I AM JACK'S CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

 

THE NARRATOR/JACK

Is the quintessential modern day young professional male living within a consumer society. Stuck somewhere between no longer being a boy, but not yet truly a 'man', he struggles to uncover the defining principles of what it is to be a man in this modern day and age and find maturity. The defining characteristics of what was traditionally considered to be the qualities inherent in a 'real' man are today frowned upon by a society transformed by feminine ideology that by nature is in opposition to that of it's masculine counter part. "Culturally normative ideas of masculinity are socially constructed sets of rules that govern male behaviors … the masculinity that men enact has been developed and packaged by our culture, which insists that men perform it. Men have been conditioned to think that certain behavior is naturally masculine …" (LEE).

Aggressive behavior, mischief and sexual desire are among the many hallmarks belonging to boys and men alike that are frowned upon, instead replaced by a 'nesting instinct' (GRONSTAD) fostered by corporations that promote the 'domestication' of the male psyche and tells them what they can desire. Therefore the modern man uses material possessions to define himself, lusts after efficiently designed Swedish furniture instead of women, and works for a large corporation that would rather save money than protect the unsuspecting people who buy their products.
Jack is subject to this societies double standard of what it considers a man to be. He's conservative both in thought and expression, non-aggressive, weak and raised by women all his life (Jacks father 'dumped' him), yet bombarded by images of chiseled male body parts in the media indicating that this is what a man should look like (DVD TIME CUE: 45:01). His lack of identity is emphasized by the fact that debate rages on whether Jack is actually his name (SLIDE: FC ANALYSIS SITE) as every opportunity is taken to prevent him from revealing it in the movie (DVD TIME CUE: 00:18:58), therefore leaving his name and thus identity (both figuratively and in reality) in doubt.