You may have heard of the Bechdel Test which is typically attributed to film, but also attached to any work of fiction. It's the general rule to tell if the movie isn't going to be some sort of lame-ass sausage fest, but most importantly, to shed light on the gender inequality in fiction because of sexism. The film/novel has to feature two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Most critics also include that the two women must have names. However, Alison Bechdel is more than just attached this ingenious test that was developed because of a comic strip from her iconic series, Dykes to Watch Out For.
Alison Bechdel was born in Pennsylvania. Daughter of Helen and Bruce Bechdel. Her father was an English Teacher and a funeral director for the family-owned funeral home. Helen was an actress and a teacher. She has two brothers. She earned her undergraduate degree in art history and studio arts. Bechdel was rejected from every graduate program at each art school she applied to. At this time, she worked some different odd jobs in publishing. Originally, her comic strip series Dykes to Watch Out For, which would propel her into becoming a full-time cartoonist, was just a sketch included in a letter to a friend.
She drew a frantic looking naked women holding a coffee pot with the words below reading: "Marianne, dissatisfied with the morning brew: Dykes to Watch Out For, plate no. 27." An acquaintance told her to send it out to Womannews, a newspaper, which began to publish the strip regularly beginning with the July—August 1983 issue. After a year, other outlets began running the strip regularly.
Dykes to Watch Out For became an underground gay and lesbian sensation. At its center is Mo, who is representative of the values Bechdel assumed were what being a lesbian was when she came out at 19. Mo is "an anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-big business, anti-consumerist feminist socialist." The characters reflect lesbian issues such as: relationships, race and ethnicity, adoption and marriage,assimilation and separatism, coming out to family, women's health issues, and aging. Alongside highlighting the lives of lesbians she wanted to "normalize" their lives. Essentially, try to work to erase the stigma that lesbians all live a life similar to the "L word." The series was suspended in 2008 due to wanting to focus on her graphic memoirs.
Alison published, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, in 2006. The graphic memoir received attention for being "refreshingly open and generous." Fun Home follows the trajectory of Alison at 43 years old who feels compelled to talk write a memoir on her father. She looks back at her 8 and 19 year old self interchangeably throughout the memoir. Overall, she is reflecting on her relationship with her late father who was hit by a truck weeks after she came out to her family and discovered the hidden secret about her father. Her father was also gay, however, was in the closet and had affairs with younger men in their small, Pennsylvania town. The story follows their fraught relationship, but it is also about moving forward with your life despite your past. Fun Home highlights Bechdel coming out to herself as a lesbian and having her first love. Basically, it's a Catcher in the Rye for lesbians but overall more complex,compelling, and brilliant.
Bechdel also has another memoir called, Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama, was published in May 2012. This memoir focuses on her relationship with her mother. Bechdel described its themes as "the self, subjectivity, desire, the nature of reality, that sort of thing." This is a paraphrase from Virginia Woolf's, To The Lighthouse which is deeply embedded throughout the memoir. The narrative unfolds,twists, and turns throughout the streams of her relationship with her mother. The memoir highlights her psychoanalytic therapy sessions. The sessions were focused on their relationship in relation to who she is as a person now. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2014, and is now working on another memoir about her relationship with fitness and exercise.
Today, Fun Home, is a five Tony-award winning musical created by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori. The musical stars Beth Malone as Alison, Emily Skeggs as Medium Alison, and Gabriella Pizzolo as Small Alison. The musical's music is raw,emotional, and honest. The music encapsulates the graphic memoir's multidimensional plot-line by being in the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City. It's surely an experience because unlike other stages the audience is circled around the stage. You see everyone around you throughout, and in turn, you have this up-close and personal experience with the cast. The lyrics were created by using the memoir text but by also using the illustrations. For example, the song Ring of Keys, is a song about self-identity (in this case, Bechdel knew at 8 years old that she wasn't like every other girl her age) and it was stringed together harmoniously from this one panel. Fun Home the musical is one of the first on-stage productions on Broadway to solely have a plot driven by a lesbian protagonist.
Bechdel's sexuality and gender non-conformity is at the center of her work. She is dedicated to continuously spreading the message that women, not just lesbians, are normal people. Basically, Alison is a humbled genius tucked away in the woods of Vermont with her wife, Holly. However, her works speaks for more than just the budding baby lesbians coming out of the woodwork. Her work is universal because she makes it relatable by being utterly honest and open about her life's experiences. Call her confessional if you want, but that is what makes her such a striking artist. So, thank you Alison Bechdel, for being my sanity and my sanctity. And for you, lovely reader, check her out and get your Bechdel-on:
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