument. However, I think you could do more with it because it's a pretty obvious argument. You briefly touch on Bruce's flowerbeds in your conclusion but his obsession with flowers and gardening is one of the main ways that he expresses himself and tries pretty hard to get his family into it. I would use that point to further explain how the flowers are symbolic of his homosexuality and his constant need to tend to them is like his need to have sexual affairs with other men or boys. I also like how you address the counter argument near the end, but I don't think you did it well. I think the typical homosexual man does obsess about appearance. Prove me wrong in a revision because you did not do it here. "No generalizations about “typical” gay man behavior go so far as to explain Bruce’s complete obsession with the home’s appearance." Why? You need to explain your claim here in order for it to be accurate and have meaning.
ReplyDeleteIs the house a mask over his true identity, or a covert way of showing who he really is? Remember what Bechdel says about the flower garden and her father.
ReplyDeleteRe: the support beam. It's like he's carrying his own cross (as people condemned to death by crucifixion did).
"In fact, he may feel this obligation to the house’s appearance because he relates it to the façade of his own identity. He desperately wants to uphold the appearance of an ideal father and husband. In order to do so, he represses any indicator of his own sexual identity. To Bruce, the perfect appearance of the house parallels his own façade as a straight man." -- It's not that you're wrong here, but there's also another side. Remember how Bechdel says (I apologize to all straight men who deeply love flowers now) that no straight man ever loved flowers as much as her father did? What I'm getting at is that you're clearly right *in general* that he's obsessed with creating a façade - but you are ignoring the details of that façade. Does that library really make sense, bluntly, for a man fixated on pretended that he's straight?
To put it another way: you're right that he puts up a façade. But the façade also shows who he is...
"However, this argument fails to take into account the extent to which Bruce invests his life into home improvement. No generalizations about “typical” gay man behavior go so far as to explain Bruce’s complete obsession with the home’s appearance. In the same way, the stereotypes of lesbians cannot account for how Alison feels toward the upkeep of false pretenses. " -- very nice. You're right again, but at the same time, it isn't complete, because in a comic book which is beautifully focused on the significance of details, you are ignoring all of the particulars. Your fundamental argument might not change much in a revision, but you would need to engage with *particular* details, not just generalize about them. You need to work your way through some details to get to this argument more clean, in other words.
I like how you end on the house as a performance - would you relate that to her mother's obsession with the stage? Also, I must harass you: don't we need to attend to the particulars of his performance, and not merely his fixation on performance in general?