the marketing team jokingly referred to as a “lesbian suicide musical.”
April 27, 2016 5:10 AM   Subscribe

 
The points about the "straight-washing" (for want of a better term) of queerness are good and its an issue worthy of being aired more prominently. But apart from the undoubtedly real aspect of making a lesbian-themed musical palatable, surely there's just something more generally difficult to market well about Fun Home? It's a memoir in comic form, and as such is pretty much unique, culturally. And now it's a musical? ?

I'd be going with the vague taglines as well, instead of trying to get the nitty gritty of such a weird cultural object across in general marketing. Would be interested in reading an analysis of the marketing strategy used for Hamilton (which seems to me an equally unlikely and weird piece of culture) as well, seeing as it was done by the same company, and this article even touches on the similar problems of stereotyping and audience-appeal faced when marketing Miranda's previous musical.
posted by mymbleth at 5:50 AM on April 27, 2016


I don't think the source material for Fun Home is any weirder than the source material for, say, Cats or Fiddler on the Roof. On the other hand, I suspect the marketing materials for Fiddler on the Roof also stressed the universality of the themes, despite the specificity of the setting. Is that necessarily sinister?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:04 AM on April 27, 2016


I love Fun Home but I agree that with art like this you've got to find a balance between making something accessible to a wider audience while staying true to the wider message. I guess the key part is deciding where you fall on the line of trying to change the minds of people who disagree with you, which is a tricky thing to pin down for most folks.

I just hope all those UN ambassadors and city slickers head over to their nearest bookstore and buy Dykes To Watch Out For when they come out of the theatre.
posted by fight or flight at 6:16 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's interesting to see how Fun Home is received. I'm involved with a lot of folks who do local theater, and the script/score is starting to be marketed around, and when people hear, "Tony Winning Musical," they're interested, but a lot of directors I know who do musical theater have said, "This is nothing like I expected."

We still have a ways to go in LBGTQ acceptance and voices in the mainstream, or rather, the mainstream letting us in, I think.
posted by xingcat at 6:18 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


I dunno, I think this places a lot of responsibility on Fun Home. Fun Home actually is a story about a family in which there are children, even if it's a family with a closeted father and a queer daughter; many queer people live lives of sorta-monogamy and raise children. I think that quoting Garth Greenwell ("“And that cost was a marketing campaign that took queer lives and translated them into values that could be appreciated by people who are disgusted by queer people,” he said. This meant presenting a queer life that looks like the most acceptable kind of straight life: “a monogamous relationship centered on the raising of a child.”) in this piece really does a disservice to Allison Bechdel.

Also, look, that whole "queer people are so queer, and when we get straightwashed it's about making us appear monogamous and child-oriented" line that I hear such a lot is really mostly about the straightwashing of gay male culture.

The straightwashing of queer women is very different - it's much more about assuring everyone that queer women are very, very straight-feminine in appearance, interests and behavior, and only desire other very straight-feminine women. Women having sex with lots of other women is straight male fantasy as long as those women all look and act straight in other ways. Queer women are straightwashed when butch/stud/boi/etc women are disappeared, when femme queer women are reduced to "straight femininity", when queer women are assumed to desire straight-feminine women, etc.

In this respect, because Fun Home actually puts goddamn butch and androgynous women on stage and miraculously none of them are Lea Delaria*, it is the very opposite of straightwashing.

*Look, I recognize that Lea Delaria has worked very hard to get where she is, and I recognize that she is both talented and visible. But fat queer bodies are always-already positioned as she positions them - threateningly hypersexual and basically comic. I've had people make fun of me by referencing her schtick, and since I've always loathed that hypersexual comic butch deal (it's, like, the one way I really dread appearing in the world), it's been pretty upsetting.
posted by Frowner at 6:24 AM on April 27, 2016 [31 favorites]


...I actually ended up seeing Fun Home the night after I saw Hamilton in March. It was fantastic, and I'd been wanting to see it for a while. It was interesting-- I knew the story (though I still haven't read the comic, and I need to) but I was otherwise going in cold, and that was a really different experience from Hamilton, where I'd been mainlining the cast album since October. It never even occurred to me that anyone would go see it without at least knowing the basic outline, though.
posted by nonasuch at 6:27 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


Is this the kind of place where I can talk about how, as a trans AFAB butch queer person, listening to Ring of Keys on public transport absolutely broke me. I still need to finish listening to the soundtrack because I get so far and then I have to put it down and have a lot of feelings to myself. I probably won't get to see the musical itself, but that's probably for the best for me and whoever would be seated around me.
posted by fight or flight at 6:29 AM on April 27, 2016 [13 favorites]


Is that necessarily sinister?

