‘My Dad and I Both Grew Up In The Same, Small Pennsylvania Town’: Inner Life in Fun Home

TW: suicide, paedophilia, homophobia resulting in death.

Unlike alternative musicals about protagonists looking for their, ‘corner of the sky’[1], Fun Home’s adult Alison Bechdel begins knowing exactly where her ‘corner’ is. Forty-three, a successful cartoonist and namesake of the Bechdel test, Alison stands on stage with the knowledge and security of her identity. Through Alison’s gaze, with the cartoonist appearing alongside depictions of herself at different ages, audiences watch her life growing up in the funeral home run by her father, Bruce Bechdel. A closeted gay man for most of his life, Bruce’s life came to an end at a time when Alison was liberated. Looking back over her childhood and coming out at university, Alison and audiences see how she grew into the person she was meant to be whilst alongside her, Bruce was attempting to exist within an insulated space which could not hold him. In an interview in 2008, the real Bechdel said of the real-life story of herself and her father, ‘it’s the story of two generations of gay people. My father was gay, and I was, and we both grew up in this same little Pennsylvania town and he killed himself and I became a lesbian cartoonist’[2]. This line was inserted into the musical and asserts both the similarities and differences between the experiences of both Alison and Bruce Bechdel. Both are intensely artistic and connect through art and literature. Yet, whilst Alison’s ability to explore the world allow her to come into her sexuality openly, Bruce’s life remains in his hometown following a short time living in Germany with Helen. Throughout, composer Jeanine Tesori and lyricist Lisa Kron utilise the concept of space and time to explore this duality through the mirroring of both Alison and Bruce.

The fictionalised adult Alison, referred to in the musical as simply Alison, is the most physically removed from the town of Beech Creek where she grew up. Cast as the narrator, she examines the different paths taken by herself and her father, both in how they diverged and in finding kinship. Indeed, Alison is forty-three years old, around the same age as Bruce when he passed away at fourty-four[3]. Both are lovers of art, yet each favours a different style, which Tesori and Kron highlight throughout the musical. Bruce builds a collection of ancient pieces whilst Alison’s passion and career revolves around cartoons. Alison remembers that when questioned by her future girlfriend Joan at university, she described her father’s tastes as more ‘refined’[4] than her own. Furthermore, Bruce is dismissive of Small Alison, declaring, ‘You have the potential to become a real artist. Do you know that? You do. But, you have to study the forms, you have to learn the rules.’[5] As such, Alison is brought up with defined, restrictive ideas of what art must be, which she constantly rejects to become a cartoonist. Indeed, whilst Bruce wishes her to keep to one singular, realistic version of the town in her homework drawing, Small Alison’s artistic interpretation is more whimsical, drawing her siblings as, ‘Floating in bubbles’[6]. The ‘rules’ which Bruce refers to may not just refer to creating art, but also to the ‘rules’ of how they should live their lives. Indeed, Bruce follows the socially constructed ‘rules’ of heterosexuality and conforms to pass as straight. This is evident in his attempt to dissuade Small Alison from wearing the more traditionally masculine clothes she wishes to wear, asking, ‘You want people talking about you behind your back?’[7] As such, he pushes restrictive ideas in the small-town environment and perpetuates these ideas to his daughter. He even utilises his family as pseudo art, objectifying them to present themselves as the ‘typical family quintet’[8] when a member of the Allegheny Historical Society is to tour the house. Meanwhile, Alison also utilises her family in her art, with the real Bechdel herself posing as models for her cartoons[9] and Fun Home itself being an adaptation of her autobiographical graphic novel. Ultimately, both Alison and Bruce utilise art differently. Yet, whilst Bruce uses art as a façade to conceal his homosexuality to the outside world, Alison utilising it to express her life, both her experience growing up in her family and her inner life. These differing life experiences and relationships with their sexuality become more evident in Medium Alison’s sexual liberation at university.

