Fun Home

                In Fun Home, Alison looks back on her childhood and growing up with her at times emotionally distant father who ran the family business, a funeral home. Her father was obsessed with decorating and architecture, a passion that was almost bordering on obsession. She even goes so far as to say that he treated his furniture like children and his children like furniture. Alison always had the impression that family would always play second fiddle to her father’s other interests.

                Alison mentions her theory that all of her father’s decorating was an elaborate effort to hide something. As if all the lovely furniture and décor was part of a cover-up in that they would distract all of those who visited their home from what was really going on. Here I think Alison was accurate in her description. While the Bechdel’s appeared to have the perfect home they did not have a family to go with it. After her father dies Alison finds out that her dad has been having sex with teenage boys, something she never saw coming. By creating the perfect family home, while sacrificing the family bond and thereby eliminating the purpose of his obsession, he kept hidden many secrets.

                I believe that because her father was so skilled at disguising his life that it was impossible for anyone to really know him. Alison thought her and her father had nothing in common what so ever, yet they did share one thing. Both Alison and her father were gay. Such a secret must have been a heavy burden for Alison’s father to carry and that may be the reason he spent so much time creating a materially perfect family environment, yet because of his secret he could never connect emotionally with his family.