Writes Peter C. Baker in "The Men Who Still Love 'Fight Club'" (The New Yorker)(on the occasion of the 20-year anniversary of the release of the movie "Fight Club").
I love the movie "Fight Club," by the way, and even after 20 years I don't like seeing the spoiler that's at the link (and not at this post). It's something I had an extremely powerful reaction to when I first saw the movie (intense, all-over bodily chills) and experienced in almost the same way when I re-watched the film. But Baker is very contemptuous of this movie, and I have to share this paragraph:
Of course, “Fight Club”... has its share of female fans. But it’s also a symbol for certain insistent myopias of masculinity. The story has just one female character of any significance: Marla Singer (portrayed in the film by Helena Bonham Carter). The nameless narrator pines for Marla, though we never see him getting to know her well; Tyler uses her for acrobatic sex followed by emotional neglect. What does it mean for a man to tell his girlfriend that this, of every movie in the world, is his favorite, or the one with the most to say about gender today? [The on-line dating advice columnist Dr. NerdLove says that — a]mong women who get in touch with [him], “It’s kind of, like, Yeah, if his favorite author is Bret Easton Ellis, his favorite movie is ‘Fight Club,’ and he wants to talk about Bitcoin or Jordan Peterson—these are all warning signs.”Warning signs of what? That he longs for a meaningful relationship with a woman and sees emptiness in endlessly working in a soul-sucking job and buying things from the IKEA catalogue?
Posts
65 comments:
Ann:
I guarantee you will have a powerful emotional reaction to "Frankenstein, Part II."
It will be an epic cultural force!
While I certainly don't encourage tats, I can imagine people getting tats of many of the great lines from my script.
"It's a great day! It's a great life!"
"Love is expressed more in deeds than in words." (Direct quote from St. Ignatius Loyola and not original with DDB.)
These are warning signs that the man will not be compatible with her bullshit.
Warning signs that he doesn’t agree with the writer. Never be with anyone who doesn’t agree with me.
I loved that scene with the prices. The movie trailed off badly after a while, so I understand why people like the first half better.
Of course the guy from The New Yorker oozes contempt. Contempt is what The New Yorker sells.
This guy probably loves the new Playboy.
Real men dont like "Fight Club".
Or rather, it is bland (yes) and pointlessly personal.
What is a male form of chick flick, obsessed with personal issues? This would be it.
Proper men care about the external, conflicts, struggle, sacrifice, humor, nature.
We are not here for ourselves, and emotions are means not ends.
"...using her for acrobatic sex followed by emotional neglect."
My gf gets super horny whenever I do this, especially the emotional neglect part. Nothing makes her wet like emotional neglect, the acrobatic sex is just for show, and Epstein didn't kill himself.
I cannot think of a wider gulf in personalities than Bret Easton Ellis and Jordan Peterson.
Actually I can, but that gulf is huge.
Between this post on Fight Club and the last one on 'Real America', we get yet another great glimpse of what the High Thinkers on the left think of those who don't reside on the coasts, in a Liberal-owned town.
At some point some of them may need to leave their gigantic bubbles. Get out to actually meet and talk to someone different. Talk about lack of diversity in their lives. Man...
WHAT'S THE FIRST RULE OF FIGHT CLUB? WHAT'S THE SECOND RULE OF FIGHT CLUB?
Some fans...
I didn't find him to be contemptuous of the movie but alarmed at the different take so many men seemed to have on it, a take that seems to be very different from AA's. The Joker (which I have not seen) seens to be the movie he has contact for.
This blog post about the movie Fight Club is really kind of a surprise/shock. I'm going to rent the movie. I didn't realize that it could be an especial good movie.
Seriously, is there really an established correlation between appreciating a work of fiction and real life insights and/or motivations? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...
The people who mindlessly consider masculinity and personality types to be negative, without any true self reflection, are intellectual dwarfs.
There is a reason people have many of their personality traits and many of those traits have roots going back thousands of years.
Fight Club is not one of my favorite movies, though I enjoy it a lot, but it absolutely taps into the part of the brain that says a man can be someone who steps into the fight and embraces a desire for taking on challenges and someone who works a mindless job and fill their days and energy on tasks like ikea. But often those two conflict and create interesting side effects.
One of my favorite things in Fight Club was their ironic mass-media messages spliced throughout.
"Did you know that you can use motor oil to fertilize your lawn?"
