Fight Club

written in 2000

THE FIGHT CLUB: male identity crisis in a consumer society

"How embarrassing. A house full of condiments and no food."
-The Narrator, looking down on the remains of his bombed apartment on the sidewalk

The Fight Club promises salvation through a roller-coaster ride: set to the music of Dust Brothers, the opening sequence rolls through a magnified landscape of human hair and skin, taking twists and turns until the camera stops on the Narrator (Edward Norton), with a barrel of a gun in his mouth, frantically looking at the man holding it (Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden). The voiceover begins to tell us how it all started. The first flashback introduces Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter).

Both Marla and the Narrator frequent the same support groups, a different one every night, even though they suffer from none of the ailments. According to the Narrator, her presence at the meetings threatens to reveal his false identity, thereby "ruining it all." The viewer, however, does not have this information at this point in the film. So after the teaser about Marla and support groups, the Narrator decides to restart his story: "Let me back up. Six months ago, I couldn't sleep."

CAN'T CRY CAN'T SLEEP CAN'T FUNCTION

The social bond arises (...) from a sense of mutual dependence [which is treated] as a shameful condition. (...) None of these repudiations of dependence as shameful, however, promotes strong bonds of sharing. (...) A single sharp failure is the personal experience which brings most people to recognize that in the longer term, they are not sufficient to themselves.
- Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (pp.139, 141)

The Fight Club offers a critique of modern society's ills. In addition to an undisguised disgust for middle-class existence, the film calls attention to the disconnected, unloved, rootless people who haunt the cities, leading miserable lives. More specifically, the film focuses on society's expectations of men: to act strong, to be physical, and not to show feelings or discuss them.

We see the Narrator staring at the ceiling, curled up in a foetal position, bags under his eyes. Another shot catches the blue flicker of the television across his blankly open eyes as he lies on the couch in his boxers, the remote dangling from his hand. Upon being told by a doctor that he cannot die from insomnia, he complains that he "wake(s) up in strange places (he has) no idea how (he) got there," and begs for drugs. The doctor dismisses the Narrator's claim of being in pain, and tells him to "swing by First Methodist to see the guys with testicular cancer. Now that's pain."

So the following night, the Narrator finds himself at the testicular cancer support group, pressed against Bob's (Meatloaf) breasts. A former champion body-builder, Bob got his testicles removed when the steroids gave him cancer, and grew breasts when his body reacted to the hormone treatment and produced extra estrogen. The testicular cancer support group, a main element of the story line, is the film's sendoff to 'men with no balls.' Crushed because they no longer feel like adequate men, they are allowed the privilege of displaying emotion in the face of tragedy. Bob hugs the Narrator closer, and encourages him to cry. "And then, something happened. I let go; lost in oblivion dark and silent and complete, I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom."

Being able to let go helps the Narrator. For the first time in many nights, he sleeps soundly: "Babies don't sleep this well." Not allowed to display his frustration in public, the Narrator begins attending support groups every night where he comes into contact with other sufferers who embrace him. The support groups are the only places where he does not have to put up a front, the only places he can get affection: "I wasn't really dying. I wasn't host to cancer or parasites. I was the warm little center that the light of this world crowded around."

We get another insight into his psyche when he tells Marla why he attends these meetings: "When people think you're really dying then they really really listen to you instead of just..." "Instead of just waiting for their turn to speak?" "Yeah."

I CONSUME, THEREFORE I AM

The systematic and limitless process of consumption arises from the disappointed demand for totality that underlies the project of life.
-Jean Baudrillard, The System of Objects (p. 205)

... I had a wardrobe that was getting more respectable. I was close to being complete.
-The Narrator, talking to Tyler after his apartment is blown up

We see the Narrator, who has no name other than the pseudonyms he makes up for himself (Norton), pacing through his living room as furniture names and prices pop up as if life were a catalog. He is happiest when he gives in to his "Ikea nesting instinct," carefully selecting pieces that would "define him as a person." He gets visibly upset when his luggage is destroyed by airport security ("It was vibrating?!") because he no longer has his Calvin Klein shirts and Donna Karan ties. Unfortunately, the anti-consumerism in the film becomes too overt at times, signaled by Tyler launching into rants against advertising, lifestyle obsession, and spewing names such as 'Rogaine,' 'Olestra,' and 'Viagra.'

The film's incisive critique of capitalism is ultimately undermined by the self-destructive behavior of the members of the fight club. The trainees are admitted into the house only after a series of endurance tests, just to turn into guerrilla activists, blindly following their cult leader. With Tyler at the helm, the anarchic Project Mayhem begins taking shape, its ambitious aim nothing less than to subvert the system, destroy corporate art, and bomb credit card centers, eliminating all debt.

Only Tyler remains as an individual voice, a man with a brain who can question capitalism and the desire to purchase and possess. The followers, on the other hand, are equally sheepish whether they carry on their everyday lives, or carry out military orders. The dangers of mindless revolt are not discussed until the last part of the film, and then only implied. We see explosions and dying club members; whether anybody benefits is doubtful. Rather than a carefully planned out scheme that would have an impact over the long term, Project Mayhem is a kamikaze mission that succeeds only in destroying itself.

