Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Themes

Media Analysis on Fun Home by Alison Bechdel: Whiteness and White Privilege
The novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel is about the Bechdel family, and the struggles that they endured during their lifetime. The Bechdel family lived in a town in Pennsylvania and directed a funeral home business. Alison’s father Bruce was having sexual relationships with men and boys, the mother Helen, was fully aware of Bruce’s adulterous actions. Alison discovered at an early age that she wanted to dress as a boy and she eventually concluded that she was attracted to women, and at the age of 19 she came out as a lesbian. Not too long after she told her mother that she was a lesbian, her mother revealed that she asked Bruce for a divorce, within two weeks of the revelation Bruce died. Alison suspected that it was a suicide when she began to discover evidence that would correlate to his death. The themes that were present in the novel range from gender identity, repression,

artifice, and death. Alison attempted to analyze her father’s life, and compared it to her own regarding secrecy, relationships, publicizing personal affection, and the emotions that they struggled with daily due to their identities. In this paper, I argue that the novel Fun Home presents the Bechdel family as the archetype of American white privilege through their standard of living.
White privilege is present in a variety of different forms, ranging from social class, opportunities, education, and more. In the novel Alison Bechdel and her family live a life that is built upon the social construct of white privilege. As Peggy McIntosh mentions, “whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege (McIntosh 88)”, the Bechdel family does not acknowledge the privileges that they acquired simply because of the whiteness of their skin. The indication of this unawareness is located on page 106 on the bottom panel where Alison thought to herself, “If the cops searched me could I pass the three-articles-of-women’s-clothing rule? (Bechdel 106)”. Alison did not have to worry about being discriminated against due to the color of her skin, social class appearance, or the fluidity of her language, this is a privilege that she is not aware of. In the Bechdel family it is apparent that the normalcy of whiteness in the household is transparent. Bruce could obtain a second job without hesitation due to white privilege, and he did not face any type of adversity when he took over the family business of funeral directing.
In the second chapter of Women’s Voices, it was stated that individuals that are “white, heterosexual, highly literate, and upper and middle class (Shaw 52)” have privilege, the Bechdel family had these characteristics which allowed them to avoid oppression for most of their lives.

Regarding Alison’s education, it was essentially a given, there was no discussion on the difficulty of financing or applying for a college, she also had an accessible community of other white individuals which openly allowed her to explore her sexual and emotional identity without prejudice. In White Privilege Peggy states, “My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make (McIntosh 90).” not a single member in the Bechdel family struggled with progressing their careers due to social disadvantages of race. The mother never faced discrimination due to a lack of privilege in her acting career and the same can be said about the father and Alison, which allowed them to live comfortably and

safely.
In conclusion, the Bechdel family exemplifies the social construct of whiteness and white privilege through their daily lives. The evidence that was provided included their exposure to educational institutions, financial and occupation privileges, and in public environments. All the scenarios presented from the novel were impacted by white privilege. If they would have had a different complexion the events would have consisted of far more adversity and distress than the struggle of heteronormativity.