Alfie's Home
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| Central Theme: | Cure Your Gays |
|---|---|
| Synopsis: | A kid from a dysfunctional family is molested by a male relative and becomes "gay" when he grows, at least until Jesus cures him of his homosexuality. |
| Genre(s): | homophobic propaganda |
| First published: | 1993 |
Alfie's Home is a children's picture book by Richard Cohen. The narrator of the story (probably Alfie) tells of how his seemingly perfect and happy family is not all it seems. His parents fight all the time. His father is rarely around, usually yelling at him and his emotionally distressed mother clings to the narrator for support. Lucky for him, his Uncle Pete listens to and spends time with him. Unluckily, Uncle Pete is in fact a Creepy Uncle, and molests his nephew. This leads to many psychological problems as the Narrator gets older.
This book is infamous for its many Unfortunate Implications, especially regarding homosexuality. Cracked.com named it the worst children's book ever written.
Witness it for yourself. Don't say we didn't warn you.
- Abusive Parents: On the rare occasion Alfie's dad is home, he yells at the boy, and his mom vents all of her emotional frustration onto him.
- Author Tract: Richard Cohen is supposedly an "ex-gay" who has written books about "curing" homosexuality.
- Broken Aesop: On the whole, Alfie's Home's message seems to be that members of dysfunctional families can overcome their problems and go on to lead normal healthy lives. The book breaks this both by glossing over the effort this requires and by presenting homosexuality as a problem to be solved.
- Creepy Uncle
- Clueless Aesop: What was the message that the author trying to convey for Alfie's Home?
- That homosexuality is caused by having terrible parents, but is possible to cure by one trip to therapy and a few apologies all around. Yikes.
- Comic Book Time: The mother and father and Uncle Pete do not seem to age, even as Alfie grows to be a teenager.
- Cure Your Gays
- Depraved Homosexual: The uncle.
- Hollywood Psych: Psychology does not work that way.
- Karma Houdini: The uncle. After molesting Alfie for months, Uncle Pete gets off with nothing but a stern lecture.
- Kids Are Cruel: The kids at school called the narrator a faggot.
- Magical Negro: The black counselor solves all of the family's problems in a fingersnap!
- Mistaken for Gay: Alfie
- No Name Given
- Precision F-Strike: Hey, faggot!
- Rape as Drama
- Shotacon: The uncle.
- What Happened to the Mouse? / Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The Brother and Sister who appear on the first page never show up again.