Monday, April 6, 2009
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.
The movie, Fight Club
In the movie, the main character has a hard time demonstrating his masculinity. In our society, it is viewed negatively to fight and brawl. The fight scenes in the movie show the men consensually willing to fight each other to demonstrate their masculine aggression and strength. They let out their frustration with society that they are not allowed to show. In an innovative way, the movie shows how not just women are oppressed by society. The movie tries to demonstrate that men have an innate need to fight and show aggression; society says no to this. I also see the burning of the apartment as an ironic yet metaphorical representation of his gaining of masculinity and losing of his 'feminine' qualities like collecting furniture.
It also is sexist and stereotypical toward women. It constructs an image of women that consists of sex...and that women only think about sex--they are just sex objects. Even the woman in the beginning of the film in the cancer group just wanted sex before she died.
From this perspective, I believe glorified masculinity places men as more violent, aggressive and powerful of the sexes, which following that dichotomy, it places women as the feminine sexual objects in the lower of the sexes.
It also is sexist and stereotypical toward women. It constructs an image of women that consists of sex...and that women only think about sex--they are just sex objects. Even the woman in the beginning of the film in the cancer group just wanted sex before she died.
From this perspective, I believe glorified masculinity places men as more violent, aggressive and powerful of the sexes, which following that dichotomy, it places women as the feminine sexual objects in the lower of the sexes.
Why not fight about it?
Fight Club:
In our society, we all do things that are sometimes viewed as symbolic for our true feelings, or emotions. Most of the time, FIGHTING, is viewed as a way to express physical aggression towards another, or self (not recommended). So, could fighting be a way to express your discomfort with society, and its pressures? After having seen Fight Club numerous times, I believe that the main character could be suffering from his true discomfort with society, and all of the pressures thrust upon. The main character is an educated, middle-aged, white man who is attempting to handle society’s pressures. It seems to me, that this movie utilizes fighting as a way to demonstrate violence as a have to, rather than a last case scenario. To be a masculine man, do you have to enforce your strength upon another human?
The scene, or scenes, that I would like to use are from the beginning of the movie. At the start of the movie we—the audience—see a young man who seems to hate the path his life is taking. His job seems to add unneeded pressure to his life, which we know based on how he looks physically, is the last thing he needs. From this point we are presented with another personality of the narrator, Tyler Durden. Extracting one scene, it would have to be when he fights himself outside the bar. In this scene we see a man who is in a fight, literally, against the pressures of masculinity, Tyler. He is over matched, to say the least, against these pressures to be “mainly”. The narrator’s weak, fragile, and ill looking physique is quickly overpowered by the dominant masculine image. This image develops an idea of what it means to be masculine in the terms of a character.
From this scene, the audience then begins to see this image, mold the narrator into a man that is trying to find his true masculinity. However, this journey must be kept quite so others don’t know that you’re lacking this so called, necessary trait. At the end of the movie, we see man who has been bombarded with an influx of “true” manhood, that he really doesn’t know who he is. Answering my aforementioned question, do you have to enforce your manhood upon another human to show your masculinity? No, as individuals, we must all attempt to find who we are. If this means that we lack what this movie views as masculine, then so be it. Personally, I believe that because of the enforcement of perceived masculinity, the narrator misses out on the true test of masculinity: possessing a family, raising your children, and living a life that you and only you can be proud of. Since my freshman year at Wabash, I have believed that masculinity is defined surely in the eye of the beholder, my understanding can, and will surely be different from other men and women I interact with.
In our society, we all do things that are sometimes viewed as symbolic for our true feelings, or emotions. Most of the time, FIGHTING, is viewed as a way to express physical aggression towards another, or self (not recommended). So, could fighting be a way to express your discomfort with society, and its pressures? After having seen Fight Club numerous times, I believe that the main character could be suffering from his true discomfort with society, and all of the pressures thrust upon. The main character is an educated, middle-aged, white man who is attempting to handle society’s pressures. It seems to me, that this movie utilizes fighting as a way to demonstrate violence as a have to, rather than a last case scenario. To be a masculine man, do you have to enforce your strength upon another human?
The scene, or scenes, that I would like to use are from the beginning of the movie. At the start of the movie we—the audience—see a young man who seems to hate the path his life is taking. His job seems to add unneeded pressure to his life, which we know based on how he looks physically, is the last thing he needs. From this point we are presented with another personality of the narrator, Tyler Durden. Extracting one scene, it would have to be when he fights himself outside the bar. In this scene we see a man who is in a fight, literally, against the pressures of masculinity, Tyler. He is over matched, to say the least, against these pressures to be “mainly”. The narrator’s weak, fragile, and ill looking physique is quickly overpowered by the dominant masculine image. This image develops an idea of what it means to be masculine in the terms of a character.
