Fight Club and The Men's Movement

By Neal Khosla

 

They are your waiters and the Chefs that cook your food. They are the people who deliver your mail and pick up your trash every week. They are your stockbrokers and data processors that fill the concrete jungles of your financial district. And they are the unseen guardians whose watchful eyes monitor systems essential to the operation of your power grid and roadways. These are the men of Fight Club; generations of 'men' molded by a culture driven by feminine ideology. Modernization, technology and the advent of the consumer society have left the defining characteristics of what made a man a 'man' by the way side and redirected those energies into the consumer market. The pushing of products born of the Soap Opera designed to sell items to the homemakers of days long past now encompasses all of society. Men are encouraged to shop, to 'hunt' for the latest fashions or the newest cars … they've been turned into gatherers … a role traditionally attributed to women. Aggressive behavior and mischief, characteristics traditionally associated to men and boys, are frowned upon in this day and age. The modern day man is just a shriveled flaccid shell of his former self. Told what to wear, how to act, and who to be.

… SNAP! …

The sound of a new beginning.

Fight Club is a movie about extremes. On the surface it's about Violence. Destruction. And Anarchy. Look deeper, and it's about men raging against the culture that ties their hands and condemns them to a life of quiet desperation. It's about a journey, destroying oneself to facilitate a resurrection … of spirit … and it's about a destination, a realization that transcends the gender war. In the end … we can find in each other, the strength and peace that we all seek.

There is a wealth of interpretation and thought provoking material woven into the seemingly shallow and 'in your face' Fight Club that can be uncovered through the use of narrative analysis. By looking at how the story is organized, the use of images and sounds and the meanings and feelings they evoke in the viewer we can uncover what Fight Club is REALLY trying to tell us. The question is … are you really listening … or just waiting for your turn to speak?

***The design of this site, at times may appear to run counter to commonly held expectations fostered by popular design themes. This was intended by the author not only to reflect the 'nature' of the movie itself, but more importantly to further reinforce the content and the essence of Narrative Interpretation; that on the surface, all may not appear to be as it seems.