Fight Club

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Fight Club

David Flincher's movie, Fight Club, shows how consumerism has caused the emasculation of the modern male and reveals a tale of liberation from a corporate controlled society. Society's most common model of typical man is filthy, violent, unintelligent, immature, sexist, sex hungry, and fundamentally a caveman. In essence Tyler Durden, is the symbolic model for a man. He is strong enough to withstand from society's influences and his beliefs to remain in tact. Jack, the narrator, on the other hand is the opposite. He is a weak, squeamish, skinny man who has not been able to withstand society's influence; therefore, he is the Ikea fetish. Unlike Tyler, Jack is weak minded. Both Jack and Tyler are polar opposite models of men in society's masculinity scale.

We are hinted to this symbolic theme when the story starts initiating with Jack in a men's support group for men who have testicular cancer. The castration and feminization of the male character is exposed through the testicular cancer support group. The men in this group have lost the very fundamental nature of their manhood, their testicles. The penis itself is a symbol for all men, so these men are not only having genital problems but also characteristic problems. We see one man standing up, talking about how his wife left him while the rest of the men nodding with compassion. They then chanted about how they are still men to encourage themselves that they are and break up into pairs, hug each other, and weep. (needs to rephrase to make it clear.)Society's pessimistic model of men dictates than men who infrequently find support for such private matters as testicular cancer. The society shows a low image of what society considers a real man to appear ...

... middle of paper ...

... knew the pain of the burn just like a real man, because he burns himself with the same chemical.

Jack ends up realizing in the end that he is Tyler and subsequently becomes a real man. Slowly throughout the story, Jack attains his manhood standing next to Marla at the end of the story, watching the buildings collapsing and knowing that more men will now be set free and become real men again. Now those real men will have the masculinity that society has taken away from them now returned back to them. Jack decided to quit Fight Club and stays with Marla. Fight Club takes these themes, consumerism, emasculation of the male and liberation and weaves them together to make a great narrative on the unfilled, castrated male who desperately seeks to be free from society's control. This movie is weird because of how men's are emasculated and Jack having an alter ego.

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