Life is a "FIght Club"

Let me start by explaining why I chose this movie. It is one of my favorite films, and in my opinion covers so much of what we’ve been talking about in class. Aside from a great cast consisting of Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, and Helena Bonham Carter, the film was a masterpiece. In this essay I will try to describe some scenes from Fight Club and compare them with some of the material we went over in class. In case the reader is not familiar with this film I included a brief summary below:

The narrator (Edward Norton) is an automobile company employee who travels to accident sites to perform product recall cost appraisals. His doctor refuses to write a prescription for his insomnia and instead suggests that he visit a support group for testicular cancer victims in order to appreciate real suffering. By attending the group, the narrator feels distraught at the condition of these ill fated people and breaks down. He is then able to sleep soundly and subsequently fakes more illnesses so he can attend other support groups in order to get out his pent up emotions through crying. The narrator's routine is disrupted when he begins to notice another impostor, Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), at the same meetings and his insomnia returns.

During a flight for a business trip, the narrator meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), who is a soap salesman. The narrator arrives home to find his apartment has been destroyed by an explosion. He calls Tyler and meets him at a bar. Tyler agrees to let the narrator stay at his home on the condition that the narrator hits him. The narrator complies and the two end up enjoying a fist fight outside the bar. The narrator moves into Tyler's dilapidated house and the two return to the bar, where they have another fight in the parking lot. After attracting a crowd, they establish a 'fight club' in the bar's basement.

When Marla overdoses on Xanax, she is rescued by Tyler and the two embark upon a sexual relationship. Tyler tells the narrator never to talk about him with Marla. Under Tyler's leadership, the fight club becomes "Project Mayhem," which commits increasingly destructive acts of anti-capitalist vandalism in the city. The fight clubs become a network for Project Mayhem, and the narrator is left out of Tyler's activities with the project. After an argument, Tyler disappears from the narrator's life and when a member of Project Mayhem dies on a mission, the narrator attempts to shut down the project. Tracing Tyler's steps, he travels around the country to find that fight clubs have been started in every major city, where one of the participants identifies him as Tyler Durden. A phone call to Marla confirms his identity and he realizes that Tyler is an alter ego of his own split personality. Tyler appears before him and explains that he controls the narrator's body whenever he is asleep.

The narrator faints and awakes to find Tyler has made several phone calls during his blackout and traces his plans to the downtown headquarters of several major credit card companies, which Tyler intends to destroy in order to cripple the financial networks. Failing to find help with the police, many of whom are members of Project Mayhem, the narrator attempts to disarm the explosives in the basement of one of the buildings. He is confronted by Tyler, knocked unconscious, and taken to the upper floor of another building to witness the impending destruction. The narrator, held by Tyler at gunpoint, realizes that in sharing the same body with Tyler, he is the one who is actually holding the gun. He fires it into his mouth, shooting through the cheek without killing himself. The illusion of Tyler collapses with an exit wound to the back of his head. Shortly after, members of Project Mayhem bring a kidnapped Marla to the narrator and leave them alone. The bombs detonate and, holding hands, the two witness the destruction of the entire financial city block through the windows. (IMDB plot summary, 1999 posted by viewers. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/synopsis)

The moment of consumption marks one of the processes by which we are formed as a person. How we come to be the kinds of people we are, how we are produces as subjects, how we identify with descriptions of ourselves as male or female, black or white, young or old. (Barker 3rd edition, page 11 Subjectivity and identity)

The identity of the main character-Jack- was one of the main issues in this film. How he saw himself, and later on how he wanted to be someone he wasn’t, ultimately created his other self- Tyler Durden. In many ways Jack was trapped in his prefect yet miserable cage called life. Always living by the book in search of the right way of life, as apposed to the life he needed.

According to Barker, structuralism speaks of signifying practices that generate meaning as an outcome of structures or predictable regularities that lie outside of any given person. In case of Jack, one of the causes of his life predicament was structuralism. Ruled by the book in hopes of success, and the correct meaning of his life structure Jack found himself looking for an end rather than the exit from his miserable life.

