Fight Club - Misunderstood Movie

I think a lot of people didn't get this movie at all.

I mean, it's all in the dude's head. I guess that means to go out and buy Gucci underwear and try to become something you'll never be. Just keep going to those jobs. Feed corporate culture.

I stand by the fanon that the Narrator is Calvin.

edited 19th Jun '13 10:36:48 AM by TobiasDrake

I think the film is more illustrating a problem than actually offering any workable solutions to it.

Or rather, advocating finding a middle ground between mindless consumerism and dangerous radicalism.

edited 19th Jun '13 7:21:22 PM by kalel94

The film has a lot of imagery supporting this notion.

One thing I found interesting about the film is the fact that Tyler is full of shit. He's not the "radical trying to tear down the system" that he presents himself as; he's building an army of brainwashed servants dedicated to his mantra that worship his name. That's not anarchy; that's a cult. Anarchy is a tool Tyler uses in order to obtain for himself the very power and authority that he openly decries.

Seriously, the entirety of Project Mayhem is classic cultist conditioning and behavior.

what I love about that interpretation (one I share with you) is that it means that many, many people take this movie in the complete wrong way it should. Fight Club isn't liberating; it's destructive, and leads to needless pandemonium and terrorism. Tyler rejects the crassness of commercialism and the status quo of society, but in essence becomes that which he is rebelling against and even transcends it.

It really can be seen as essentially a "He Who Fights Monsters"-type parable in that respect. Or, rather, more of a way of conveying the idea of how often radicals who wish to overthrow the system essentially become the system they and their followers so hated in the first place. Basically, "Won't Get Fooled Again" and all that.

I'm not gonna pretend I understand Fight Club's politics or what its message is — for all Tyler's faults, his cause (which I agree with in a vague, soupy way) is glorified. However, as far as can tell, The Narrator could not control his own destiny, and the only way out was to tear the whole system down. It became less about Tyler's ideals and more about his hunger to be free, even if it's in a lawless jungle.

Fight Club would not fly in real life, as we saw with OWS. You can't just opt out, like the Beats did in an earlier time. We're all complicit. Note that even acts of violence today are really media stunts.

edited 20th Jun '13 12:26:33 AM by johnnyfog

Basically. It's the inevitable Cycle of Politics.

• Freedom fighters lash out against a corrupt government.
• Freedom fighters succeed and overthrow the corrupt government, instilling a new ruling class or system to ensure that the corruption and mistakes of yesterday never again take place.
• New, entitled rulers replace old, aging or dead rulers. New rulers do not remember the freedom fight of yesterday, do not understand the importance of the peasantry and commonfolk.
• Greed, decadence, and a desire for self-promotion at the expense of others begins to infest the new system. The people who come into power are the people with the ambition to seek power, because those who have no desire for power do not seek power and thus never attain it.
• The peasants become discontent, begin lashing out at the ruling class.
• Stricter laws and rules are put into place to protect the commonfolk from threats both inside and out, at the expense of the commonfolk's happiness.
• The commonfolk form freedom fighters and lash out at the corrupt government, overthrowing it and instilling a new ruling class or system, to ensure that the mistakes and corruption of yesterday never again take place.

While it often requires a few generations before the fight for independence to be forgotten, sometimes you get lucky and your revolutionaries themselves becomes the dictators, clearing the entire cycle in a single generation. It's what happened to the French Revolution. This usually occurs when you have revolutionaries whose complaint only looks like, "I am angry because the commonfolk are oppressed," when in actuality it boils down to, "I am angry because I want to be the king instead of you!"

Tyler Durden was all set up for that.

edited 20th Jun '13 7:33:21 AM by TobiasDrake

Well, if one actually succeeded in tearing down society, one would realisically only open the door for a bunch of likely much more brutal warlord types to fill the vacuum.

Very true. Anarchy isn't a government system; it's a placeholder until a new system fills the void.

Anarchy lasts until a person or group of persons amasses sufficient power and influence to create a government.

Hence why virtually all real world "anarchies" are not, in fact, anarchic-as-in-lacking-rulers. They instead are, essentially, feudalistic, with everyone huddling around the nearest strong man with a gun, whether he's a monster or not. Its because basic feudalism is sort of the lowest social energy state that exists; given total chaos, its the first and quickest social structure to emerge spontaneously.

Even though Jack ended up as a synthesis, a merge, between the thesis of his downtrodden Dilbertish persona and the antithesis of his nihilist persona, those insurance company headquarters buildings still came down, y'all. With him and Marla Singer snogging. To the strains of The Pixies singing "Where Is My Mind".

His frantic struggles with himself to stop the bombing came to nothing, well, apart from the one he was actually standing in.