Because it's lesbians, yes. There's been a good upswing of gay media, but it's primarily men. The world just isn't ready for lbp* women.That's just tv- but you get the point.

Fun Home really is a universal story, and I don't think that they lied in anything they said. But the fact still stands that the story was deemed unrelatable because of the characters' sexuality. It's basically saying that a person's entire humanity can be negated because of the fact.

*Lesbian, bi, pan
posted by FirstMateKate at 6:31 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Fun Home really is a universal story

It's so funny to hear this, because when I saw it on stage (and I, like Bechdel, am the queer daughter of a gay man who had three children to "hide" as a straight man), I was shaken by how very specific it was to my own experience, which I've never thought of as universal.

I found it interesting when Iain's mom took him to Fun Home, because he's so, so young, but his review makes it clear that he really got the show on the best level he could.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:44 AM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


Of course these issues ought to be talked about openly without any "normalizing" or straight-washing to reach wider appeal. How amazing would our culture be if that was possible right now?

But if it's not happening today I think it can and will happen someday. Hopefully soon. This is a good article and I'm really glad it's in the Atlantic. The more often these sorts of things are discussed, the better chance we have to elevate ourselves on a national or global scale.

It would be interesting to compare how this gets marketed in Europe if it ever goes on tour.
posted by Doleful Creature at 6:46 AM on April 27, 2016


Related, in today's news: How do you sell a bloody musical about a serial killer?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:46 AM on April 27, 2016


I feel like it's not possible to have this conversation without Bechdel, but they didn't appear to have interviewed her (or she refused). Surely if you're talking about perception vs. intention of a created work, the author of that work is the person to talk to?

I don't find this marketing particularly sinister, because people who go to it are still going to see a story that centers a lesbian's experience. The story is still itself. You could just as easily argue that marketing this way is unfair to straights, who are going to be "tricked" into seeing that story. (I do not accept that argument, but you could make it). No doubt, as with the UN contingent, some will be surprised; hopefully they react with compassion and a more open mind. Probably a few will react with anger. But overall, the normalizing of a gay woman's life as just one of the many kinds of lives we tell stories about--that seems like a good thing to me.

I'm actually just waiting for this to come to the South and also to see if any homophobic groups try to protest it.
posted by emjaybee at 7:00 AM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


I'm a straight guy, but I grew up with a closeted gay father, and that's how I found Fun Home before there was a musical. Anything that tackles "unconventional" upbringings is OK in my book.
posted by gehenna_lion at 7:20 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


Is this the kind of place where I can talk about how, as a trans AFAB butch queer person, listening to Ring of Keys on public transport absolutely broke me.

Oh God, so, yesterday I discovered that the soundtrack is on Spotify.

I know the plot. I keep on meaning to read the novel, because I've loved DTWOF since I was a teenage queer girl surreptiously flipping through the local lesbian newspaper that a friend of a friend of a friend acquired, and I knew there was a musical, but then yesterday I found the soundtrack, and I thought "Hey, this might be interesting".

I did not break down in the office. But I came dangerously close. And "Ring of Keys" was probably the worst part, because I KNOW THIS.

It was the couple at the Denny's in Compton, and I was eating pancakes with my grandmother because we decided we wanted a proper Sunday breakfast, and I knew I was a queer kid, and I knew butches existed, but holy shit, here was a woman who was obviously older and had lived the life, and she was there with another woman, and they must have been a couple, and I knew, I just knew.

Seriously, I don't think I've ever heard anything that instantly nailed that moment.
posted by Katemonkey at 7:52 AM on April 27, 2016 [14 favorites]


The best marketing team for Fun Home is right here on this site.