Jack hoped for death, thinking that it could end his dull existence. Instead he found himself meeting the most interesting “self serving friend” he ever had. Throughout the film, the concept of “I” comes up, where Jack begins to talk of himself as a person constructed from variety of emotions. “I am Jacks rage…”
According to Derrida, language generated meaning through difference rather than by correspondence with fixed transcendental meanings or reference to the “real”. In Fight Club, the meaning of “real” changes so drastically, causing confusion to the main character Jack. He himself gets lost somewhere in the middle of reality and what he thought was the real world. Illusions were made for safety.

We fall victim to commercial and media world, which ultimately dictates our lives and our personalities. What are we? To which Tyler answered “consumers, the byproduct of lifestyles of perfection.” “Things you own end up owning you”. In the end we reach for some kind of perfection, but end up getting what we’re told. According to Jacks alter ego Tyler, “Self improvement is masturbation of self destruction.”

This film covered topics related to sex, gender, sexism, man power, drug use, violence and other issues that we face daily. But most importantly in bring them all together in a colorful harmony of movie magic.

In this class we talked about gender roles, and how different men are from women. The perception of a man changes drastically throughout this movie. The very first time I saw this movie, I was impressed with its amazing plot. I had to watch it again and again. What we consider normal, right or proper, may not necessarily be so. Anarchy, mayhem, destruction are part of our lives no matter how far we try to stay away from them. The truth is that for the most part, we don’t notice certain things until we see them happen to others. We live in the oblivion, taking for granted things that can disappear in a second. What is it about people that drives them to certain things, actions, or people?
After reading Barker, I decided to watch Fight Club yet again. This time I was looking to associate what we discussed in class with all the events that took place in the movie.

Self-Damnation of the Working Class also applies to this movie. When jack realizes that no matter what he does to complete himself, he might never be able to get to that point. Tyler helped him realize that he may never become complete. An average middle class man, living in a condo all alone, working everyday for a company that was not knows for their ethics might be someone’s dream; but it wasn’t Jack’s. Jacks father wasn’t a very good role model as we learn throughout the movie. When Jack finished school, his dad told him to go to college; when Jack finished college, his dad told him to get a job. After jack got a job, his dad said “get married or something”. A kid growing up in such environment tends to follow his parents footsteps; as most of our countries working class.

Reading Barker wasn’t easy. It seemed like chapter after chapter I came across some contradicting factors. I found it a little confusing. Although when I started to skim trough, I began to understand it better. Overall I enjoyed the class, and all the discussions that took place. It’s safe to say that most of what we talked about was not very new to any of us; however most of us don’t overanalyze certain things as we did in class. I hate to be redundant about the movie Fight Club, but I found it very appropriate to write about for this class. I can connect every chapter of Barker and our discussions to this movie, but that would take forever and I will end up hating the movie at the end. So I would like to end this paper with a simple suggestion; if you haven’t seen Fight Club, watch it and perhaps is will unlock some thoughts of yours that were held in captivity all this time.

Works sited

Book
Barker. Cultural Studies.
(Barker 3rd edition, page 11 Subjectivity and identity)
Derrida. (Barker Cultural Studies)
Web.
IMDB.com
Movie
Fight Club. 15 October 1999 (USA)

5 Minutes of Film

According to Barker, structuralism speaks of signifying practices that generate meaning as an outcome of structures or predictable regularities that lie outside of any given person. In case of Jack, one of the causes of his life predicament was structuralism. Ruled by the book in hopes of success, and the correct meaning of his life structure Jack found himself looking for an end rather than the exit from his miserable life.
We fall victim to commercial and media world, which ultimately dictates our lives and our personalities. What are we? To which Tyler answered “consumers, the byproduct of lifestyles of perfection.” “Things you own end up owning you”. In the end we reach for some kind of perfection, but end up getting what we’re told. According to Jacks alter ego Tyler, “Self improvement is masturbation of self destruction.”

The Rulebook of Sex

The social concept of sex varies by cultures. There are as many opinions about sex as there are people. No matter how many people I talked to, there was always another side to the story. For generations, in many cultures such as Armenian, Persian or similar others, the belief and the tradition was not to have sex before marriage. That tradition applied mainly to the female side of the population. I wanted to take that traditional concept and ask men as well as women about their thought regarding this subject and see if they had any comments or problems on the matter.