Pure genius. What Chuck (author) and David (director) are doing is showcasing the complete automation of the entire advertising industry, and to a larger extent this entire world's economy (which is an advertising economy), a la "They Live" kind of revelation.
Once you put on 'the sunglasses' and see that the whole thing is built on complete garbage you can begin to unplug yourself and live a truer, more unironic lifestyle...which was the whole point 'fertilizing your lawn with motor oil'. It's ironic. It's not true. You shouldn't do it. So stop frickin' doing and buying what these people keep trying to sell you and telling you to do every day.
That's why it's so subversive. Unplug.
Fight Club is excellent as an audio book too. I still have it on cassette around here somewhere.
Like it or hate it, you can't deny Fight Club is true cinema.
Yes, the first half of the movie is better than the second half, but the whole is still an outstanding story, screenplay, and film.
I suspect Baker has a well furnished home with lots of high end furniture and knickknacks.
I was just now watching a 1946 version of The Razor’s Edge, and it explores these same themes, “I am going to loaf.” Which the narrator Maugham, says he thinks is going to be more and more important in the years to come. I am pretty sure it is where the inspiration for the Dalai Lama scene from Caddyshack came from, too since there is very similar scene. The scene I have been thinking about from Fight Club though recently is the one at the end. Sometimes I feel like we are living through the story about the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, where people go to watch the Universe finally die. Twitter can make you feel that way.
Another good line from that movie, Razor’s Edge that makes more sense now, was said by a defrocked priest working in a coal mine.
“Burn down the schools, burn all the books, and strangle all the teachers, if you want men to be happy.” <<-- Do not take literally!
I’m female and Fight Club is my spirit animal. If I was still dating, NOT liking the film would be a huge warning.
I didn't realize that it could be an especial good movie.
I rank it with the original Matrix, which I really liked.
It's just a movie, folks.
And it's a very funny movie. I like it a lot.
Don't let NYT weenies detract from or dilute the sublime artistic essence of Fight Club!
I was 28 when Fight Club came out, working a corporate job, owned a lot of ikea furniture, and my fridge contained 30 condiments and no food. It really captured the way I and a lot of my male friends felt about our place in the world at the time. My take on the Marla character wasn't that she was an oppressed woman, but that she was a sort of soul-mate, who was as fucked up as the protagonist, and therefore the only one who could see clearly in a world of blind sheep.
I can't credit the movie for this, but maybe it played a subconscious role, but 6 months after I saw it I quit my job and spent two years riding motorcyles all over the place.
I thought it was a movie about fascism. No hyperbole, it's a fascist movie. Not racial, but political. It has the same critiques of liberal materialist culture, and it yearns for radical change through violent action.
Remember the end of the movie? The rest of the world doesn't get to choose the consequences, they have it forced on them.
"Love is expressed more in deeds than in words."
That’s what men think, and it’s toxic, doncha know. Another line from Razor’s Edge:. “You can’t get him back, he's caught up in the most powerful emotion a man can have, the sacrifice of self for the good of another...” (or something like that.)
Althouse hates Accidental Tourist because she can’t imagine with the Bohemian chick would take on the fusty old white guy. How about Last of the Mohicans where the British officer agrees to be burned at the stake so that the woman he loves can be happy with his rival for her love, by trading himself as a higher value prisoner for his rival. Yet men relate to it. Not that we would really do it, but we relate.
Warning signs of what? That he longs for a meaningful relationship with a woman and sees emptiness in endlessly working in a soul-sucking job and buying things from the IKEA catalogue?
That's the essence of real writing talent--the ability to make things be whatever your argument needs them to be.
It seemed more like passionate sex than “acrobatic” but haters gonna hate, posers gonna pose, and losers gonna snark.
Fighting to the death watchers are the exact antithesis to Jordan Peterson. However, I would not attack either one . Jordan would think you to death.
Mikec said... I didn't realize that it could be an especial good movie.
I don't think it is an especial good movie. However, it is a powerful movie with a strong message of consumerism as a poison killing self-actualization.
"The things you own end up owning you."
Tyler uses her for acrobatic sex followed by emotional neglect.
Wow...did he WATCH this movie?
NB: fighting is a masculine activity. But some females have a masculine fighter personality inside and female beauty outside. See, Kellyanne Conway. That need in men to prove ones self finally goes away, and then you only fight to protect others.
I liked the scene where they steal the liposuctioned fat.
