Coming out: Not so Fun responses
Coming out: Not so Fun responses
In Fun Home, Alison comes out as a lesbian and announces this to her family. This gets ahold of somewhat similar yet different reactions from her parents. Her mother is against her coming out. Her father is not a whole lot supportive, but not against it. This shows their experiences with same sex relationships.
Her mother has had negative experiences with same sex relationships and sees it as a problem that she has to deal with. She sends Alison a disapproving letter. She states in her letter, “I have to deal with this problem in another form…” This reflects on her relationship with her husband. She has had to deal with the infidelity from her husband due to same sex affairs. This gives the mother a negative view and experiences on same sex relationships, and this affects her response to Alison’s coming out. This can be seen with the affair with the babysitter. This response is hard on Alison. However, Alison says her response is mild and can be seen when her mother mentions that, “...I could live with it…” This is not an extreme response to her coming out.
Her father’s response was not quite on the supportive side, yet it was not against it. He responds with, “Everyone should experiment. It’s healthy.” This is also a mild response. This shows her father’s perspective on same sex relationships. He does not take it seriously, like her mother, and says it is a sort of experiment. In experiments, one does not initially know the answer to the questions proposed. This shows that he thinks that Alison does not truly know her preferences. It also shows her father's sentiments on his affairs. He views his affairs in a positive light, in contrast to his wife. However, he does not seem to mind her relationship preferences. He seems to agree with it just the way he agrees with his affairs.
These major figures in her life do not provide the support she seeks. It is clear, however, that she receives more support from her dad than from her mom. Her mother views this situation as a threat, while her father accepts it. However, she does get to know her parents better through coming out. This shows how they interact with other people and show their views on the matter.
I think that Alison's father's reaction to her coming out is reflective of his desire to shelter his daughter from the struggles of being a gay person in this era. Bruce has been forced to live a double life, keeping secrets from his family and presenting a carefully constructed appearance to the world, and throughout the book it is clearly making him miserable. I think he doesn't want that life for Alison, which is why he doesn't want her to take her sexuality seriously.
ReplyDeleteHi Elda, this was such a good blog! I agree with your sentiment that Alison definitely gets more support from her father than her mother. It makes sense - to her father, being able to be out of the closet is a dream come true, while for her mother it is a problem she has to deal with. I think one of the reasons why her father wasn't entirely supportive was because he was afraid of the backlash Alison might have to face if she did have to live openly, similar to what he would've had to experience coming out.
ReplyDeleteBruce's response to Alison's announcement is indeed intriguing, and there's evidence that his views are evolving pretty rapidly in the final months of his life. He is more supportive, even if there's something dismissive about his reference to "experimenting in college," and even if he takes a somewhat snarky view on the "new freedoms" she enjoys at college in the 1980s, compared to the 1950s. It's hard for me not to see him as envious to some degree, maybe even taking a "sour grapes" view when he is snide about the protests Alison is a part of. But by their final days together, when they *almost* have a conversation in the car on the way to the movies, I can't help but wonder how Bruce might have continued that conversation at a table in the bar they try to get into after the movie. Doesn't this seem like he WANTS to keep talking, and he's finding a setting wherein they can talk more openly? He's basically admitting that he's a regular patron of this gay bar, and it seems like he wants to share something of this part of his life with Alison. If that bouncer hadn't turned them away, who knows how this evening could have turned out? It's possible to see Bruce's views as evolving at the end of his life, which makes the prospect of his death as an absurd accident even harder for Alison to accept.
ReplyDeleteHi Elda! I like the line you wrote: "In experiments, one does not initially know the answer to the questions proposed" because it seems that Bruce never really knows the answers to what he needs. In one sense, he is "oppressed" by society and has to hide his true self, but on the other hand he married a woman as a gay man and stayed with her while having sexual affairs with young men. Thus, I find it interesting that he encourages Alison in her "experimentation" while he himself has not yet reached proper conclusions.
ReplyDeleteHi Elda, I really like the name of your title! It definitely represents the book since it was packed with not-so-fun responses. With Alison's parents' responses to her coming out, she was sort of put in an awkward situation. She couldn't tell if her parents fully approved or disapproved of her sexuality. It was also unfair that her mother had a bad experience with Bruce being gay, which reflected her negative response to Alison coming out, even though it was not her fault. Throughout the whole novel, Alison had to deal with the repercussions of her fathers actions, forcing her to navigate her identity on her own. Great blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Elda!! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I think that this topic is very interesting because Alison's parents respond to her coming out in similar ways, but for different reasons. I think that her father responded the way he did because he's still trying to hide his sexuality, and he's sort of pushing that idea onto Alison. I think you made some great points. Good Job!!
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