Fight Club

Fight Club interrogates America’s hierarchal society and how men without power and affluence exercise their frustrations through violence. When the narrator meets the manifestation of his alter ego, Tyler Durden, they begin to fight each other in a parking lot and shortly after establish an all male “fight club”. After the club begins to expand the narrator begins to participate in acts of defiance against those in power, and he encourages others to do the same. The narrator begins an all male fight club, but defers to a woman, Marla Singer, because she has a more assertive personality than him. When the two have their first conversation in the testicular cancer help group, the narrator asks Marla to stop coming. Marla stops him from talking and makes it clear that she does not intend to give up what she wants to do, but will compromise if the narrator establishes a schedule she deems fair. This subverts the male dominant power dynamic of the movie in this scene. However, as their relationship begins to progress the narrators’ alter ego begins to objectify Marla and seems to value her only for sexual gratification The film challenges America’s hierarchal structure, but places women and their experiences in that structure to the periphery.