One of the best things about Fight Club are the quotes. As a movie - and among men - it's just as quotable and useable as Caddyshack.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(film)
I was in the Army when the movie came out and I remember the 'quotableness' in my unit lasted like a year. Fight Club has a special place in my heart for that reason alone...
...but also because they couldn't make a movie like that today. No way no how. It's too dangerous.
It's odd that lefties like Peter Baker are fearful of Jordan Peterson.
I'm going to watch the movie again tonight to see whether 20 years has changed my opinion of the film.
"I was just now watching a 1946 version of The Razor’s Edge, and it explores these same themes"
Yes! I was thinking about that novel as I was reading just a few minutes ago the Wiki page for Fight Club's novel. My English teacher from my senior year in high school had given me "The Razor's Edge" to read. I read it at the time, but didn't really appreciate it as much as I did years later when I read it again.
My wife loves this movie. I don’t. I suppose I just don’t get it.
I have tried to watch it several times. Finally managed to make it to the end—mainly so the wife would STFU about it. I have zero desire to watch it again.
I was 28 when Fight Club came out, working a corporate job, owned a lot of ikea furniture, and my fridge contained 30 condiments and no food. It really captured the way I and a lot of my male friends felt about our place in the world at the time. My take on the Marla character wasn't that she was an oppressed woman, but that she was a sort of soul-mate, who was as fucked up as the protagonist, and therefore the only one who could see clearly in a world of blind sheep.
I can't credit the movie for this, but maybe it played a subconscious role, but 6 months after I saw it I quit my job and spent two years riding motorcyles all over the place.
11/6/19, 10:24 AM
Men wanted to be Tyler, but a lot of women wanted to be Marla. They wanted the passionate sex without the excess emotion because it indicated strength on Tyler's part. She wasn't going to have to play mommy to him.
A woman who thinks liking Jordan Peterson is a warning is a warning.
I always thought "Fight Club" was a Gay movie. Just substitute "Gay sex" for the fighting. I enjoyed it and own the DVD, but I thought the symbolism was obvious.
The first rule of Bro Book Club is: You do not stop talking about Fight Club.
I just re-watched Fight Club and it holds up well. “A Generation of Men raised by women.”
The Adam and Eve shot to end the film was great.
"I am pretty sure it is where the inspiration for the Dalai Lama scene from Caddyshack came from, too since there is very similar scene."
There's a connection between The Razor's Edge and Caddyshack. Bill Murray loved the novel and even got a new version made (it was the price for him doing "Ghostbusters" I think).
It didn't do well at the time, but it wasn't acceptable then for a comedian (who just did SNL and "Meatballs") to portray a serious character. My wife and I saw it a few years back and enjoyed it.
I wonder what the New Yorker writer would think about "Choke," also based on a Palahnuik novel. Sam Rockwell plays a historical reenactor and sex addict who connects with people by choking on food in restaurants and being rescued. The backstory involves his relationship with his narcissistic mother (played by Angelica Huston) who's now losing her mind and dying in a hospital.
I loved both movies, but you have to give "Choke" time to tell its story.
That he longs for a meaningful relationship with a woman and sees emptiness in endlessly working in a soul-sucking job and buying things from the IKEA catalogue?
Doesn't this conflict with the recent NYT Weekend article about how just the right antique purchase along with the corresponding shade of wall color to capture the evening light from your 30th-floor penthouse is the epitome of a life well-lived?
as reham points out ... There are RULES!
And the First Rule of _____ ____ is:
You Do NOT talk about _____ ____ !!!!
What The HELL is WRONG with these People?
Fight Club is an allegorical hero journey that maps the Jungian side effects of modern Life on the evolutionary primitive semi pagan spawn of Celts Germanics and Vikings. This is why Buwaya Puti cannot relate.
I always thought "Fight Club" was a Gay movie.
Interesting. I never thought of that. You might be on to something.
"Althouse hates Accidental Tourist because she can’t imagine with the Bohemian chick would take on the fusty old white guy."
I didn't say I hated it. The fact is I don't remember it enough to have an opinion. I've actually read the book, and I don't remember even the difference between the book and the movie. I'm interested in the topic of negative feelings about travel.
Anyway, what I said was that it fit into a category of movie narratives that you saw a lot at one time, and I think there's something bad about there being a lot of movies like that. I just remembered "Accidental Tourist" and "Something Wild" because I saw them, and they were probably relatively good.