Whilst the rest of her family are residing in Beech Creek, Medium Alison discovers her sexuality definitively after visiting a bookshop in Ohio and she begins her romance with Joan. Medium Alison’s diary entry, written early in her university experience, establishes her mindset immediately after leaving her family home. She states, ‘I'm going to spend four years reading books and drawing. And I feel so relieved to let go of the insane idea that I'm supposed to throw myself out into the world'[10]. As such, Medium Alison’s introversion is made evident, with the hobbies which bring her joy, ‘reading books and drawing’, being done independently. Yet, the act of ‘drawing’, initially established in this line in opposition to throwing herself ‘into the world’, becomes a catalyst for connection. Indeed, the act of ‘drawing’ is a way for the internal to be expressed and released externally. Following her coy letter to her parents stating that there is, ‘Nothing else worth writing home about’[11], Medium Alison makes the offer to Joan to ‘draw you some posters’[12]. In framing creating the posters as being specifically for her crush, Kron and Tesori signify that Medium Alison is taking steps towards allowing her art to become more interactive with communities outside her family. Interestingly, having found success through her representations of lesbian life, the real Bechdel returned to her family as the centre of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama. As such, this escape from home seems to have offered a clarity to the musical’s incarnation of Medium Alison. In the musical, free from the comparatively claustrophobic Beech Creek, Medium Alison’s inner world becomes expressed as her relationship with Joan develops. She retains her shyness, she wishes to, ‘never leave this room’[13], yet after this scene we see Medium Alison living her life out of the closet after having experienced her first sexual relationship. Ultimately, Medium Alison initially believes being insular to be safer, yet in exploring her sexuality, she begins to live outside of the closet and pursues the life of her inner world. Medium Alison’s, ‘coming out is an opening’[14] for her, whilst Bruce’s sexual experiences are not to be so celebrated.

As opposed to Alison’s sexual coming of age, which takes place at a university which is progressive enough to have a Gay Union, Bruce’s sexual history is hidden, ‘in the shadows’[15]. The musical rightly condemns Bruce’s pursuit of adolescent boys, whilst also offering explanations for this behaviour. Discussing Bechdel’s graphic novel and the real-life individuals depicted in it, academic Natalja Chestopalova stated that Bruce was, ‘set on preserving a sense of normalcy in a dysfunctional familial and cultural setting.’[16] As such, he pursues the façade of a heteronormative lifestyle and pursues boys whom he holds power over and who would therefore likely not speak out against him. The musical signifies that the heteronormativity and homophobia upheld by Bruce’s society results in him utilising sex to literally create a family unit and heterosexual life in the eyes of his peers. Inevitably, it is soon after the veneer cracks and he loses control of the image he has presented to the world outside the Fun Home that he loses his life. It is evident that the musical’s depiction of Bruce feels unable to live openly due to the homophobic society he likely grew up in. During the 1950s in America, when he would have been in his teens and twenties, it was a socially accepted view that homosexuality is akin to, ‘a sin or temptation to which anyone might succumb’[17]. As such, Bruce is characterised as being stifled by an internalised homophobia, resulting in him utilising sex to escape the life he has built. In reflecting upon her father’s life in ‘Maps’, Alison reflects that, ‘Dad was born on this farm / Here's our house / Here's the spot where he died / I can draw a circle / His whole life fits inside’[18]. Whilst Helen states later that she and Bruce lived in Germany early in their marriage[19], Alison disregards this, and perhaps forgets it, drawing her father’s life as contained to a small area. As such, Tesori and Kron suggest that Alison thinks of her father as being restricted, both to Beech Creek and to a life in which he lived a lie. Ultimately, the Fun Home becomes an extension of Bruce’s inner world, which he utilises to project the image of the idealised family. In a letter to Alison, Bruce states, ‘I can't say though that I see the point of putting a label on yourself’[20], signifying that in his experience, he survives through hiding his inner world from society. It is when this façade is lifted that he sees no way of continuing on.

