An analysis of Fight Club

Fight Club comments profoundly on America's problems of meaning (e.g. indentured servitude to capitalism in a land of freedom, violence in a land of justice, consumer Darwinism in a land of community, meaning in a post-modern reality that understands all meaning as a relative cultural construct, etc.). In sociological terms, Jack, a white male, could represent the hierarchical leadership of the American patriarchy. "I was the warm little center that the life of this world crowded around." America seems to love him, but he feels hurt and betrayed by his culture and the dulled-down consumerist dreams he has inherited.

We're consumers. We're by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty -- these things don't concern me. What concerns me is celebrity magazines, television with five hundred channels, some

guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.

But according to Fincher, "We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that societal emasculation this everyman is created." (2) Where does Jack go to discuss his problems? What community exists to support him emotionally and spiritually? 

Seeking guidance, Jack stumbles into a group for men with testicular cancer. He finds that a weekly catharsis between Bob's breasts rids him of his insomnia by allowing him to feel. But this apparent solution produces a new dilemma for Jack-crying men.

BOBWe're still men.

JACKYes. We're men. Men is what we are.

JACK (V.O.)Bob cried. Six months ago, his testicles were removed. Then hormone therapy. He developed bitch tits because his testosterone was too high and his body upped the estrogen. That was where my head fit -- into his sweating tits that hang enormous, the way we think of God's

as big.

Jack's masculinity has been reduced to undifferentiated tears. But from these tears, he finds "strength." Despite the temporary relief he feels from his release, Jack quickly returns to his initial dilemma:

You are here because the worldAs you know it no longer makes sense.

You've been raised on televisionTo believe we'll all be

Millionaires and movie gods andRock stars - but we won't.

You pray for a different life. (3)

If Jack is not allowed to express his creativity as a "movie god" or "rock star," he can create his own god in the theatre of his mind that will grant him permission to feel in a more lasting way.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), a disciple of Sigmund Freud, believed that his mentor had neglected the soul and religion in his understanding of human psychology. For this reason, Jung left Freud and spent years of research in religious iconography and mythical stories. His findings suggest that typical stories exist cross-culturally and that each individual psyche has the potential for two opposing personalities: ego and shadow. Ego controls the psyche, but

Without Tyler, Jack is a spineless, volume less, emotionless, placid, and flaccid half-man. Jack's creation of Tyler Durden allows him to reclaim his masculinity amidst a culture of post-feminist, cathartic, "self"-help groups.

With his addiction to self-help groups, Jack attends a leukaemia group and experiences a guided meditation. When he is told to meet his power animal in one meditation, he finds a penguin in a snowy cave who speaks like a child-a poignant image of Jack's lonely and docile masculinity. In an article entitled "What Men Really Want," Robert Bly captures this over-emphasized docility:

‘When I look out at my audiences, perhaps half the young males are what I'd call soft. They're lovely, valuable people-I like them-and they're not interested in harming the earth, or starting wars, or working for corporations. There's something favourable toward life in their whole general mood and style of living. But something's wrong. There's not much energy in them. They are life-preserving but not exactly life-giving.’ (7)

In a culture that's been robbed of its masculine principle, Jack finds himself only accepting his masculinity through tears and the estrogen-enriched breasts of another man who completes him.

JACK (V.O.)The big moosie, his eyes already shrink-wrapped in tears. Knees

together, invisible steps.

Bob takes Jack into an embrace.

JACK (V.O.)He pancaked down on top of me.

BOBTwo grown kids ... and they won't return my calls.

JACK (V.O.)Strangers with this kind of honesty make me go a big rubbery one.

Jack's face is rapt and sincere. Bob stops talking and breaks into sobbing, putting his head down on Jack's shoulder and completely

covering Jack's face.

JACK (V.O.)Then, I was lost in oblivion -- dark and silent and complete.

Jack's body begins to jerk in sobs. He tightens his arms around Bob.

JACK (V.O.)This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.

Crying for Jack seems to be one way to address his masculinity and disappointment with a spiritless life. In contemporary America, it seems that an increasing number of men are turning to tears as a way of emoting. Bly discusses this catharsis-obsessed American males.

‘Often the younger males would begin to talk and within five minutes they would be weeping. The amount of grief and anguish in the younger males was

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), a disciple of Sigmund Freud, believed that his mentor had neglected the soul and religion in his understanding of human psychology. For this reason, Jung left Freud and spent years of research in religious iconography and mythical stories. His findings suggest that typical stories exist cross-culturally and that each individual psyche has the potential for two opposing personalities: ego and shadow. Ego controls the psyche, but

astounding! The river was deep. . . They had learned to be receptive, and it wasn't enough to carry their marriages. In every relationship something fierce is needed once in a while; both the man and the woman need to have it.’(8)

JACKMy mother would just go into hysterics. My Dad ... Don't know where he is. Only knew him for six years. Then, he ran off to a new city and married another woman and had more kids. Every six years -- new

city, new family. He was setting up franchises.

Tyler smiles, snorts, shakes his head.

TYLERA generation of men raised by women. Look what it's done to you.

With the lack of a male role-model, all that is left for the American boy without a father is the consumer "product." When there is no other solution, Jack turns to a "modern versatile domestic solution" to fill the void:

Jack flips the page of the catalogue to reveal a full-page photo of an entire kitchen and dining room set.

JACK (V.O.)I would flip and wonder, "What kind of dining room set *defines* me

as a person?"

