Fight Club

Watched Fight Club again last night. The basic story is that a generation of young men are living empty lives, “working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” Fight Club gives them a purpose and makes them feel like men.

Scary thought: think of the aimless young men in Fight Club. Now imagine they’re young Muslim men joining a terrorist organization, which is what Fight Club became when it turned into Project Mayhem.

Fight Club was released in 1999. Post-9/11 they would have never used an ending that involved blowing up skyscrapers. The parallels would have been too obvious and unnerving.

I’m glad they were able to use that ending because the parallels are instructive. I like Fight Club, but what I’ve always disliked about it is the juvenile endorsement of violence as a means to manhood and the embrace of destruction as entertainment and self-realization. Connecting the dots with groups like Al Qaeda shows where that mindset leads.

2 Comments to Fight Club

Laughingdog
July 19, 2009

The one thing that aggravated me with that movie was how many people took it seriously. It always seemed obvious to me that it was intended as a comedy, or at least the book was. Chuck Palahniuk just does not strike me as some “oh my god the world is horrible” author. He’s seems like guy with a really twisted sense of humor. I have a friend with a similar slant to a lot of his short stories. You either laugh at his stuff or you think they’re these tragic tales.

Next time you watch Fight Club, picture Adam Sandler playing Edward Norton’s role and see if you don’t get a completely different perspective on what you’re watching.

Swanky
August 4, 2009

If they are “working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need” then destroying “things” is just natural. It’s the desire for things that is the problem. And valuing “things.” And the violence is more of a non-valuing of self. Just like him destroying something beautiful.