Alison Bechdel on Being Labeled a Genius, Test Maker and Oberlin Grad

Alison Bechdel had a very Wizard of Oz moment when she first set foot on the Oberlin College campus in 1979. Like Dorothy first experiencing the vibrancy of Oz, she marveled at how far removed the scene was from the small Pennsylvania town and dysfunctional family life she left behind.

“I came from a very sheltered place,” says Bechdel, the award-winning cartoonist and graphic memoirist. “I didn’t know about Oberlin’s reputation as a radical campus.”

The openness at Oberlin gave Bechdel the confidence to come out as gay and later inspired her syndicated cartoon strip about the lives of lesbians, Dykes to Watch Out For (1983-2008). Her cult following exploded in 2006 with the release of her best-selling graphic memoir, Fun Home, which chronicles Bechdel’s relationship with her closeted gay dad and his tragic death. Adapted as a Broadway musical in 2015, Fun Home became a major success, winning five Tony Awards. 

As Fun Home visits the Connor Palace Theatre Oct. 2-22, the 56-year-old Bechdel give us her takes on Oberlin, the appeal of her unique story and being labeled a genius.

ON FUN HOME: It’s a story I really wanted to tell for a long time. I was at Oberlin when my father died. I didn’t realize he had been living a closeted life, having affairs with other men for years, and that really blew me away. As many dysfunctional families, we didn’t do secrets. It was quite hard to write but also cathartic. People were ready to hear a story about gay people as universal subjects.

ON OBERLIN: I just got an honorary degree in May. For two years I had been a marginal student, so it was strange to be getting an official acknowledgement. Oberlin is getting a lot of attention for the perception of [being too] politically correct. But when I was on campus I talked with a number of students, and it kind of turned me around. These kids are not settling for crumbs the way earlier generations did. They are not just sincere, they are very well informed.

ON THE BECHDEL TEST: It’s really funny that people still talk about it. It was my friend Liz Wallace’s idea. It comes from a cartoon I did way back in the 1980s that’s about only going to movies with two or more women characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. [This year’s] Ghostbusters would pass with flying colors. It’s still a sobering test.

ON WINNING A MACARTHUR GENIUS AWARD: I have a lot of different kinds of anxiety. … I don’t manage good news well. I was traumatized. I’m getting pretty tired of that [genius] word. You get $125,000 a year for five years. I still drive a 2008 Subaru, but I did go out and buy myself a big scanner for my computer.