Seriously, I saw it pre-Broadway thanks to that Metafilter post, and I'm incredibly grateful.
posted by roger ackroyd at 7:52 AM on April 27, 2016


I saw this with my mother, and as we exited the show in a bit of a daze, I learned that she hadn't read the review I'd sent her or really known anything about it going in beyond my jumbled "you know, Alison Bechdel? She's a lesbian cartoonist and she won a MacArthur and she wrote a critically acclaimed graphic novel/memoir and they made it into a musical and everyone one says it's really great even though I don't really understand how you could make a musical of that book so I'm really curious." I think the thing she was really unprepared for and floored by was how emotionally intense and devastating it is - I think she heard "musical" and thought "happy singing and dancing" and that is not what this musical is.
posted by yarrow at 8:01 AM on April 27, 2016


I just listened to "Ring of Keys" and holy crap. I would love to see this on stage.

Hugs to all butch queer women everywhere. The butch women I know are the most everything all of it that's supposed to be kickass and unapologetically true. To everyone sharing your stories and experiences in this thread, y'all got my support and love.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:03 AM on April 27, 2016


Ring of Keys is what Fun Home performed at the Tonys.
posted by anastasiav at 8:28 AM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


And here is the current Young Alison, Gabby Pizzolo singing "Ring of Keys" at the SAGE Awards
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:29 AM on April 27, 2016


Seriously, I saw it pre-Broadway thanks to that Metafilter post, and I'm incredibly grateful.

I am a huge Fun Home fan, and when I saw that posted to Metafilter I was planning on going but balked at the ticket price . . . And now that it is on Broadway I'll definitely never save up money for the ticket. I wish I'd worked on saving up the money. I'm still kicking myself.
posted by Anonymous at 9:00 AM on April 27, 2016


I finally saw Fun Home a couple of months ago. I'd listened to the cast album, but it's all so much more intense when staged. It's interesting having watched a couple of different actresses doing "Ring of Keys" on youtube - when one of the younger girls did it, it's a discovery, but one of the older actresses did it, well, I think I watched the character enter puberty right there during the song.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:01 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


My sister and I saw "Fun Home" together last fall and we loved it unreservedly. I was familiar with Alison Bechdel's work, but only vaguely knew the musical's story. I am thrilled to have gone in unprepared. We were so broken up at the end that the usher looked like she was going to give us a hug. It was so powerful. Even though we are both cis-hetero folk, "Ring of Keys" in particular blew us away with its originality and empowering voice.

As an aside, we just saw "Hamilton" last week (SQUEE!) without ever having heard the music and once again, I am so happy to have heard it first on stage (and to now be listening obsessively on my headphones).
posted by tingting at 9:26 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


It's interestingly related in my mind to how the Disney film Frozen was initially marketed as a boy-centric fantasy adventure with no mention of singing in the trailers. Likewise the early trailer for Into The Woods doesn't feature any singing, either.

I honestly don't have any problems with marketing this musical toward a more universal audience while eliding some of its queer elements. We're still a very young culture when it comes to accepting LGBT persons as a full part of our culture, and we are light years from actually achieving that goal. It's going to probably take a solid generation of today's people encountering queer stories in unexpected ways and discovering how universal they truly are before it's enough a part of the life for it not to be an issue.

We're making good progress, but it is slow progress. The struggle didn't end last June, it only got more subtle and in a lot of ways more difficult. Every mind opened is a battle won, and I don't mind a bit of subterfuge in the struggle.
posted by hippybear at 9:27 AM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


To me, the interesting thing though, is that families like Alison's (and mine) are actually disappearing, due to much greater acceptance of folks who are coming out. There are lots of LGBT people with kids, but families with a closeted parent are going to be come much more scarce.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:40 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Forgot to mention that I thought the tag line for "Fun Home" was...odd. It was the "not just a new b'way musical, a new kind of b'way musical" one, because - what does that even mean? I recall making fun of it every time I saw the poster.
posted by tingting at 9:41 AM on April 27, 2016


Haven't read the other comments yet, but this article came up on facebook and I had some thoughts. I saw Fun Home last month and it was AMAZING. I was one of the best theatre experiences of my life. Ace performances, the live music was wonderful, the staging brilliant, the In The Round experience just immersive.

After going back and rereading the book, which I hadn't opened since 2007, it became really obvious how somewhere in the process the upbeat songs were realllllly shoehorned in to have a fun new way to sell this music.
You can also see this by looking at the live promo performances that were done.

