Coming out of the Fun House: Interextuality of Watergate

The graphic novel Fun House, written by Alison Bechdel, is an interesting memoir on the tale of a homosexual and her attempts to relate with the rest of her family, specifically her father. Throughout the story, she discusses how she became aware of her identity as a homosexual and how her father was at first a closet homosexual but later marries her mother. And with this she points to frequent references to famous literary and media sources. But perhaps the most interesting example is her use of intertextuality with the events of the Watergate Scandal and her identifying herself as a lesbian.

Throughout the novel, Alison finds herself conflicted on her identity and whether or not to present it to her parents. Rather, the information seems sensitive, similar to the cover-up made by Nixon and his aides. In fact, Alison sometimes acts as if she's done something wrong, handling her situation carefully and trying to say little on it, similar to how a cover-up was attempted on the break-in of the hotel and then the attempts to release only enough information to keep matters at ease, rather than release the full details. In fact, similar to how the author is hesitant to reveal her sexual identity, her father acts similarly as well, not revealing anything about his previous sexual matters until later on in the story.


Since both Alison and her father don't say much about each other's sexual lives, it takes some time for them to tell each other, the eventually this build-up leads to them confessing to each other some information on their sexualities, similar to the pressure that Nixon was feeling leading to his forced handover of the infamous tapes used to record conversations he made with his staff. Eventually, both revelations lead to a downfall that is felt at personal levels. Two weaks after when Alison reveals to her father that she is a lesbian, her father dies when he is hit by a truck, something she thinks may have been a suicide attempt. When Nixon is forced to tell details over the Watergate scandal, he resigns himself from the presidency. Similar to how Nixon resigns, Alison's father "resigns" himself when he learns about her sexuality and even comments on his.


When examines the similarities between the events of the Watergate scandal and Alison's confession of her sexuality, one can see a trend in these events. One could argue that this takes a new meaning to "coming out of the closet." While the details are different, the similarities are striking and make the events easier to understand for most people. And for that, Bechdel has put a good use to intertextuality.