Fun Home Page 98 - I feel pretty

In the top panel on page 98 of Fun Home, Alison and her father are shown preparing to go to a wedding. The panel really shows Alison and her father's opposing characteristics. The caption says, "Not only were we introverts, we were inversions of one another." If only they could pull a "Freaky Friday" and switch bodies then everyone would be happy. That being impossible, they were each struggling against the personality that was expected of them. To go against the grain was not something that should be done. Yet, in their outfits, you can see her father's desire for things to be pretty with his velvet jacket and striped tie, expressing his desire for his daughter to look more womanly. Alison was jealous of his suit and hated being forced to wear a dress and nice shoes as opposed to sneakers. The gender norms in this case are brought to a complete comparison in this one drawing. This is especially noticeable because the mother is also in the panel. She tells the father that he will "upstage the bride." The fact that everyone is dressed more casually, and he is spending time primping suggests his desire to be pretty which we are taught is not many at all. Whereas his daughter, wants to get out of her fancy clothes and dress like she normally does. We rarely see her in a dress or with her hair done. She is the anti-thesis of the girly girl. Her father picks up her slack in this case as she does with his masculinity. It could be said that they were "inversions" of one another, but also that they complete each other as what one is lacking the other has. This may be one more reason why above the bottom panel on page 86, Alison says that she is "reluctant to let go of that last, tenuous bond" when her father dies. They were bonded in the way that they were able to somehow live vicariously through one another. This is why Alison drew the connection of her "coming out" and his death. As she had finally decided to embrace herself, she no longer needed to live through her father.