From this scene, the audience then begins to see this image, mold the narrator into a man that is trying to find his true masculinity. However, this journey must be kept quite so others don’t know that you’re lacking this so called, necessary trait. At the end of the movie, we see man who has been bombarded with an influx of “true” manhood, that he really doesn’t know who he is. Answering my aforementioned question, do you have to enforce your manhood upon another human to show your masculinity? No, as individuals, we must all attempt to find who we are. If this means that we lack what this movie views as masculine, then so be it. Personally, I believe that because of the enforcement of perceived masculinity, the narrator misses out on the true test of masculinity: possessing a family, raising your children, and living a life that you and only you can be proud of. Since my freshman year at Wabash, I have believed that masculinity is defined surely in the eye of the beholder, my understanding can, and will surely be different from other men and women I interact with.
Fight Club: Punching is just a substitute for a hug.
Ironically exploring the issue of gender roles, Fight Club takes a concept that feminist critics have pioneered, that the male/female hierarchy oppresses women, and details the binary’s effect on men instead. The main character, who remains nameless in the film, expresses his disconnect from the rest of the world by attending support groups for diseases he does not have. In one particularly interesting scene, the movie shows a group of men who are suffering from testicular cancer. This gives the filmmakers an opportunity to subvert gender roles. The men, who fear that they are no longer men because they have had their testicles removed, exhibit traits that are commonly seen as “feminine.” This ironic behavior is played for laughs, but it seems to be saying more about how men are oppressed by society’s pressures to behave “macho.” The narrator says something along the lines of, “In my between his sweaty breasts, I felt comforted.” It is as though the narrator and many of the men at the support group need to be nurtured and feel fulfilled when they are, regardless of the sex that provides it. This could be interpreted as homoerotic, just like much of the film, but in my own interpretation of this scene, in light of the movie as a whole, I feel like the major theme is that these men who fight in the underground are looking to belong in a society where they don’t fit into the domineering male role of the male/female hierarchy. Once again, this is ironic, considering that they fight each other to escape the world where they are expected to be aggressive and dominating. It appears as though the film does reinforce the idea that men need to both be nurtured and to dominate, although the expectations of how the members of Fight Club will achieve those goals are upended, thus making for an admirable or reprehensible film, depending on one’s views.
Fight Club
In my viewing of Fight Club, I was immediately struck by its portrayals of what gender roles for men are and how they are reinforced or torn down in the film. The nameless everyman Narrator is shown in the beginning as a consumerist, Ikea-furniture-buying corporate drone, stuck in the same routine and order. As the film continues, we see this seeming Beta male shocked when his world is rocked when his condo is destroyed. The example of the yin-yang table in his condo might be seen as a portrayal of the balance between male and female that the narrator has in the beginning. Once he loses his worldly possessions, a rather extreme turn is taken towards the "primal" male power, reinforced by Fight Cub and leadership. The power system in the film is obviously masculine aligned and violence is worshiped. Being a man in the film means being tough, ready for action, ready to do what needs to be done and full of testosterone. The roles exemplified in the film are of violent gender roles and for women to be mere sexual objects instead of being seen as other people. Both of the notable women in the film only want sex before they die and not to make something of themselves. The film seems to reinforce the roles that modern perhaps Western society places on men. The film looks to shake things up in a complacent society with chaos and destruction, with a male-ordered society with a structure advocating physical power. "Fight Club" returns modern men to roots of hunting, force, and a "traditional man's place" in the world. This film only restricted men's roles and it did not allow for deviation from what is considered appropriate and proper for men, as in not allowing them to show weakness, cry, be truly affectionate, etc.
Being a Man and Woman in Fight Club
Throughout Fight Club, there are several scenes that portray men as a pack of wild wolves, following the leader without question, “saving” humanity by fully embracing their masculinity. One scene, however, shows the pack turning against the leader (albeit by following original orders), and trying to steal manhood. At the police station, the nameless narrator is restrained by his drones, who attempt to cut off his genitalia. Obviously, this is a physical deconstruction of the male leader, to which he would no longer be a “man”, nor a representation of what a “man” is. The would-be castration strongly suggests that being a man is having genitalia, something that the nameless narrator pretended to experience earlier in the film at a cancer self-help clinic.
Similarly, Marla characterizes women simply by not having genitals herself. Her role is an effectively constructed sexist view of women, and aside from sex, she only provides a parallel to the narrator. As Tyler Durden reflects on the sex they share, he states, “You, me? It doesn’t really matter to her,” which strongly suggests that she is simply servicing man’s primal desires. Furthermore, by being taken from the bus to Tyler/narrator, she is being used as an object that the herd offers to their leader. She never takes control of the narrator, and is strictly a sex object to Tyler, an idea that she never fully protests. Clearly, physical discrepancies between man and woman help define the definitions of sexuality in Fight Club.
Similarly, Marla characterizes women simply by not having genitals herself. Her role is an effectively constructed sexist view of women, and aside from sex, she only provides a parallel to the narrator. As Tyler Durden reflects on the sex they share, he states, “You, me? It doesn’t really matter to her,” which strongly suggests that she is simply servicing man’s primal desires. Furthermore, by being taken from the bus to Tyler/narrator, she is being used as an object that the herd offers to their leader. She never takes control of the narrator, and is strictly a sex object to Tyler, an idea that she never fully protests. Clearly, physical discrepancies between man and woman help define the definitions of sexuality in Fight Club.