I must say I had fun conducting this discreet experiment. I realized that young people of both sexes brought up their parents or grandparents in to the matter. It seemed like most considered the tradition of no sex until marriage, as something that was imbedded in them by parents and the society they grew up in. Which raises a question… how valid is that concept today?

To answer that question, I decided to address the issue in a slightly different matter. I started to consider not just the age of the person I was interviewing, but also their previous experiences and social status. People that experienced failed relationships agree, for the most part, that sex before marriage is a good way of finding out the chemistry between the two sexes. It was emphasized that sex plays a great if not the most important role in relationships; therefore good sex leads to more successful and fruitful unions and families. And if that’s the argument, then why do so many cultures consider premarital sex a taboo?

The answer lies further than we may think. Let’s forget for a moment that by having premarital sex can be risky on many levels, and I’m sure there is no need to list all of them; however sex touches people on a moral and emotional level. The want versus that little voice inside your head called conscience often disagree with one another. So who or what should we listen? Who’s right and who’s wrong?

Unlike our generation, our parents, grandparents and ancestors followed religion and religious believes much closer than us. According to the bible, premarital sex was considered fornication, a sin that diminished purity of ones morality and self being. However bible also mentions that sex was given to men kind to re-create and not for recreation even after marriage.

We’ve changed, and the concept of a happy life changed as well. But ask yourself a question; is there such a thing as a rulebook for happiness, or do we write one ourselves? In the end it all comes down to individual morals, consciousness and judgment.

The Great Sanctuary

Historically, Armenians were known for many things. It’s our 3000 year history, religion, culture, politics, musicians, architects, food and many other things. It’s amazing how far we have gone as a culture, and how vastly we have spread all over the world. Nonetheless we are not known as the most social people out there. In most cases it seems like we tend to keep it to ourselves, or our kind for that matter.

I wanted to explore that theory and perhaps shed some light on the matter. Why do we shelter ourselves from others? What keeps us away from a vast variety of people that are not Armenian? Why is it that we find avoidance normal, and surround ourselves with people alike? These questions and many similar to them may never be answered, nor solved; however we, as intelligent human beings, can acknowledge the problem and address it on a different level, if it is a problem.

I talked to a good friend of mine- who is also a historian- about the matter. Is it a myth that Armenians are keeping to themselves and avoid others or not? Knowing that the topic was very vague, I did not expect a straight answer. To my great surprise, the historian brought up numerous examples of such matter from over 2000 years ago. I was shocked. Could it be that we are only realizing this now? And if not, why didn’t we change our ways?

According to the historian, Armenians have always been considered individualistic people. Historically, Armenians stood strong as a nation during the Kings time in 1st century BC. During King Tigrans ruling, Armenia and its people were as strong as never before and for that matter never since. So what changed since then?
Without a great leader, people had to resort to themselves for survival. Their families were the main priority. Trust was a luxury they could not afford. Pressured by several more powerful nations to give up their land, Armenians fought for it for thousands of years. But is it really where it all began?

Unfortunately this question may not have an easy answer. Nevertheless, judging by what we see on daily basis, Armenians shelter themselves for more obvious reason that we think. Because this phenomenon has been explored here in the US, we can confidently say that location away from home plays a great role in it. We shelter ourselves from others by creating a safe haven consisting of our family and friends. Perhaps one day we can expend our network by looking for a friend not just of our own culture, but others as well; then and only then we will be once again known as the people that once were considered the strongest ones. Imagine the world without prejudice; perhaps that’s all we can resort to at this time… Or is it?

Escape

The music always plays for me
Not for the joy, rather necessity
My mind is always filled with worry
I’m tired of the same old story

Why does it seem so bitter?
Why can’t it be a bit sweeter?
Is it a must to feel this way?
Or is it just the only pathway?

I tune my mind away from grief
So I could find the one belief
That guides me in to happy story
Away from worries, in to the glory

I’m not the only one this way
I’m not the first nor am I last
Distraction may not be the key
Yet music always works for me.