Yes, I know! Fight Club is old, 23 years old to be exact (24 in November), but it got me thinking about things.
I rewatched the cult classic on my own and was haunted by the film. There was something bugging me that I just couldn't get off my mind, about how the message of this film has completely changed from when it was released in 1999 to now in 2023.
So, what was the film trying to say in 1999?
In 1999, Fight Club released to a world that was pre-9/11, pre-social media and pre-the economic collapse of 2008. It was a time where we could only turn to traditional media: advertisements in TV, newspapers, and magazines if we wanted to know what was fashionable or trendy. Big corporations told us what was cool and what ‘Success’ looks like.
There was also a massive cultural shift. Reality TV allowed ordinary people incredible access to celebrities, musicians, and politicians that we never had before in our history. We got to see how the rich and famous lived. What they ate, where they shopped, what they did on their days off. This access created a media that was blood-hungry and vicious in its relentless quest to sell us things, because now any product was something that ‘so-and-so celebrity wears. Just trust us!’ And back then people believed what they said. They trusted them.
Just think of the IKEA sequence. The entire scene was so interesting in its critique of consumerist culture, so much that it is incredibly relevant to how we consume today, that our things define us. When we buy things, we want them to showcase our personality, culture, aesthetic, our political leniences and wealth. We are obsessed with matching, collecting and buying products that create a curated image of ourselves for other people.
So then its natural you think that the film’s initial moral question challenges societal indoctrination: why does your dining set ‘define you’ as a person? Why do you put up with a ‘shitty’ 9-5 job if this isn’t what you want to do with your life? On the surface it seems pretty straightforward, until you get about halfway into the film and realise things go deeper.
The scene in question is the convenience store scene. I firstly want to bring attention that this scene is about a little more than halfway in the film and it signifies that the Narrator is at the point of no return. Things after this scene escalate to a scale he can no longer control.
In the scene, Tyler threatens a convenience store clerk, Raymond, with a gun. He learns that he initially wanted to be a veterinarian until the prospect of years of schooling and money got in the way. Tyler threatens Raymond that if he isn’t on his way to becoming a vet the next time Tyler drops by to see him—in 6 weeks time—Tyler will kill him. He lets Raymond go and says: "Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K's life. his breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted."
Tyler truly believes that what he did changed Raymond's life for the better. He says it almost enviously and the Narrator is fully swept away by this idealogy: "You had to give it to him. He had a plan and it started to make sense in a Tyler sort of way."
He was right—in a ‘Tyler sort of way’. Now Raymond will most likely live in fear of Tyler, like a shadow hanging over his head. Maybe he will quit his job and bankrupt himself getting into college to become a vet. In the end he gets to where he wanted to be, but did he do it because he wanted to be a vet and this experience was 'the scare' he needed? Or was it because some crazy guy with a gun knew where he lived?
What the Narrator fails to understand, and a lot of audiences who watch this scene, is that victims are never grateful to their aggressors for being alive. They live in perpetual fear that they will be attacked again, and they feel like they could never be safe again. Yes, Raymond may feel grateful that he's still alive but would he really thank Tyler for holding a gun to his head? Would anyone? Tyler’s philosophy massively ignores the real-life, itty-bitty nuances that we face in favour for a big-picture, slick vision.
The film was not trying to convince us of Tyler’s philosophy, but rather the danger of how easily believable it can be. That if you close your eyes and don’t think about it too much, it makes sense.
What do I see now is 2023?
As times have changed, the moral messages of films change due to cultural context. In 1999, Fight Club warned us of the dangers of cultism, consumerism and the effect media can have on us: “We’d all been raised on television to believe one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. But we won’t.”
When I watch this film now in 2023, another layer is coming into full view for me. Masculinity and the dangers of repression is another theme of this film that was not fully acknowledged in 1999, but what’s interesting is how this theme has built a legacy over the decades, becoming more relevant by each passing year.
In the film, the Narrator suffers from insomnia and can only sleep if he can get in a good, deep cry. But he can’t cry on his own or bring it upon himself, he realises he needs a space where he feels its ‘acceptable’ for him to cry and receive kindness and empathy in return. He finds this by attending support groups for the terminally ill. What the Narrator is craving is catharsis and compassion—he wants to express his deep-seated frustration, depression, sadness, and anxiety without feeling like he’s being less than a man for it.
All the men in ‘Fight Club’ suffer from this in one way or another. They are disturbed by their own reality, but they can't cry or feel sad about it, the only way they can feel any cathartic release is by punching the shit out of each other.
When Marla disrupts the Narrator’s coping mechanism, the Narrator compensates by creating Tyler Durden—his version of the ‘ideal masculine man’. The film shows the Narrators struggle between his masculinity and femininity—personified by Marla and Tyler’s characters fighting for his attention. Marla encourages him to be open, honest, and empathetic while Tyler encourages him to be aggressive, competitive and elitist.
What can we take away from this film in 2023?
Fight Club is a pop culture phenomenon that has taken on a life of its own. Like any popular thing, people take what messages they want to hear. A lot of its biggest fans are men who admire its ‘rebelling against the system’ ethos because they admire these men for ‘taking things in their own hands’ and forming a brotherhood that fight for ‘justice’ and against The Man. TikTok is notoriously known as a hot-bed for these men with 'alpha podcasts' who believe in this philosophy.
In the modern world where social media rules us all and misinformation spreads more rapidly than forest fires, I think the messages of this film is more important than ever. It’s easy to get caught up in the flashy, slick surface layer—but what we need now more than ever is to understand nuance and context. We need to care less about the big-picture stuff and focus on the nitty-gritty real stuff.
Fight Club was written by a gay man who saw the patriarchy have an emotional chokehold his sex, creating generations of men who only feel anger is an acceptable emotion to express. I think this film is a masterpiece in nuance and when you watch it in the lens of its context (who, when and why it was written) these messages become ever clearer.
So why don’t you give Fight Club a rewatch and if you come up with any different conclusions of your own, please leave a comment below and let’s discuss!
Comments