I'm not sure what I expected from this, although the subtitle certainly should have given me a hint. I was still very shocked to realize that the fun in Fun Home came from the word funeral though.
The idea that "the bar is lower for fathers than for mothers" is something that seems to be very true (Bechdel 22). It fits in with the stereotypical gender roles and men being expected to be less emotional and involved, which could also be seen in the The Bluest Eye and the student essays. It was often the fathers that were more detached and less involved in the lives and upbringing of their children. It leads to a lack of any attachment, which is what Bechdel states in the last line of this section; that the idea that she/her coming out was the cause of her father's suicide was "that last, tenuous bond" they had (86). It seems like the mothers have much more connection and investment in the lives of their children; I'm reminded of the mother who "pranced" around her son's room upon realizing that he was gay.
One of the pages of the anthology (I don't have my anthology with me here, so I can't remember the title or page number) that really struck me when I read it first was the page about being heterosexual and how if you weren't, the norm would be that you wouldn't really be able to relate to a lot of public media (songs, books, and so on). This book is a refreshing exception.
Also, I just really liked this line: "In a way Gatsby's pristine books and my father's worn ones signify the same thing -- the preference of a fiction to reality."
No comments:
Post a Comment