Let's Talk About Fight Club...

Admittedly, this is NOT the kind of topic that I usually discuss on my little blog and it doesn't match the colour scheme, but let's be honest - 

How can we not talk about 'Fight Club'?

SPOILER ALERT. Watch the film or read the book first if you don't want the beautiful plot twists revealed to you.

*Quick note: some of you may know I'm studying Film Studies at A-level, our close critical study for one of the questions in our final exam is Fight Club. One of the tasks given to us to help before our exam was to create a review of the core themes of the film, and I felt a blog-post format would be the clearest way for me to set mine out, so hopefully this will be useful/interesting to some readers, if not, stuff you. :)* 

Personally, I love Fight Club. Admittedly it takes a bit of getting used to, with many well-developed and intellectual themes being thrown at you from the first shot, not to mention the fact that, even at the best of times, the plot can get confusing as heck. But once you take the time to delve into those themes and find out all of the incredibly clever little devices slipped carefully into the film, you really appreciate the overall effect all the more. Hopefully, this blogpost will be able to concisely explain all of the wonderful nuggets of information that my friends have become bored of hearing from me. 

Masculinity 

'Is that what a man looks like?' 

Now obviously this is a HUGE theme of the film, which isn't exactly surprising considering the fact that there is one main female character (hmph.) Still, it is made quite clear by Tyler that the 'feminisation of society' is a very current problem, despite the complete lack of female characters apparently. After all he decides in scene 14 'we're a generation of men raised by women', supposedly meaning that the enforcement of female company means a suppression of all primal male values (such as fighting and hunting) just because these are activities deemed 'unacceptable' by society, well then. Ironically though, while the two are discussing this problem of female values, they are cleaning themselves up skillfully, emplying a subconscious female attitude that they posses towards their hygiene and treatment of injuries. 

This is why Tyler begins this idea of a 'Fight Club' with 'Jack' (our unnamed narrator), this is also why the enterprise becomes so successful with other men, who no matter what status, age, profession; are all united through the natural release that pure fighting provides. After all, fighting is a manly thing, something that even a woman cannot spoil! Interestingly enough, Chuck Palahniuk came up with the idea for the original novel after being beaten up on a camping trip and found his colleagues did not ask him about his injuries at all. 

Now I'll be honest, I can't watch scene 26, I have to look away and try to tune out the dull thuds of Jack's punches. However, this scene is very interesting to study, as Jack says to justify his actions 'I felt like destroying something beautiful', indicating a divide in types of masculinity, as we can assume that since his 'space monkey/victim' is described as 'beautiful' he would be considered a metrosexual, a modern man who is not afraid to make an effort with his appearance and his emotional side. However the destruction of his beauty indicates the contempt for this existence of a 'feminine-masculinity' in society from 'real men'. 

Consumerism

'The things you own end up owning you.' 

Consumerism has been present in all of us ever since we can remember, it's inbuilt, we want things. And even when we go out and get jobs and work it's usually because we want money so we can want things without feeling guilty. Want to know a bit of trivia? In the car smashing scene with Jack and Tyler in scene 23 one of the cars they hit is a 'Beetle', a model which had been recently released at the time. This was because Brad Pitt and Edward Norton had been discussing the model behind the scenes and had found they both hated it, because it was basically a re-production of the Beetle they had used as a generation in their youth, being re-modelled and re-marketed by the same generation who experienced freedom from it as a part of their ties to the consumerist society as they have grown up. The two felt that this selling-out of their youth by their peers was exactly the kind of consumerist values that the film represented, and so asked director David Fincher if one of the cars they hit could be the Beetle. 

A main scene to look at for an example of Jack's consumerism before he met Tyler is scene 4 when he describes the 'Ikea nesting instinct', this idea of creating a perfect environment to exist -but not really live- in. In a way you could apply Todorov's theory of narrative to Jack's condo-related motivations, for example, his unhappy yet functional world of work, condo, travel, was his original equilibrium, he wasn't satisfied, but he was suitably passified by the consumerism he partook in and by society's expectations. Then, when his condo is blown up his life is thrown into chaos, without his useless items to keep him subdued he begins to question the norms of his life, he loses focus and respect towards his work, he no longer cares about the state in which his living space is and he finally begins to question society. However after the chaos (that he actively takes part in for a while) becomes too much for him, with the threat of the explosion of several buildings, Jack makes the final decision to kill Tyler and with Tyler's death and the final demolition of the buildings (which reverses the civilian debt back to 0) a new equilibrium is found in which the film can suitably end with.

Post-Modernism

'You're the all-singing all-dancing crap of the world.'

