Fight Club, David Fincher 1999
David Fincher's Fight Club was released in 1999. The plot centers around an un-named protagonist and his newly acquired friend, Tyler Durden. The protagonist suffers from insomnia and asks his doctor for medication, who instead recommends attending a support group so he can "see what real suffering is." He does so and starts attending as many support groups as he can. The narrator finds relief in the support groups and is able to overcome his insomnia until he realizes another women is faking as well, which unnerves him. Later, on a business trip, the narrator meets Tyler Durden, a soap salesman. When the narrator returns from his business trip he finds their has been an explosion in his apartment. He calls Tyler Durden, and ends up befriending him. They start an underground fight club which eventually grows into anti-corporate and anti-materialist group called "Project Mayhem." In the end, the narrator realizes that he is Tyler Durden, and has to fight against himself to stop Project Mayhem. Fight Club represents the society that is a direct result of the Postmodern era's rejection of war.
The narrator, who is tired of his life and has nowhere to go, represents existentialism. At first his life is defined by his material items -- his furniture. He later creates a persona and projects it into his life; he literally projects what he wants to be. He destroys all the previous ways of his life that defined him, like destroying his furniture by causing an explosion in his house, and creates his own meaning in life.
Fight Club fights to make the point that today we are slaves to our jobs, to our material items, to our friends and family; we let material items define who we are. "Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
This quote goes in continuum with the ideas behind the rejection of war. Before the Postmodern era, people identified with religion, science, and philosophy; however, along with the rejection of war came the rejection of the beliefs that people previously identified with. They rejected the values of war and the society that created it. Because of this society today has nothing to identify with. The characters in Fight Club struggled to place meaning in their lives. They fought because they had nothing to identify with, because all that's left is their jobs, and their material items. Like Tyler Durden says, "We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war."
The Wounded Soldier and Catch-22 show the lead up to this society, and how it got to where it is.
The narrator, who is tired of his life and has nowhere to go, represents existentialism. At first his life is defined by his material items -- his furniture. He later creates a persona and projects it into his life; he literally projects what he wants to be. He destroys all the previous ways of his life that defined him, like destroying his furniture by causing an explosion in his house, and creates his own meaning in life.
Fight Club fights to make the point that today we are slaves to our jobs, to our material items, to our friends and family; we let material items define who we are. "Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
This quote goes in continuum with the ideas behind the rejection of war. Before the Postmodern era, people identified with religion, science, and philosophy; however, along with the rejection of war came the rejection of the beliefs that people previously identified with. They rejected the values of war and the society that created it. Because of this society today has nothing to identify with. The characters in Fight Club struggled to place meaning in their lives. They fought because they had nothing to identify with, because all that's left is their jobs, and their material items. Like Tyler Durden says, "We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war."
The Wounded Soldier and Catch-22 show the lead up to this society, and how it got to where it is.
Your last paragraph in this post is important -- it connects Fight Club to the other items here. Fight Club wasn't necessarily about a rejection of war (which you say throughout the blog), but a rejection of grand narratives (religion, consumerism, technology) in general. You finally mention that here, but need to be more consistent in your other entries.
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