The Art of Fight Club

Welcome to fight. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. The third rule of Fight Club: if someone yells "stop!" goes limp or taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: the fights are bare knuckle. No shirt, no shoes, no weapons. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth rule and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight. 

These words were spoken by the egnimatic Tyler Durden. Fight Club is originally a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. David Fincher acquired the rights to the book and in 1999, the film starring the seriously underrated stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, alongside the novel, became cult classics.

Fight Club is a morbid tale of how we are beguiled to be consumed by the things we owe, so much so that they end up owning us. The best quote in the film the relationship between The Narrator and Tyler Durden is “the things you own end up owning you.” We are obsessed with the things we don’t have and the people we were never meant to be that we become blinded and we create an image of ourselves to fill up the void inside. We buy things we can live without because we are vacant inside. What influenced me about Fight Club is how beautiful the violence is and the brutality is rightfully exercised because we live vicariously through The Narrator who walks us through his deranged self in form of Tyler Durden, his alter-ego. He walks us through his propensity to use the vulnerable to make himself feel alive. What fascinated me the most about Fight Club is the way David Fincher used Tyler Durden as a device to mask The Narrator’s hidden desire to fight the hierarchy; those who deprived him of sleep, those who lied to the public so they can use us. Together with Tyler, his alter-ego, he creates fight club to release his repressed male aggression against a society of liars. I’m influenced by Fincher’s ability to set up an alluring mystery with an unusual dark whimsical touch. He aggregates a beautiful brutality and demonstrates a graphic glimpse into a world verging on cognitive insanity. I love how his film plays the minds of the viewer which is great because it is the glue to having a sustaining fan base.

Brad Pitt and a bar of homemade soup.

Fight Club Synopsis

An unnamed narrator works as a Product Recall Specialist for an unnamed car company. He is responsible for determining if product recalls of defective models meet cost-benefit analysis. The stress of his job combined with his frequent business trips leads to perpetual jet lag. He comes to recognize that his identity is imposed on him by his job and by his possessions and that he is not in control of his life.

At his doctor's - perhaps facetious - recommendation, the narrator attends a support group for men suffering from testicular cancer, to "see what real suffering is like". He finds that crying and listening to the problems of others cures his insomnia. This treatment works until he meets another impersonator, Marla Singer.

The possibly disturbed Marla reflects the narrator's "tourism", reminding him that he is a faker and does not belong there. He begins to hate Marla for keeping him from crying, and, therefore, from sleeping. After a confrontation, they agree to attend separate support group meetings to avoid each other. The truce is uneasy, however, and the narrator's insomnia returns.

The Many Faces of Marla Singer

The gorgeous Helena Bonham Carta, Marla Singer, blowing smoke from her ciggarette

The narrator soon meets Tyler Durden, a cooler version of himself, and he begins to let go of his pinned up masculinity in the form of violence. He has a breakthrough euphoria when he fights. He soon realizes the man he truly is and hates the monster inside.

Fight Club catapulted the writing career of Palahniuk and cemented Norton and Pitt as icons. Fight Club did poorly at the box office but through word of mouth, its excellence signified its cult status. Fight Club spoke about how materialism is the death of a human. We've become walk endorsements for the companies we by for. We are slaves to consumerism. Fight Club helps the lost find refuge by taking out their rage against the world. The soon want to destroy the world for enslaving us to their propaganda.

Promotional DVD Cover of Fight Club starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton

The man who was once a slave is now the master. He takes the reigns and prepares the judgments. With the help of Durden, his alter ego, the narrator chooses his freedom.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk is apart of trangressive fiction. Transgressive fiction have characters who are confined in social norms and uphold high expectations in society. They usually break free from the confines through illicit acts. The subject matters of this genra are taboo such as pedophilia, drugs, and crime.

Fight Club represents the death of GenX. The kids who grew up with Kurt Cobain...

 

Kurt Cobain

Were now unhappy 20somethings. They were slaves to materialism. The men of Fight Club used violenced to regain their lost masculinaty. Through violence it was man vs. himself. They fought against the beast that was dormant. We are beast! Repressing our anger to please the world is an excuse for slavery. Slavery is dead and so are we if we haven't realized it.

Thank you, Chuck, for waking up the dead.

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.

That's Fight Club in a nutshell. All hail Tyler Durden. Remember kids, "The things you own, end up owning you." Don't believe in the hype of buying the latest trend to compete with your peers. You're only competiing with yourself and nine times out of ten, you lose.