Ultimately, Fun Home follows the history of an artistic family through an artist’s eyes. Alison’s inner world and memories become tangible to audiences as the musical stages her past and relationships with her parents. Furthermore, the musical fictionalises the act of the real Alison Bechdel writing the graphic novel Fun Home. Discussing her feeling of catharsis due to writing her graphic novel, Bechdel stated that, ‘I had been haunted by my father and I no longer was. I took him off my hard drive.’[21] This is reflected in the musical’s version of middle-aged Alison re-living significant moments with her father, leading up to a memory of her younger self. In a reference to the graphic novel’s first pages[22], Small Alison, being lifted by her father, wishes to ‘Fly up so high’[23], so that she, ‘can see all of Pennsylvania’[24]. To her, Pennsylvania seems like the world and indeed, it is the world of her parents, the world where they settled. Yet, in growing up, Alison’s experiences of the world become expanded and in doing so, we understand our narrator to be more at home with herself than her father was. This is also evident in their final car ride together, in which Bruce describes a gay bar as, ‘A seedy club’[25]. Ultimately, their relationships with the ‘small Pennsylvania town’ they both inhabited at various points in their life shapes Alison and Bruce’s experiences with their inner worlds. Whilst Bruce lived his teenage years through a particularly homophobic period in history as discussed, Alison Bechdel, and her fictional counterpart, was in her early twenties in a complicated time in LGBTQ+ history. According to academic Miriam Smith, ‘When HIV/AIDS hit in the 1980s, new activist forms such as ACT UP and AIDS Action Now emerged in the United States’[26]. As such, Alison’s coming out took place on the precipice of a time of immense fear yet heightened visibility for her community. Whilst the progress made may have enabled Alison to come out, Tesori and Kron portray Bruce as being less able to live into the life he desires, leading to his demise. This is presented as causing potential generational issues as despite being a victim of societal homophobia, Bruce tries to restrict Alison, both in her artistic expression and in her sexuality. This has already been discussed in his attempt to take control over her art and suggestion that Medium Alison not ‘label’ herself. Ultimately, Alison’s inner world comes to fruition and her inner world becomes the world of the musical, as we see her life through her eyes as narrator. Meanwhile, Bruce was socialised into a society which condemned his inner world, resulting in his evident internalised homophobia. Both are ultimately forced to escape in their own ways, signifying that in order for our inner worlds to be freed, the worlds around us must be ready to accept them.

Sources [1] Stephen Schwartz, ‘Corner of the Sky’, in Pippin: New Broadway Cast Recording (USA: Ghostlight Records, 2013) [on CD]. [2] StuckinVermont, Alison Bechdel [SIV 109], online video recording, YouTube, 17 December 2008, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWBFYTmpC54> [3] Democracy Now!, Alison Bechdel’s "Fun Home": The Coming-Out Memoir That Became a Hit Broadway Musical, online video recording, YouTube, 30 July 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gputc-vy_zg> [4] Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron, ‘Thanks for the Care Package…’, in Fun Home: A New Broadway Musical (New York: PS Classics, 2015) [on CD]. [5] Tesori and Kron, ‘I Leapt Out of the Closet…’, in Fun Home. [6] Ibid. [7] Tesori and Kron, ‘Party Dress’, in Fun Home. [8] Tesori and Kron, ‘Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue’, in Fun Home. [9] Alison Bechdel, OCD, online video recording, YouTube, 18 April 2006, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CBdhxVFEGc> [10] Tesori and Kron, ‘Just Had a Good Talk with Dad...’, in Fun Home. [11] Tesori and Kron, ‘Thanks for the Care Package…’, in Fun Home. [12] Ibid. [13] Tesori and Kron, ‘Changing My Major’, in Fun Home. [14] Broadwaycom, Behind the Music of FUN HOME with Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, online video recording, YouTube, 28 May 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y41OlmKR0C4> [15] Tesori and Kron, ‘Helen’s Étude’, in Fun Home. [16] Natalja Chestopalova, ‘Generational Trauma and the Crisis Of Après-Coup in Alison Bechdel’s Graphic Memoirs’, in The Comics of Alison Bechdel: From the Outside In, ed. by Janine Utell (Mississippi: The University Press of Mississippi, 2020), pp. 119-134 (p. 129). [17] David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 12. [18] Tesori and Kron, ‘Maps’, in Fun Home. [19] Tesori and Kron, ‘Shortly After We Were Married...’, in Fun Home. [20] Tesori and Kron, ‘A Flair for the Dramatic...’, in Fun Home. [21] Rachel Cooke, ‘Fun Home Creator Alison Bechdel on Turning a Tragic Childhood into a Hit Musical’, The Guardian (2017) <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/05/alison-bechdel-interview-cartoonist-fun-home> [22] Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (London: Jonathan Cape, 2006), p. 3-4. [23] Tesori and Kron, ‘Flying Away (Finale)’, in Fun Home. [24] Ibid. [25] Tesori and Kron, ‘Telephone Wire’, in Fun Home. [26] Miriam Smith, ‘LGBTQ Politics in Anglo-American Democracies’, in The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics, ed. by Michael J. Bosia, Sandra M. McEvoy and Momin Rahman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 139-152 (p. 143).