Cinema Fight Club (1999) - It's Time to Talk About It

[Arnox]

Rating

5.00 star(s)

Of all the films that are the most relevant to TOTSE (and by direct extension, us), there just never really has been a movie more incredibly on-point with the site's general message than Fight Club. Of course though, Fight Club wasn't only important because it was relevant to some rando site in the 90s and 2000s. Rather, it was a massive delayed-impact cultural nuclear bomb that made everyone look stupid, and even now, we're still feeling its aftereffects decades later. Why? Because it took the social norms and assumptions we were slowly getting sucked into and absolutely brutally EVISCERATED them. The Matrix may have gotten you to question the world around you, but Fight Club actually made you truly question yourself and ask what the fuck you were even doing with your life. Were you just following along and doing everything you were told? Did you ever even attempt to fulfill your dreams? Or have you played it safe and stayed inside your own little world, never questioning anything?

Those aren't really questions people like to ask themselves. And the shittier they are, the more they try to avoid such introspection and also get defensive if the subject is forced upon them. Or they may just simply put the question off. "I'm just too busy to think about stuff like that. I don't need that kind of thinking right now." What's amazing and truly a feat of cinema though is how Fight Club didn't grow less relevant over the years since its release. Instead, it only got more and MORE relevant. Which is actually pretty scary and worrying. We were not supposed to head this way as a society. In an alternate, happier, and more sane timeline, Fight Club should have been a quaint relic of a now bygone era. It should not have remained relevant. But it is, and especially so in 2023. And we have no one to blame for that but ourselves.

Perhaps we'll see the day someday when Fight Club won't have to constantly be brought up as a prime documentary of what's wrong with us and our society. But I guess it isn't this day... I don't care who the fuck you are. I don't care what you believe. I don't even care if you got balls or not. If you're over 18, you need to watch this movie. This is on the Mandatory Movie List of 2023 and probably beyond.

 

[Houseman]

A lot of redditors and ex-twitter users (now on bluesky) repeat often that Fight Club is misunderstood, and that if you idolize or cheer for Tyler Durden you lack "media literacy" because the movie is supposed to be a critique of hyper-masculinity, actually. It's making fun of you, actually.

I watched it recently, and I disagree. There isn't much about "masculinity" at all. It's about "purpose", or the lack of it.

It's all right here in this one quote:

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

 

[Arnox]

A lot of redditors and ex-twitter users (now on bluesky) repeat often that Fight Club is misunderstood, and that if you idolize or cheer for Tyler Durden you lack "media literacy" because the movie is supposed to be a critique of hyper-masculinity, actually. It's making fun of you, actually.


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I watched it recently, and I disagree. There isn't much about "masculinity" at all. It's about "purpose", or the lack of it.

It's all right here in this one quote:

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

Pretty much, but it's also about cult mentality. About not letting someone do your thinking for you. It doesn't matter if the audience agrees with Tyler's end goals or not. Or at least, not for this specific subject in Fight Club. What matters in this specific subject here is that the Narrator didn't want it. Or at least, not truly. He let Tyler start doing his thinking for him and that pushed him into yet another situation he didn't want. First, he was working for corporate media overlords and being hypnotized by Ikea, and the next, he was working for a charismatic overlord and being hypnotized by punching people into the dirt. Ironically, Marla Singer in the movie is the voice of reason, though the Narrator tries to ignore it or misunderstands it entirely.

It doesn't mean that men aren't purposeless in our modern society. They generally are. And it doesn't mean that Tyler didn't have any good points. Because he did have a ton of them. But it's also not the front you are watching that is usually the danger. It is your flanks that you really need to worry about.