Gender, Sexuality, Identity, and Queerness in Alison Bechdel’s Comix

Abstract

This paper studies the works of the cartoonist and memoirist Alison Bechdel to discern how, within them, sexuality, gender and identity are perceived and constructed by individuals and the systems they live in. The essay explores the issues that emerge from the conflict between the complex identities of individual human beings and the socially imposed necessity to sort life into what appears to be fixed categories and binary oppositions. The analysis is approached from a theoretical framework based on queer theory, and especially the philosophical essays of Judith Butler and Annamarie Jagose. The first section of the essay establishes a parallelism between LGBT history and Alison’s and her father’s situation in "Fun Home". Bechdel’s memoir is further analyzed in terms of gender, sexuality and identity in the second section, while her most famous compilation of comic strips is studied in relation to queer theory in the last section.