What there was a surfeit of a few decades ago was movies about a man's feelings of ennui and emptiness and then the young quirky vivacious woman would fall into his life and the important thing was his transformation.
I would not have guessed you love that movie, Professor; thanks for sharing!
Have you read the book--if so any opinion either just on it or on it vs the movie?
Have you ever seen The Shape of Things, Professor? You're a big theater-goer but I don't know if you like LaBute.
Paul Snively @ 11:02am:
Au contraire! Haven't you read JP's stuff about "I ate a little bit of XYZ (forget precisely what it was) and I literally couldn't sleep for 25 days"? That guy is seriously, seriously wacked. Just because he (rightly) raised a stink about pronouns at his university doesn't mean you should accept whatever else he says.
By the way, Fight Club is also a really good book, with an ending that differs significantly from the movie.
I resent the implication that as a woman, it's because I identify with Marla. The women who love Fight Club identify with the Narrator! Office dronage and alienation are universals. Incidentally, so is fiction.
Kirk Parker: Haven't you read JP's stuff about "I ate a little bit of XYZ (forget precisely what it was) and I literally couldn't sleep for 25 days"? That guy is seriously, seriously wacked.
I'm not especially concerned about his neurobiology, no. Let me recommend instead you read Maps of Meaning and 12 Rules for Life, and then tell me what you think about what he thinks.
This reminds me of the time I met a self-described feminist who basically led a "what we're reading" conversation with "I hate Camille Paglia." I asked "Why is that?" Not only did she literally not have an answer—I mean not even an attempted excuse—when I suggested a few reasons based on my having read Sexual Personae, it became eminently clear she hadn't.
I really don't mind sociopoliticoeconomic yada-yada disagreement. What I do mind is it being based on ridiculous trivia like stories of Jordan Peterson eating something and not being able to sleep for 25 days.
Fight Club - good movie, great book. What gives with these cultural writers who spew these little prejudices such as If you like X, it means you are a lonely incel white supremacist loser.
God they are becoming insufferable.
It's not a "ridiculous trivia like story"; it's something Peterson himself said.
If you don't think that promulgating such a fabulous (in the etymological sense) story doesn't reflect on his overall credibility.... well I just don't know what to say.
I have heard women tell men that 'X issue isn't about you'.
Well, pinhead McGee doesn't seem to realize that Fight Club is not about interpersonal male/female dynamics. That a movie can be about something not-women.
Since he is a liberal jackass, who has swallowed the Kool Aid, he can't comprehend that a movie for men, about men is in any way desirable, while at the same time believe in the uplifting nature of chickflicks, because he is a Mangina.
So I disregard him as a credible source on this, and probably many other issues.
Ritual invocation of Peterson as Total Other clinches it.
(I don't see the appeal, but I'm not his target market, which is people seeking meaning, in honestly a very old-school and anodyne way.
The way people act like he's some sort of Terrifying Monster or something is baffling, especially when most of them seem to base their Obviously True Beliefs on ... what someone else told them.)
Self-hating metrosexual writer doesn’t like Fight Club? No way.
Could not see that coming.
"Contempt is what The New Yorker sells"
Works with Althouse. At least, as long as she can tell herself that the contempt is not aimed at her, too.
What there was a surfeit of a few decades ago was movies about a man's feelings of ennui and emptiness and then the young quirky vivacious woman would fall into his life and the important thing was his transformation.
Thus the codification of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope by Nathan Rabin, after which it became rather less common.
Fight Club is literally gay. President Duterte had to cure himself. https://caffeineandphilosophy.com/2019/01/22/fight-club-gayer-than-gay/
"Thus the codification of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope by Nathan Rabin, after which it became rather less common."
Truth-O-Meter?
True!
I hope men wise up and drop these loser bitches altogether; just jerk off. Let the manic pixies travel alone to Mexico's or Pakistan's badlands to show how ignorant, hateful, and just plain wrong any men who told them "hey don't be stupid even if you really wanna be an artist" were.
Rural American whites are the world's biggest (only?) scourge and always have been ladies. Why else would they create a whole world of laws to keep you repressed/oppressed/depressed?
No wanks! It makes one go blind.
AA attracts very gender-imbalanced set of commenters sometimes (most of the time).
Reminded me to watch "Fight Club" again. Watched the first half last night. Great movie!
A female perspective: Among males who have seen "Fight Club," liking it is more attractive than not liking it.
Post a Comment