Fun Home, Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir about growing up in a funeral home alongside her closeted father, was recently yanked from the shelves of a New Jersey high school library even though the school didn’t follow the proper protocol for doing so, reports the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), a free-speech group for comics.
The award-winning graphic novel is part of the school’s 12th grade curriculum. But last summer, two parents at another New Jersey high school sought to have the book removed due to its “sexually explicit nature.”
The CBLDF notes, “The book was removed without a written complaint, committee meetings, or adhering to curriculum guidelines.” Previous to now, had been available in the library for over a decade.
Related: Duke University Students Reject Alison Bechdel’s Acclaimed Book “Fun Home” Over Gay Themes
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Fun Home was initially included in New Jersey’s literature classes to expand the representation of sexual and gender identities depicted in English classes. The book features images of lesbian oral sex, two clothed scenes of female masturbation and images of a dead man’s penis alongside other mentions of sex and puberty, but it’s not an intensely sexual or inappropriate book, especially for older teenage readers.
Parents and students offended by the book can take advantage of an “opt-out” policy allowing students to be assigned an alternate book. However, two parents have said “the policy isn’t sufficient, and they don’t want children singled out for not participating.”
The CBLDF adds, “Their sensitivity to the isolation children might experience reading a different text in class is tone-deaf to the isolation students who can’t find themselves represented in the current curriculum feel.”
This is hardly the first time people have tried to remove Fun Home from a public school. The book’s presence has also been challenged in Utah, North Carolina, South Carolina and California.
In 2013, Fun Home was adapted into an award-winning Broadway musical. The book’s author is a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant and is the author of the acclaimed comic Dykes to Watch Out For. She’s also the namesake of the Bechdel Test, a feminist measure of films featuring women who talk to each other about something other than men.
radiooutmike
And I hear the screams, won’t someone think of the children?
To think in this day and age that an important piece of art like this needs kept away from teenage eyes when teens have porn available at their fingertips is silly. Books like Fun Home need to be in school libraries because they present realistic and nuanced of relationships and sexuality.
Brian
When I was applying to colleges, I remember that my high school library computers blocked all of the Gay-Straight Alliance webpages of all the colleges I considered. At the time, I didn’t own my own computer, so I didn’t have many other chances to look up the information. Despite all the claims of liberalism and inclusivity at my school, there were still enough strange moments that the memories have stuck with me.
Myles
Its worrying to hear this type of news, if actions such as taking a book off the shelves of a school go unnoticed and not held accountable in the school system then it makes it more acceptable for schools to push LGBT+ issues and history out of their schools, undoing all the progress that has been done. The erasure of queer identities in school literature goes beyond making students feel they are not represented but not present or normal in their own society.
If a child is made uncomfortable by the content in a book with having LGBT+ characters then there is an issue with that individual, not the content of the book. And parents choosing to not allow their children to participate in the same studies as the rest of the class is not the schools or the contents fault but the bias/prejudice of the parents. They are alienating their own children in attempts to further alienate LGBT+ children (and even possibly their own children who may not be out.)
Its important to be bringing awareness to these types of issues and to put a stop to these types of actions. Taking away parts of education is never the answer to anything, creating discussion, accessible education and support is the solution to dissolving homophobia and transphobia from our society.
TomG
I live in NJ and they failed to mention which high schools.
nmarkwb
These parents oughta stuff it.