Are viewers and critics too blind to see that the premise of Fight Club is just a punch line? Do we have a generation of cultists following the Fight Club rules for no reason? Despite my support for the film, I cannot call the film anything but short-sighted. Every scene in Fight Club is filled with such brutality and decay, and yet it is so seductive that its viewers become hypnotized. People watching the movie actually become convinced that Tyler’s anarchic brainwash is the proper response to the corporate brainwash of American capitalism. Satire is about how the audience rejects its conclusion. No one ever watched The Simpsons for parenting advice, or read A Modest Proposal and said to themselves, “You know what, we should eat the babies of poor people!” But here we are, the twenty-first century, where people are making their own fight clubs based on the philosophy of Tyler Durden.
Yet, there is a lot of depth in Fight Club. The film is strong on a technical level, spawning fast-paced CG visuals that challenge the special effects done today. The grungy sound design compliments the senseless anarchy of the film, further solidifying the skillful craftsmanship of the film. Fight Club messes around with the form of filmmaking as well, appropriately incorporating “cigarette burns” and single-frame inserts throughout the film. The little references to history remain as clever as they were in the novel — the soap making in Fight Club itself was a historical nod at the Holocaust, and how the Jewish (and other minorities) were burned as sacrifice to the Nazi regime. Fight Club succeeds in every facet of art, only to fall to its thematic polarization.
It must be said, however, that Chuck Palahniuk’s novel ended differently. In the novel (spoilers), our main character rejects existentialism and spends the rest of his life in an asylum. He is fed pills to help him sleep and is a complete slave to his own Project Mayhem minions, but he is finally happy. This ending emphasizes the struggle between existentialism and nihilism, and how his rejection of nihilism led to his loss of freedom (once again, it’s just a joke). In the film, our protagonist succeeds, and we are denied any catharsis. He is given his freedom, despite spending the entire narrative denying his own self-worth. This ending denies Fight Club the opportunity to be a satire, truly believing that nihilism and Nazism enable one’s identity and purpose. Bored men leave the theater as angry boys, while pundits and scholars shake their heads at this openly-fascist, testosterone-fueled bloodbath.
Oh Hollywood. There are times when you could tell something visceral and meaningful, but you trade it away for profit and entertainment. A group of extremely talented people make a film that is as hypnotic as fireworks, but it ends up morally questionable. Palahniuk even agreed with the film’s thematic shift, claiming that the “happier” ending was easier for audiences to accept. In Film Crit Hulk’s excellent analysis of Fight Club and David Fincher’s films, he tries to deduce the thematic disarray present in all his films. Is Fincher careless? Is he ignorant? Perhaps, is this really his interpretation of Fight Club? Deep down, are all humans anarchic lunatics bent on destruction and mayhem to find purpose, including the film’s own audience?
I remember watching Fight Club on DVD in my basement while eating microwave popcorn. It has been at least five years since then, and it has sent me on a spiral of philosophical questions ever since. Doing what Fight Club tells us to do turns us into mindless, violent zombies. So go ahead, think about existentialism and how you are responsible for your life. Act on your thoughts and feelings, and not just your instinct and primal urges. And most of all, talk about Fight Club — you just might find out something about yourself.
