One of the things I’ve struggled with in reading Fun Home is Alison’s conditional homophobia. Though gay herself, it seems as though her realization came at least in part from her idolization of masculinity–as in, Alison wanted to take on the role of the man in her house with all that would entail (i.e. dating other women). She laments that her coming out did not separate her from her family as she intended but it seemed destined to be that way. She reviles her father’s femininity, his sexuality, and means to show him how he ought to act through her own life choices. It’s hard for me to reconcile Alison’s clear distaste for gay men with her own sexuality. She detests all of his more feminine characteristics, even when they are not forced upon her and during his funeral scene, she fantasizes about outing him as a “manic-depressive, closeted fag” (129). This hypocrisy does not endear Alison to the reader and I was often struck by a feeling of ‘I want to see what happens, but I’m tired of hearing Alison’s thoughts on things.’ I realized I wanted a different narrator. I don’t know if this is some symptom of an unreliable narrator because I don’t believe Alison is lying but I’ve come to see her as a singularly unhappy person that cannot abide the appearance of wholeness–if she perceives something as broken she wants it to appear broken.
March 13, 2018 at 5:04 pm
This is an interesting take on Alison’s sexuality. There are indeed times where Alison may come off as homosexual, but I took it more as her struggling with her own identity and her relationship with her father, than a conscious prejudice against herself and her sexuality. I feel like once she beings to understand her relationship with her father, she will properly be able to understand her own identity.