Jack wants out of his dead end corporate job and his IKEA furnished "life-style." Jack, who does not have enough courage of his own, creates a shadow that has enough nerve to break free and enough audacity to become his own true individual. Jack creates Tyler Durden as a mentoring father figure who will help him integrate his shadow in relationship with sex and violence and bring Jack closer to the other.

TYLERShut up! Our fathers were our models for God. 

And if our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God?

Increasingly American boys are raised by their mothers with a lack of any strong male role-model in their life. Tyler becomes such a role-model for Jack who ironically holds all of Jack's rage and all of his love simultaneously. The fighting itself becomes an act of love through which they can relate to one another. However, Tyler Durden is only a temporary experience.

The last scene of the film illuminates Jack's final encounter with Tyler. With a gun to Jack's head, Tyler begins the last scene where the film began.

TYLER3 minutes. This is it. Here we are at the beginning. Ground zero.

Would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?

Jack is at a loss for words, but realizes he no longer craves the destruction Tyler wants. "I don't want this!" But it is too late. Vans loaded with "blasting gelatine" are set to detonate and destroy urban phallic skyscrapers in a matter of minutes. Jack realizes the only way to stop his alter-ego gone awry is to point the gun at himself. Tyler dies when Jack shoots himself in the mouth, but Jack remains a spirit to bear witness to "ground zero." (13) 

The last image of the film is framed as a vista from within a glass skyscraper. Jack and his lover, Marla Singer, hold hands at the "theater of mass destruction." Two tall towers crumble to the ground. Premiered years before September eleventh, the film serves as chilling prophecy even more profound and ripe with culture and historical mythic elements than even this author had expected.

After the Theater

When an individual steps into a church, how much do they expect of their experience to follow them out? Great art changes our experience of reality and challenges us to take that experience home with us. Is this great art?

            TYLER3 minutes. This is it. Here we are at the beginning. Ground zero. Would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?

The film effectively holds up a mirror to the male viewer and suggests that the real story begins at "ground zero" in "three minutes" as the film fades out, the end credits begin, and the audience exits the theatre. Most of us are confused when we leave a movie theatre and enjoy revelling in the passivity of the experience. However, the film maintains a moral ambiguity, which challenges the viewer to "say a few words to mark the occasion." One informant says of his experience, "It didn't let me be a white, middle-class American male, ages 18-24, the most powerful person in the world, and remain comfortable in my seat." (24) During an interview at Yale University, Edward Norton confirmed this reaction as intentional:

After interviewing a dozen American male college students, I feel confident that I have attained some sense of the emotional response it may have warranted from its intended audience (American males age 18-24). Though the sample size was relatively small, the informants included a cross-section of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Though the specifics varied, all males interviewed felt something. One informant was "anesthetized":

I guess I felt shock in response to all this destruction, yet the visual image was so beautiful that I was seduced by it and gave myself over to scopophilic consumption. When I left the theater, I felt numb. I was anesthetized. (29)

Others similarly describe the anesthesia of Fight Club as "stress release," "peace," and "liberating."

I hope it rattles people. I hope it dunks very squarely in your lap because I think one of the things we strove very specifically to do with this was on some levels retain a kind of moral ambivalence or a moral ambiguity--not to deliver a neatly wrapped package of meaning into your lap. Or in any way that let you walk away from the film like this, comfortable in having been told what you should make of it. (25)

I felt violated, but not really violated. Like I was tricked into seeing something I shouldn't see. Like taken advantage of. It was a stress release. (30)

It was jarring, I guess, because he shoots himself. But there's a sense of peace in the destruction. He's sitting there holding her hand, and it's just kind of peaceful. It's kind of a defiant peace. It was definitely one of those moments where you're like, 'Whoa! Dude! Like Jesus Christ. I got to think about it.' (31)

Liberating. As unjustified as it was, the buildings were tolerable. You'd expect a feeling of regret for the antagonist to accomplish destruction. But there was a liberating feeling somehow. (32)

Jack, the character, has a similar experience to the informants when he finishes his fight.

JACK (V.O.)Fight Club was not about winning or losing. It wasn't about words.

The Opponent recovers, throws a headlock on Jack. Jack snakes his arm into a counter headlock. They, wrestling like wild animals. The crowd

CHEERS maniacally.

JACK (V.O.)The hysterical shouting was in tongues, like at a Pentecostal church.

The onlookers kneel to stay with the fight, cheering ever louder. The Opponent smashes Jack's head into the floor, over and over.

JACKStop.

Everyone moves in as the Opponent steps away. They lift Jack to his feet. On the floor is a BLOOD MASK of Jack's face -- similar to his

TEAR MASK on BOB'S SHIRT, seen earlier.

EXT. BAR - NIGHT

Everyone files out of the bar, sweating, bleeding, smiling.

JACK (V.O.)Nothing was solved. But nothing mattered. Afterwards, we all felt

saved.

Conclusion

Fight Club, the movie, exists to solve the very problems of meaning it poses. It holds a mirror up to young white males and says, "This is who you are." And the very act of holding up that mirror allows the film to own a dark part of the culture which cannot be experienced within the culture.

Fight Club frames America lacking a public venue to integrate the emotional component of white male identity. When there is a communal or cultural void, history suggests that violence can complete that lack. Fight Club exposes the void and offers three solutions: crying, violence, and movies. Fight Club asks the question, what do you want to do with the Jacks of our country--those unwanted children of America who were raised on cultural action hero myths and yearn to

live those stories? We can send them to support groups to mourn the impossibility of living this dream, send them to war to partake in the battle, or send them to experience the "Fight Club" of American cinema.