Come To The Fun Home has no connection to the book at all. Good number, but we didn't NEED a song of the kids enjoying themselves against the grim backdrop of the funeral home.
Raincoat Of Love was similar, and seemed to serve as a way to get the secondary performers out there so everyone else could have a costume change.
Both were major songs in the promotion campaign, but both weren't very important to the story.
(Ring Of Keys was important to the sorry, but keys aren't even mentioned in the book. You can spot them in the corner of a single frame, if you're looking.)

I also noted how the Telephone Wire scene in the book did result in a conversation, but it ended up not being cathartic.


For me, the best bit of adaptation was around Edges Of The World. The new house project itself didn't get much focus in the book, despite it being the location of his death. But the song really underscored the libidinal connection and displacement that it represented.
And the staging. Oh my god the staging.
They could have ended the show right there.


My favourite songs:
Maps
Days and Days and Days
Telephone Wire

And I very much can understand how those wouldn't make for wonderful marketing campaigns. :)
Even with it's successes, it is only now recouping it's investment? yikes.
posted by Theta States at 10:26 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


It was the "not just a new b'way musical, a new kind of b'way musical" one, because - what does that even mean?

I mean, I think this thread has successfully mentioned it quite a few times. The source material, the writers, the subjects, all contribute to this new sort of storytelling.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:36 AM on April 27, 2016


Also (sorry I'm commenting so much) but you can read a lot about why Kron and Tesori wrote "Come to the Fun Home." The show falls apart without it.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:37 AM on April 27, 2016


oh my GOD.

I never want to see musicals, of course I don't, I saw Cats.

But I wanted to see this one on the strength of "...and your keys! Ah-o-o-oh! Your ring of keys!" which irresistable hook plays before every youtube video forever now. And there's that kid!

From the ad that I watched dozens of times paying barely any attention, waiting for the kid to sing that part, I thought it was a warmhearted family drama about family warmhearts heartfully warming all day and the keys thing was about being warmheartedly fondly irritated with one's cutely key-dithering father and ya ya ya stab-me-in-the-eye-I-hate-all-musicals, but my God, still: that kid. So I wanted to see it despite what I thought it was, because... that kid! I just watched anastasiav's link, and now... and now, Oh-o-o-oh! Now I think I have to go to NY.
posted by Don Pepino at 11:00 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


Come To The Fun Home has no connection to the book at all. Good number, but we didn't NEED a song of the kids enjoying themselves against the grim backdrop of the funeral home.

I don't know, the funeral home major part of her childhood. She talks about playing in the caskets and with the various funereal accessories with her brothers. The contrast between their blithe attitude towards death and the actual seriousness of it was another example of the paradoxes that defined her family.
posted by Anonymous at 12:29 PM on April 27, 2016


In this whole luncheonette, why am I the only one who sees you’re beautiful… no, I mean: handsome...

oh god why did I listen to that at work oh god oh god

who has two thumbs and is now the sobbiest butch in the office? this guy
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 12:50 PM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]




Thank you for that link, roomthreeseventeen. What a great interview. The way they talk about the process & mechanics of crafting the songs out of the source material is fascinating. One of the related links is an interview with Beth Malone, who plays the oldest version of Alison, and that one's pretty great too.
posted by yarrow at 1:50 PM on April 27, 2016


That marketing commercial was awful - it made Fun Home look like the most insipid show possible. It's like they went beyond straight-washing and decided to remove any hint of anything odd or edgy. Just based on this, if I didn't know that it was based on Alison Bechdel's work then I wouldn't have given the show a second thought.

What's odd is that it seems designed to attract the very type of people who would not like the show, and repel the people who would.
posted by kanewai at 3:50 PM on April 27, 2016


And now that it is on Broadway I'll definitely never save up money for the ticket. I wish I'd worked on saving up the money. I'm still kicking myself.

Right when Hamilton came out I made a comment about hoping to get rush tickets for that show (haha, I know) or Fun Home while visiting NYC and a fellow MeFite sent me a message to suggest the TodayTix app, which offers same-day lottery tickets for a bunch of shows including Fun Home. Basically rush ticket pricing, but you don't have to go to a TKTS booth.

Nthing that the show is fantastic and seeing it was not just the highlight of my trip but one of the best theater experiences of my entire life, if not the best. Ring of Keys has been mentioned, but shoutout also to Emily Skeggs for Changing My Major, which is the distilled essence of joyous discovery of one's queerness in college.

