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“This movie is dangerous” : Fight Club, subversion and Hollywood Cinema. ... ”
Over half a century later Brad Pitt’s character – Tyler Durden – in David Fincher’s 1999 film Fight Club shouts, “We’ve all been raised on TV to believe that we’d all be movie stars and rock gods. ... What makes this comparison even more problematic is that the latter quotation emanates from a product of this Culture Industry – a big budget Hollywood film. ...
Yet if this is the case, then how have we ended up with a Hollywood film that has been variously described as: “anti-society, anti-capitalist and… anti-God” ; “a film that dares to question American values […] anti-establishment in both theory and practice” and as “[David Fincher’s] most contentious, most talked-about and most dangerous film to date” ? ...
The decision to make Fight Club was helped in no small part by the involvement of David Fincher and Brad Pitt from the very beginning, without which it would have been unlikely to have even been raised as a possibility. ... ””
In particular, having a well known Hollywood star of Brad Pitt’s calibre involved from the start greatly improved Fight Club’s chances of being commissioned. ... ”
As well as the people involved, the type of film that Fight Club promised to be may also have helped the case for its creation Not in terms of its anti-society messages, of course, but rather in terms of the fact that it is an action film that is easily targeted at the lucrative international and youth markets. ... Fight Club could be read, then, as a reinscription into the contemporary consciousness of traditional masculinity, a version of ‘masculinity’ which is incompatible with a ‘feminising’ consumer lifestyle. ... ]
In many ways Tyler Durden [Brad Pitt] is a very good example of the archetypal ‘outlaw hero’ of classic Hollywood film as described by Robert B. ... ” Tyler’s character could perhaps be read, then, as an attempt to recapture this type of classical masculinity of which Hollywood has been so fond in the face of the newly emerging roles created by a society of consumers.
Fight Club certainly seems to contain the suggestion that men are feeling confused and betrayed by these new roles that have apparently been foisted upon them by late capitalist society. ...
Edward Norton’s character, Fight Club’s unnamed protagonist (referred to in the script as ‘Jack’), dubs himself “a slave to the Ikea nesting instinct” [my italics], and his alter ego Tyler, the antithesis of the modern male consumer, refers to consumers as “by-products of the lifestyle obsession. ... Fight Club itself acts as a showcase for the male form and an opportunity for the demonstration of physical prowess. ... ” The body is instead used to indicate the male paradigm of action: “Fight Club became the reason to cut your hair short or trim your fingernails. ...
We are told that “Fight Club wasn’t about winning or losing. ... We see a man taking off his wedding ring to participate in a fight and Jack stops wearing a tie to work. Even language is rejected as the shouts from those watching the fight turn into primeval grunts. In fact, the first two rules of Fight Club explicitly state that, “You do not talk about Fight Club. ...
However, the institution of Fight Club and its concentration on the physical is paradoxical for several reasons. Firstly, and most obviously, is the irony that while it rants against the objectification of the male body, Fight Club itself acts as an arena in which the male form is paraded and displayed and in which its ability can be proven. ...
In addition, while the reasons behind the formation of Fight Club are clear, it does not seem to achieve anything. ... ”
If Fight Club does have a purpose, it is to raise confidence among its members, but for what ends? As Jack points out: “When the fight was over nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. ... Tyler decides that he has to take Fight Club “up a notch” and creates ‘Project Mayhem’, the aim of which is to bring down large corporations through acts of vandalism and destruction. ...
On the other hand, many of the members of Fight Club do have functional, even powerful roles, which at points are represented as being grossly underestimated.
Approximate Word count = 3463
Approximate Pages = 13.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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