Gender Analysis of "Fight Club"
One thing that I noticed this time of watching Fight Club, was the depth of some of the things that Brad Pitt said. He seemed to be almost a new age philosopher in some of the things he said, and many of the topics of his sayings have to do with gender and the natural roles of men. There were also some ideas about interactions of mothers with sons. Brad Pitt bases most of his philosophies on the "hunter-gatherer" sense of manhood. We come to find out at the end of the movie, that he is a creation of Edward Norton's mind. This is because Edward Norton has become so (what the movie writers would probably refer to as) imasculated that the biggest work of his life is the collection of furniture he has in his condo. Interior design is typically considered a feminine hobby in our culture, but the movie suggests that emphasis placed on furniture collections is becoming a trend among males in our culture at the time. It seems then, that Brad Pitt has been created as Norton's inner hunter-gatherer, violent male manifesting itself.
In one of the most philosphical moments of the movie, Pitt addressed the Fight Club (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX1OmB9a-VM) in an empassioned speech. This could be considered a thesis statement for the movie. Pitt attributes the "imasculinization" of the men in our culture to consumerism. He says that in the absence of wars or nation-wide difficulties to overcome, we have become weak (late 1990's America). Instead of toughening up and meeting the needs of our generation, we were dreaming of being rock stars, millionaires, working jobs we hate to be able to afford crap we don't need. That generation had ceased to be "Men" in the sense that they lead society, were physically tough, physically active, and violent when necessary. In another scene, Fight Club was assigned to start a fight with a random person on the street, which proved to be harder than it sounded. This is another indicator of the "weakening" or "imasculization" of men at the time in this sense of the word "men."
As far as this sense of manhood goes, which is highly stressed and glorified in the movie, you could say that the movie traps men into certain gender roles. Not all men are violent, aggressive, or brainwashable (which seemed to be another theme through the movie and Project Mayhem). But this movie glorified this sense of manhood, and took it to the extreme through excessive violence and phyical aggression towards individuals and corporations in society. The film does seem to support the idea that men tend to lean towards violence, and that they do not naturally deal with eachother in any other way. However, this could bring up the issue we talked about in class of Biological tendencies among the sexes as opposed to socialized gender roles. This movie seemed to imply that men tend to be violent with eachother, but we have been socialized against violence. "Fight Club" glorified the return to our violent primal instincts. In these ways, the film is sexist. It was also sexist in the way the girl was treated in the film. She seemed to not be referred to as much more than a sexual object for most of the film, and that was all that the characters were interested in, in each other. Even in a cancer support group and the beginning of the movie, a woman who was dying just wanted to "get laid one last time." The role of women was very sex-based throughout the movie. This is another way in which the movie may be read as sexist.
Overall, I found the movie could be easily read as sexist and patriarchal. It was restrictive in the gender roles of both men and women.
In one of the most philosphical moments of the movie, Pitt addressed the Fight Club (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX1OmB9a-VM) in an empassioned speech. This could be considered a thesis statement for the movie. Pitt attributes the "imasculinization" of the men in our culture to consumerism. He says that in the absence of wars or nation-wide difficulties to overcome, we have become weak (late 1990's America). Instead of toughening up and meeting the needs of our generation, we were dreaming of being rock stars, millionaires, working jobs we hate to be able to afford crap we don't need. That generation had ceased to be "Men" in the sense that they lead society, were physically tough, physically active, and violent when necessary. In another scene, Fight Club was assigned to start a fight with a random person on the street, which proved to be harder than it sounded. This is another indicator of the "weakening" or "imasculization" of men at the time in this sense of the word "men."
As far as this sense of manhood goes, which is highly stressed and glorified in the movie, you could say that the movie traps men into certain gender roles. Not all men are violent, aggressive, or brainwashable (which seemed to be another theme through the movie and Project Mayhem). But this movie glorified this sense of manhood, and took it to the extreme through excessive violence and phyical aggression towards individuals and corporations in society. The film does seem to support the idea that men tend to lean towards violence, and that they do not naturally deal with eachother in any other way. However, this could bring up the issue we talked about in class of Biological tendencies among the sexes as opposed to socialized gender roles. This movie seemed to imply that men tend to be violent with eachother, but we have been socialized against violence. "Fight Club" glorified the return to our violent primal instincts. In these ways, the film is sexist. It was also sexist in the way the girl was treated in the film. She seemed to not be referred to as much more than a sexual object for most of the film, and that was all that the characters were interested in, in each other. Even in a cancer support group and the beginning of the movie, a woman who was dying just wanted to "get laid one last time." The role of women was very sex-based throughout the movie. This is another way in which the movie may be read as sexist.
Overall, I found the movie could be easily read as sexist and patriarchal. It was restrictive in the gender roles of both men and women.
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