Fun Home
Fun Home is a 2006 comic memoir by Alison Bechdel, creator of Dykes to Watch Out For. The story focuses on her growing up in rural Pennsylvania, living under her oppressive father, Bruce, a high-school teacher and funeral home director. It also focuses on his history, how he came to be, and his lifelong project of restoring a dilapidated Victorian-era mansion. As she asserts her independence and comes to accept her orientation as a lesbian, she discovers that her father is gay and closeted. Soon after Alison comes out, he is hit by a truck, which she believes to have been suicide.
The book took seven years to make. The art was painstakingly reconstructed from family photographs, alongside the panels Alison herself posed for. Upon its release, Fun Home was well received critically, and is held up as an exemplary work of both its medium and its genre.
- Alternative Character Interpretation:
- In-Universe. Alison and her girlfriend were fond of doing this to classic childhood literature- "God, Christopher Robin was a total imperialist!"
- Also of her father. She admits freely that suicide is only her interpretation of his death, and she can never know for sure whether it is correct. When telling of things he did, she offers several different versions of what could have been the motivations behind them.
- Anachronic Order
- Art Shift: For the close-ups of the photographs.
- Big Breasts, Big Deal: Played With in that a 12-year-old Alison resents the presence of her budding breasts.
- Butch Lesbian: Alison.
- Coming Out Story
- Continuity Nod: Dykes to Watch Out For fans should be able to spot Ginger, Lois and Harriet at the college LGBT group.
- Cool, Clear Water: Pollution makes rivers nice and sparkly.
- The Dandy: Bruce is played straight, he is obsessed with his appearance, as well as the rest of his family.
- Daydream Surprise: Alison has a brief imaginary outburst at her father's funeral. The next panel cuts back to reality, where she is quiet and polite.
- Driven to Suicide: As if this wasn't tragic enough, there's the strong implication that Allison herself is the one who inadvertently did the driving.
- Dysfunctional Family
- Fan Disservice: The naked, open-stomached corpse.
- Flyover Country: Beech Creek, Pennsylvania.
- Hot for Student: Bruce had, at one point, slept with two of his students. The event was swept under the rug.
- No Periods, Period: Averted
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Several little asides stress this, like "Yes, it really was a Sunbeam Bread truck" and "Honest to God, we had a painting of a cockatoo in the library.
- Real Is Greenish-Gray
- Shotacon: During the Bicentennial in New York, Alison's brother, John, is stalked by a pedophile. He gets away safely.
- Shout-Out: Numerous references to classic literature, mythology, as well as queer/lesbian fiction.
- They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason: Bruce and Helen have quite a few.
- Turn Out Like His Father: Bechdel spends much of the book looking back on her childhood with a new perspective after she learns her dad is gay.
- What Do You Mean It's Not Didactic?:
- Demonstrated In-Universe during Alison's literature class.
- Arguably invoked by the way she tells her own story, giving away pretty much all the key elements of the story very early on, and then spending the bulk of the book analyzing and re-assessing every memory of her father she has.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: When Alison comes out of the closet, she considers herself some sort of dramatic heroine. When her mother reveals that her father is also gay and closeted, she realizes she's actually only the comic relief in her father's tragedy.