Fight Club - Consumerism and Toxic Masculinity

Hey guys!

In 1999, audiences around the world were greeted to the ideas of the radical, but charming, Tyler Durden and his vision for society. When it was premiered at the Venice Film Festival, it was one of the most polarizing films ever screened there: people either absolutely hated it or loved it a lot. On release n theatres, the box office outcome wasn't very pleasing.  However, through DVDs and VHS tapes, and word of mouth, Fight Club became a cult classic. So much so that many college dorms still have walls adorned with a poster of Ed Norton and Brad Pitt holding a bar of soap. Today, we see the two most obvious commentaries in David Fincher's Fight Club: those of consumerism and toxic masculinity.

THE STORY

Fight Club tells the story of an unnamed narrator, who works at a big company in a dull monotonous routine. He suffers from insomnia, and when his doctor suggests he attend a cancer support group, the Narrator finds the key to sleep: crying his eyes dry. When his condo blows up under mysterious circumstances, he finds himself living with the charismatic Tyler Durden. Tyler is an enigmatic character, with a "Devil May Care" attitude. Soon, the Narrator and Tyler start a Fight Club, where men can come together and fight each other. Soon, these Fight Clubs spread all over the world. As these groups progress, their acts start becoming more violent and antisocial.

CONSUMERIST CULTURE

Fight Club is a penultimate criticism of consumerist culture. The protagonist remains nameless throughout the film and he lives in a nameless city, works in a nameless company, which signifies that he could be anyone and everyone. Life under his corporate overlords is so monotonous that he can tell what day it is by looking at the color of his boss' tie. Another reason for his anonymity could be that life under a consumerist culture has led to a loss of identity.

The narrator's job has something to do with analyzing car crashes. In the subtext, we see that the people who die in car accidents get filed as numbers in files, another jab at a loss of identity under consumerism.

The narrator spends his nights lying on his couch and flipping through TV channels. He says "When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep, and you're never really awake". This implies that he is only half-conscious because of insomnia but also consumerism because in consumerism people are 'alienated' from various things, which leads to a loss of meaning and purpose.

The narrator's life is defined by the latest furniture in an Ikea catalog. In his own words, after his apartment is blown up, the Narrator says "A house full of condiments and no food." This goes to show that though he has everything to make his life spicy, the condiments (his job, good furniture, etc.), he still lacks the very thing substance and meaning in his life that is to be made spicy (the food).

The film and its themes of loss of meaning are further solidified when the narrator describes his condo as a "filing cabinet for widows and young professionals", implying that it isn't actually a home, where one would associate feelings of love and belonging but rather, an organized manner of efficiently storing individuals, indicating the loss of their individuality and humanity.

The narrator at one point says "everything is a copy of a copy of a copy". This goes to say that almost everything available is a replica of some form or another. There is another way of interpreting this, that everything is replaceable and an alternative can be found for anything. Including humans at a job.

This part of the critique is beautifully summed up in the bar conversation between the Narrator and Tyler, where the latter says "We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, televisions with 500 channels..."

And finally, to drive this point home, the director David Fincher has included a Starbucks cup in almost every shot of the film"

TYLER DURDEN

To help escape the dull monotony of life, comes Tyler Durden. Eccentric, charming, and better than the narrator in every way imaginable. He is, what one would consider the "Alpha male". His philosophy is simple, to quote him "Let the chips fall where they may!". According to him, they are the middle children of history.

Tyler says they have no "Great Depression" and their "Great War" is a "spiritual one" as if it was necessary to have the two to ensure the survival of men. Notice how I say "men" and not "humans"? This is because Tyler is a perfect representation of toxic masculinity. I say this because he starts and an underground club where men get together and beat the ever-living crap out of each other. He says that they are a generation of men that were raised by women and that has somehow made us weak and has caused men to lose their masculinity. Thus, they must regain it by fighting each night.

Fincher reinforces this by constantly talking about the loss of testicles of the man, The narrator first joins a group of testicular cancer survivors. Besides this, there are several references to people "losing their balls". Besides this, Tyler instructed the members of Fight Club of anyone who tries to stop his events.

THE IRONY

The easier irony to explain would be the one about toxic masculinity. Though Tyler says that men don't have to look how Calvin Klein says they have to, we must keep in mind Tyler is played by Brad Pitt who has been named "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine twice, both times before the release of Fight Club. So in all irony, he is the image of Calvin Klein's perfect man, telling us not to look like him.

The second irony is aimed at the mindless droning of consumer culture. Tyler says that people must escape the mindless droning of consumerism by joining the Fight Club, or its more violent counterpart, Project Mayhem. In doing activities, the members become mindless drones for Tyler, they do what he asks them to without question and they rarely know why they're doing what they're doing. In essence, Tyler asks them to escape the metaphorical slavery of consumerism is flawed, the alternative is not much better.

CONCLUSION

In my opinion, Fight Club is one of the best films ever made. Not just from a critical perspective, it is a damn good thriller as well. The film asks the fundamental question whether it is to be an actual slave, or a slave with the illusion of freedom, and that's up to you to decide.

Hey guys! So I've wanted to write this for a while now and finally got to it! If I've interested you even a little bit in this, I urge you to check out Wisecrack's video on Fight Club, which kind of inspired me to write this. You can follow me on @blogofbooksandmovies on Instagram.

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