Roy G Biv
On page 100 of Fun Home, Alison Bechdel reveals that after a search through a box of family photos, she found a shirtless picture of Roy, the babysitter.
Allison poses the question "Would I be assessing its aesthetic merits so calmly if it were of a seventeen-year-old girl? Why am I not properly outraged?"
I think there could be a few explanations for Alison's unexpected reaction.
Bruce and Alison Bechdel grew up in very different time periods. In the 1930 and 40s when Bruce was growing up, homosexuality was considered a mental illness, with soldiers being discharged for even suspected homosexuality. Experiencing your formative years in a society that that hates you for something you can't control must be incredibly damaging, perhaps even to the point of internalization. I propose that like Frankenstein before him, society forced him into the role of monster, until he finally broke, letting himself believe that who he is is something to be detested, or at least stowed away in a mental basement. Even if this isn't the case, he's obviously repressed. On page 211, his letter states that he never "took a stand" and "at forty-three I find it hard to see advantages even if I done it when I was young.". This is all to say that maybe, the taking of Roy's picture was a result of all those pent up feelings. This is not at all to justify what Bruce did, the fact of the matter is that he took a shirtless picture of a minor, but this would explain WHY exactly Bruce did what he did.
While on the topic of predatory behavior, studies have shown that male sexual assault victims don't receive the same empathy that female sexual assault victims do. While taking the picture isn't the same thing as rape, it gets at the point that responses to perverted behavior is different between genders. When society paints women as defenseless and vulnerable, and men as strong and dare I say expendable, it's only natural that people aren't going to sympathize with male victims as much. I could drone on and on with this topic, but the point is that it's not outside of the realm of possibility that Alison has internalized society's expectations of men, and is unconsciously applying them to Roy.
The picture itself is a form of "evidence" for the secret life that Alison has discovered Bruce had been leading throughout her childhood--and it's not just the photo itself that raises issues; it's the whole presumed story and circumstances *around* the photo, which cause Alison to have to revise her memories of this trip to the Jersey Shore with their father. Bechdel the author/artist seems to raise precisely the issue you raise at the end of this post, with her rhetorical question--she all but admits that she is less inclined to judge her father harshly because the victims of his abuse are young men rather than young women. And I would agree that the book in general seems to minimize the problematic nature of Bruce's relationship with Roy (and others), in the ways Bechdel depicts Roy himself: a tall, strong, confident young man who looks older than seventeen. He is larger than Bruce, and he often appears to be in a strong, self-possessed position in the frames in which he appears. He seems *comfortable* hanging around the Bechdel home, accepting a cold beer from Bruce as he plays on the porch with the kids. Bechdel could certainly have chosen to depict Roy in a way that empowers him less, that visually calls out Bruce for this exploitative and abusive relationship, that renders him more obviously a victim. Maybe the reader is more inclined to "excuse" Bruce, or to see his "monstrosity" as socially produced, precisely because of the way Bechdel draws Roy. She doesn't frame this photograph as evidence of a crime, but rather as a revealing and even tender moment, in which the man behind the camera reveals himself more than the subject of the photo.
ReplyDeleteHelen frames Bruce's childhood experience with a farmhand as "molestation," while Bruce himself sees it as "nice," his first romantic relationship, a formative experience in his life. We can see a similar discrepancy, perhaps, in this photo of Roy. But who knows how ROY would characterize this relationship--is it "molestation" or something more "nice"?