Crisis of Masculinity?
Fight Club comments upon America's problems of meaning (e.g. indentured servitude to capitalism in a land of freedom, violence in a land of justice, consumer Darwinism in a land of community, meaning in a post-modern reality that understands all meaning as a relative cultural construct, etc.). In sociological terms, Jack, a white male, could represent the hierarchical leadership of the American patriarchy. "I was the warm little centre that the life of this world crowded around." America seems to love him, but he feels hurt and betrayed by his culture and the dulled-down consumerist dreams he has inherited.
We're consumers. We're by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty -- these things don't concern me. What concerns me is celebrity magazines, television with five hundred channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
But according to Fincher, "We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore – a reworking of the hunter/gatherer myth. In that societal emasculation this everyman is created." Where does Jack go to discuss his problems? What community exists to support him emotionally and spiritually? Seeking guidance, Jack stumbles into a group for men with testicular cancer. He finds that a weekly session Bob's breasts rids him of his insomnia by allowing him to feel. But this apparent solution produces a new dilemma for Jack-crying men and then Marla interferes to complicate matters further.
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