Post-modernism is basically a theory (although it claims not to be a theory) that describes the break-down of society, how all of the labels which once used to define us begin to lose their meaning and exclusivity, leading to a 'pick 'n' mix' society, where we can choose and build elements of our identity as we wish. Tyler Durden kind of expresses this ideaology, with more of a focus on the break-down, rather than the building-up again, as he so wonderfully puts it; 'you are not a beautiful or unique snowflake'. Tyler seems to express the freedom found through rejecting all forms of identity forced on us by society, common things that define people (e.g. their job, car, clothes, money etc.) are all forgotten in Fight Club and Project Mayhem, as most of the characters in the club are just nameless fighters to us, only their for the natural high provided, and in Project Mayhem the members are nameless 'space monkeys' who all dress the same, as seen quite clearly in scene 28 when the members are indistinguishable from each other and are mostly just as unknown to us as the original Fight Club members. 

Class

'God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars.'

The majority of the Fight Club members are obviously working class or lower middle class, as indicated by the jobs they are shown to work in during other scenes. The general idea presented is that the kind of men who were attracted to the Fight Club were the men who would need that kind of primal thrill to get through the mundane week of a job they hate, fighting becomes their drug, their escape. Tyler is their ultimate figure in masculinity to take comfort in when they realise -through his preaching- that they are a tricked generation, lead blindly into 'white-collar jobs' that they have no interest in to fulfill their consumerist desires that they don't really need. Fight Club is the thing that really opens their eyes to the society that they live in, and once Fight Club has managed to build it's army from the masses of lower class force, Project Mayhem takes over in recruiting the middle class members, for example the police officers in scene 33. 

Women (Misogyny)

'If I had a tumour, I'd name it Marla.' 

Marla Singer ends up representing the entire female population through the film as she is the only reoccurring female character, (as a female, it's safe to say that -as much as I love Fight Club- this narks me.) Throughout the film she doesn't seem to give a very good impression, she's changeable, clumsy, inelegant, rude and obsessed with sex, however as an audience we do have to understand that throughout the film she is being presented through Jack's point of view, so we're not likely to get a kind viewing of her for the majority. Of course when we find out that Jack is Tyler and he has infact been involved with Marla it suddenly makes a lot more sense why she has acted in such a way throughout the film. This film perfectly argues Laura Mulvey's feminist theory of 'Male Gaze', suggesting that audiences are forced to watch the narrative of a film through the perspective of a heterosexual male, objectifying women and glorifying masculine views. In terms of 'Fight Club' the narrative just wouldn't work if it was presented through anyone else's view, as it would be clear from the first few minutes that the 'Tyler Durden' Jack saw wasn't real. However the perspective of Marla created by Jack definitely proves this theory as she is either presented as a sexual object (scene 17) to be 'conquered' and later discussed or as a nuisance, destroying the character's masculinity with her weaker femininity. 

The Jack/Tyler Conundrum 

'Forget about what you think you know about life, about friendship, and especially about you and me.'

Jack creates Tyler Durden as a role model to help him become the ultimate man that he doesn't realise he desires to be. It is clear from scene 14 that Jack has been lacking in a father figure to use as a masculine role model during his life and so 'befriends' or 'creates' his idealistic view of manhood in scene 9. Brad Pitt as himself and as Tyler Durden is proof of the 'Hyperdermic Syringue Model' as he enforces the common ideas that the media presents about 'the ideal man' - good looking, tough, muscular, cool etc. This is why Jack looks up to him so much, because he has the strength to do what he admires, and he gains repect from it. However, because Tyler is this manly-man he cannot show the paternal affection that Jack obviously begins to want, just as Jack can't show affection towards Marla, showing Jack's lack of strength in his need for affirmation; 'I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection'. (Scene 25).

Context of Release

'Fight Club' was released as a novel in 1996, and, considering that's the year I was born that can seem like a pretty long time ago. Despite this the themes presented are still very relevent to today's society, despite all the advances made at such a great pace. The film was released in 1999, (just before the millennium, ooh uncertainty) and, while it didn't do that well in it's cinema release, (mainly do to atrocious marketing that drew completely the wrong audience), over time the DVD sales have increased the amount of appreciation for this film. And that's because (surprise, surprise) it's themes are still relevent. Think about it, we're still in a world with a lot of global businesses that possess one heck of a lot of power over the public because of the ugly truth of consumerism which has been ever present since we first discovered we could have things. There are still a lot of pressures on males to be 'the ideal man' with possibly even more demands progressing for them since the time of the film, and behind it all, most people in today's society struggle to define themselves with the objects they possess and the image they may present.