Fun Home and Identification

In the first 2 chapters of Fun Home, Bechdel illustrates perfectly the ideas of identifcation described in Understanding Comics.

In words and images, Bechdel describes her father obsessively, pouring over every detail of the man. Herself, however, she does not describe. She remains mostly a blank slate, almost cartoon like in her simplicity, with somewhat androgynous features.

In Understanding Comics, McCloud says that "through traditional realism, the comics artist can portray the world without -- and through the cartoon, the world within."

Fun Home, Page 19

In the panel above, we see this principle in action. The father is detailed, with wrinkles and chest hair and zig-zag eyebrows. The child is prototypical- a round head with an androgynous hair cut and wide eyes. Anyone could be that child. So who do we identify with? The child, because the features of the child are far more simplified and therefore relatable. Imagine if the child had freckles, would we relate the same? Or if the book had color art, hair color, and skin color could be elements that change the way we are able to relate to the child. The father, with his visible body hair and wrinkles alienates us to a degree. We cannot project our own emotions onto a person who is so far from who we are or ever were, but we were all wide-eyed children at some point, and the child is sympathetic because of her simplicity. 

But this extends into the written word of Fun Home. Bechdel describes her father in vivid detail, both his fashion and his perfectionism, and something that borders on Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Psychologist Alan Rappoport says that narcissistic parents "may also demand certain behavior from their children because they see the children as extensions of themselves". While in Fun Home, Bechdel says "Dad considered us extensions of his own body, like precision robot arms.". These details about her father lend to us identifying more with her, for some because we cannot imagine a father like that, and for some because it hits our own home experience in a certain way, but we grow to empathize with the idea of a selfish father for one reason or another, and it ties us to this character, either out of pity or out of solidarity.