THE DEADBEAT GOD

Our fathers were models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God? Listen to me! Consider the possibility that God does not like you, never wanted you-in all probability, he hates you.
-Tyler, as he pours acid onto the Narrator's hand

The Fight Club is fraught with religious imagery, whether it is the Narrator describing the cheering during the fights ("The hysterical shouting was in tongues, like in a Pentecostal church") or his own experience at the support groups ("Every evening I died, and every evening I was born again, resurrected"). Loss of faith is a central theme in the film, the justification for the Narrator's/Tyler's actions. In a world where there is nothing to believe in, no family, no religion, no way to break free of the daily routine, the only choice appears to be self-destruction. Tyler and the Narrator talk about the Narrator's father who has abandoned him, moving to a different city, getting married and starting a new family every six years. Once in a while, when father and son talk on the phone, the father advises getting a job and getting married. But Tyler no longer has faith in marriage, if anything else: "We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is the answer to your needs."

WOMEN? WHAT WOMEN?

With all the sympathy extended towards men, however, it is still difficult to find positive portrayals of women, if any. The only women who appear in the film are the meditation leader, the dying cancer patient who wants "to have sex for one last time" and Marla, the chain-smoking suicidal mess of a girlfriend. Of the three, only Marla has any significant impact on the story line. Yet she is not very likeable, or even a resonant, three-dimensional character.

Everything in the film that deals with weakness or emotion is associated with the female. The support groups are the Narrator's secret addiction where he can openly show emotion; once another poseur, Marla, enters the scene, he becomes self-conscious again. The most affectionate and accepting man in the testicular cancer group is presented as practically a woman, a caricature of suffering with heavy breasts. The Narrator stops going to the support groups not because he is cured of his pain; he leaves because he has "found something much better," namely the fight club, to vent his emotions, where he can look like a man in the process. Yet the men who populate the fight club, who later become members of Project Mayhem, are little more than automatons themselves.

STYLE AND SUBSTANCE

The way the story is structured closely parallels that of oral storytelling. The unnamed narrator tells the viewer about his life in the past months, dependent on support groups at first, and later, on the fight club. As he explains the chain of events, he takes twists and turns in the story, jumps back and forth on the timeline, digresses about a specific character or makes a philosophical comment, hoping these might explain his motives, and put his story in context.

The visual structure of the film follows the voiceover as well. The Narrator tells the story as he perceives it, alternately referring to himself in the first ("I had a job...") and third ("Tyler worked as a film projectionist...") persons. The fact that the Narrator is suffering from a split-personality disorder, and that Tyler Durden is nothing but a persona, is saved until the end, but does not make the story any less intriguing.

The film utilizes many jump-cuts, fast zooms, pans, and computer-enhanced sequences. The visual strategy parallels the voiceover narration, scattering bits of the story ahead of its time, and commanding the full attention of the viewer. The fights are shot in all their glory and gore, an expression of despair and joy appears on each participant's face. Tyler is always magnetic and commanding, while the Narrator is transformed before our eyes: from a slumping, mousy office worker scrambling for his idea of perfection (owning the perfect condo, clothes and furniture), to a confident, violent guy who blackmails his company to fund his plans of destruction.

The screenplay is just as flashy and attractive, but there is a sneaking suspicion about whether the film is all style and no substance. The Fight Club, while criticizing the advertising industry of selling unachievable dreams of perfection at the expense of inner peace and contentment, utilizes the very strategies it opposes. Beautifully shot, fueled by a witty, stylized, interesting and entertaining script, featuring attractive people as the main characters, the film does not seem to have much to say. Or rather, it has too much to say, and cannot coherently present the multiple ideas it wishes to communicate without contradicting itself.

The scenes in which characters are introduced briefly before fading into obscurity serve no purpose but to add flourishes to the story. The insurance inspectors the Narrator meets with to evaluate a burnt car snicker at the human remains: "Very modern art." The woman sitting next to the Narrator as he explains the recall rate of autos with manufacturing defects recoils in horror and disgust. Tyler steals fat from liposuction clinics to make the luxury soap he sells at high-end stores. Such incidents do not advance the plot but serve to expose the absurdity of life, and the frailty of human existence, while trying to justify the hatred that brews within.

One cannot help but be reminded of the scene in which Tyler meets the Narrator on the plane for the first time. Upon hearing that he is "the best one serving friend" the Narrator has ever had, Tyler grins. The Narrator begins to explain his little joke, when Tyler cuts him off: "I get it; very clever. How's that working out for you... being clever?" When the Narrator looks puzzled and says, "Fine, I guess," Tyler shrugs: "Keep it up then." Unfortunately, being clever works only so much for the film, which is so concerned with perfection that it suffers from the same anxieties its protagonist does, and falls apart in the end.

CONCLUSION

A film loaded with symbolism, despair, and social criticism, The Fight Club, at first glance, appears concerned with ideas of masculinity, routine lives, and alienated people. A closer reading reveals that the film is less countercultural than it seems. A nihilistic exploration of violence, The Fight Club does not offer redemption. The men who are presented as victims of society do not transgress, but only find temporary solace. Tyler pities and loathes the middle-class man who subscribes to self-improvement through acquisition, but he offers nothing in its stead. His followers do not end up any happier. All they get is a temporary satisfaction from venting their rage at being promised the American dream they will never obtain. "When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. Afterwards we all felt saved." Salvation is a false comfort; it only masks the pain, but is far from being a cure: "After fighting, everything else got the volume turned down. You could deal with everything." In that respect, the salvation offered through the film does not significantly differ from the salvation offered through consumption. How I wish it did.

© 2000 Melis Alemdar. Comments? Email me.

/End The Fight Club review