I realize not everyone has a smartphone/tablet/etc or the kind of schedule friendly to signing up for lotteries repeatedly, but I thought I would mention it in case it helps. Also, thanks again, ColdChef!

Based on Theta States' comment, I need to re-read the comic while comparing it directly to the soundtrack; my gut reaction was that the musical was about as faithful as a musical can possibly be of a comic (insert joke here about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark), but it's been a few years. I did notice Alison's mother had much more of a presence, which I appreciated, particularly since Are You My Mother? would simply not work as a musical.

Not commenting on the marketing because a) I live outside the US and haven't seen any of it beyond the posters for the Broadway version, and b) I'm a queer lady but not a butch queer lady, so I don't feel it's my place. I was interested by the mention of the UN ambassador visit mentioned in the last few paragraphs, though, so I dug up another article: US promotes gay rights at United Nations with Broadway musical visit.
posted by bettafish at 6:20 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Can someone explain the significance of the ring of keys in that song? Is it that women today don't usually wear them, or that they are a symbol of power because they demonstrate the ability to access places that are closed off to other people, or are they a sort of Freudian symbol, or maybe just big and jangly and unapologetic?
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:11 PM on April 27, 2016


Joe, the keys have more to do with the type of people who usually carry rings of keys--people performing stereotypically blue-collar masculine job functions. My immediate associations are things like delivery people (which is what I assume the woman in question was doing), janitors, security personnel, etc. Women rarely have need to carry a lot of keys (even when I was a kid, the "appropriate" jobs for women in my conservative, middle-America area were things like teaching, nursing, or secretarial work) and in the event that they do, they carry them very differently. Women's keys get shuffled into purses or other bags, or get stored in a desk drawer removed as needed.

The keys (and the rest of the descriptors: short hair, dungarees) are shorthand for a butch presentation, a defiance of traditional femininity that Alison hadn't realised was possibly until that moment.
posted by mishafletch at 9:32 PM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


Exactly what mishafletch said.

I've never identified so strongly with a song as "Ring of Keys". It actually makes it difficult to watch men or very femme-presenting women cover it. While I understand that the message of the song is about coming to terms with oneself, it is so specific to identifying with butchness and there are so few songs that are centered around butchness that it feels wrong to me when sung by someone who doesn't outwardly connect with that.
posted by Anonymous at 9:37 PM on April 27, 2016


Based on Theta States' comment, I need to re-read the comic while comparing it directly to the soundtrack; my gut reaction was that the musical was about as faithful as a musical can possibly be of a comic (insert joke here about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark), but it's been a few years. I did notice Alison's mother had much more of a presence, which I appreciated, particularly since Are You My Mother? would simply not work as a musical.

It is pretty darn faithful to the source material, but of course some stuff gets cut, and focuses shift, and they needed to get some happy showstoppers in there. :)

I find it fascinating to see what gets brought forward and what gets left on the page. For example, I love how Maps translates from page to song.
Then how Edges Of The World doesn't quite map to the book, but is a PERFECT addition.

and as you mention, I love the additional focus of her mother, since yeah I don't expect a musical sequel.
posted by Theta States at 7:14 AM on April 28, 2016


Yes, keys. And the perfectly paced perfectly phrased build TO the keys. Oh my GOD I'm obsessed. woman that wrote that song = daggity genius. Bechdel: genius. Whoever's casting this: GENIUS. I have to see this thing, I must see this thing. What do I do? Sell the house! Sell the car!
posted by Don Pepino at 8:00 AM on April 28, 2016


I (FINALLY, after months of trying to make it happen) saw this last weekend with some friends, and we cried pretty much the whole time and were emotionally raw (in a good way, I think) for a few hours afterwards. I knew it was based on Bechdel's work, but I'd never read the book, so I didn't know what I was in for. Man. It was great.

Re: prices -- I have a membership to TDF, which semi-regularly has $47 (+ $4-6 fees on each order, but if you buy multiple tickets you only pay fees once) Fun Home tickets for select performances. I'm happy to buy tickets on behalf of anyone who wants to see this but can't afford full-price tickets; you can pay me back by Venmo or Paypal or whatever. You pick up the tickets at will-call under my name, and theoretically you're supposed to show ID, but I've never been asked for ID in all the times I've used the service.
posted by Ragini at 9:34 AM on April 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


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