Postmodernism and Consumer Society: Working with Frederic Jameson's categories

(1) "the transformation of reality into images" (cf. Debord and Baudrillard)

(2) "the fragmentation of time into a series of perpetual presents"

"the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture" (Jameson).

Pastiche and parody of multiple styles: old forms of "content" become mere "styles"

stylistic masks, image styles, without present content: the meaning is in the mimicry

"in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum" (Jameson).

No individualism or individual style, voice, expressive identity. All signifiers circulate and recirculate prior and existing images and styles.

The postmodern in advertising: attempts to provide illusions of individualism (ads for jeans, cars, etc.) through images that define possible subject positions or create desired positions (being the one who's cool, hip, sexy, desirable, sophisticated...).

"our advertising...is fed by postmodernism in all the arts and is inconceivable without it" (Jameson)

Po-Mo as late capitalism: transnational capitalism without borders, only networks and info flows. Some features of postmodern styles:

Nostalgia and retro styles, recycling earlier genres and styles in new contexts (film/TV genres, images, typography, colors, clothing and hair styles, advertising images)

"History" represented through nostalgic images of pop culture, fantasies of the past. History has become one of the styles; historical representations blend with nostalgia.

"the disappearance of a sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present and in a perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social formations have had in one way or another to preserve... The information function of the media would thus be to help us to forget, to serve as the very agents and mechanisms of our historical amnesia" (Jameson).

Culture on Fast Forward: Time and history replaced by speed, futureness, accelerated obsolescence.

Information from: http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/pomo.html

FM4 - Single Film Critical Study: Fight Club

Fight Club: Exam Guidance

Characteristics of a postmodern text that can be seen within ‘Fight Club’:

Intertextuality – the referencing of other cultural texts; either visually or verbally within the content of the text  (Psycho/A Clockwork Orange/Forrest Gump etc.)

Hybridity - the mixing and/or recycling of pre-existing genres and narratives to construct new forms or a ‘hybrid’ (Noir/Psychological Thriller/Fantasy etc.)

Simulation - a lack of any sense of reality to the real world (Is aware that it is a film)

Surface – a text that is more concerned with the superficial and/or devoid of any depth of meaning (Includes so many ideas that it fails to deliver an overall message)

Pastiche – paying ‘homage’ to older texts (see intertextuality)

Bricolage - the collection of disparate or differing objects to help explain the nature of the prevailing culture and society (links to the construction of the film - it's assembled from many different styles/ideas)

Irony – playfulness with the style, form and/or content of a text (Knows that is referencing other films and has fun with its style)

When answering the question from a postmodern perspective apply the key words to a wide range of scenes in your discussion. Don't just state that it's postmodern as you will also have to explain how your understanding of the film has changed as a result of studying the critical perspective.

Student Response: Fight Club

Explore some of the ways in which placing your chosen film within a broader critical framework has helped to develop your appreciation and understanding of specific sequences.

I have found Fight Club to be an intriguing film to discuss in terms of critical approaches, although it has also allowed me to come to a conclusion that not just one form of critical analysis can be used to explore each sequence. 

For instance the opening credits of the film suggest a level of psychoanalysis will be needed to understand the film, this is due to the CGI effects from within the brain. The camera follows the nerves within a persons (who is later revealed to be the narrator) head, with sparking synapses; suggesting that the film will uncover some form of mental dysfunction. However this is not explored again until the latter part of the film. 

Instead the initial establishing sequences from the suggest a less psychoanalytical approach is needed and something such as the crisis of masculinity can be used to explain these. The men in the film have become overpowered by consumerism, trading in their masculinity for a more feminine generalisation. This is all presented during one scene within the narrators apartment, there is a pan across the room showcasing his furniture alongside their catalogue descriptions. Jack then explains how he has become a “slave to the ikea nesting instinct” showing just how much dependency his character and males within society have become on consumer products usually associated with female behaviour. During this scene the narrator also tells us, whilst on the toilet, that where he used to read pornography now he reads furniture catalogues. The pornography represents a masculine trait of sexual desire the fact that the narrator seems to have lost this in replace of furniture magazines is again a clear link to the loss of masculinity within society. However it is possible that this could be linked to Freud’s psychoanalytical theory of the self, and how the narrator feels the need to suppress his sexual desire (the ID) in order to fit in within society. Without knowledge of the crisis of masculinity it would have been difficult to pinpoint a reason behind Fincher’s choice of mise en scene and dialogue, understanding this has enabled me to delve much deeper into the potential meanings of the text, and potentially debate it as being polysemic. 

As the film progresses the crisis of masculinity ceases to become a problem, or perhaps is just overridden by further critical approaches which can be discussed. I have found it very useful applying Freudian theory to particular scenes once Tyler Durden has been introduced and believe it to have stemmed from the crisis of masculinity. The mise-en-scene of the house is used as a visual metaphor for the narrators brain, linking towards the sparking synapses in the opening credits. The mise-en-scene of the house is dull and dreary, it lacks consumerised nature of his old apartment and only contains the bare minimum. “It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything” is a quote from Tyler Durden which proves an ideology of the film: once Jack has lost the consumerism from his normal life as shown through his apartment he is able to become “free” presented in the minimalist mise en scene of Tyler’s house.

However, this “freedom” comes at a cost, following Freud’s theory Tyler represent the ID, the unconscious desires. Once Jack has lost his apartment on consumer products Tyler is introduced, he takes over Jack’s life, and his brain. We can see this in the house whilst Tyler and Marla are having sex. Jack is working out, he is letting his ID fulfil his desires in the floor above him and literally in the back of his mind. Whilst we hear Marla’s diegetic orgasms the ceiling falls down next to Jack, the house is falling apart and so is his brain. Without a psychoanalytical approach to this scene or potentially any of the others featuring Tyler Durden it becomes very difficult to appreciate what he represents and his affect on the narrator.

Due to the polysemic nature of the text it is difficult to apply one critical approach to the entire film and so is necessary to consider these within particular sequences. The film only superficially covers each idea is explores, including others not I have not discussed such as Marxism and Post Modernism, and so it is useful to understand more than one approach when exploring the film. This has been a criticism of the film; that it lacks substance within the critiques it makes on society, however through my analysis I have personally come to the conclusion that this is Fincher’s way of explaining to his audience how the American society of the time is filled with such an extensive amount of problems.

FM4 - New Wave Cinema: Chungking Express/Breathless

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Jean-Luc Godard: The Original Auteur

Se7en Magazine:

When one thinks of an auteur director, who is the first that comes to mind? Martin Scorsese? The Coens? Pedro Almódovar? Though these three would all make an iconic filmmakers list, the word “auteur” would have a different meaning, if it existed at all, if it were not for Jean-Luc Godard. He matches both radical themes and eccentric characters with unconventional cinematography – breaking diegesis left, right and centre. During a time when the French film industry could only be described as “Le Cinema du Papa”, Godard rebelled in a massive way, disregarding the traditions of lavish sets, rigid scripts and willowy, upper-class characters; he had his own way of telling a story.

Born in 1930’s Paris to wealthy parents, Godard first began his quest into filmmaking when he co-founded a Gazette du cinema in 1950. A year later, his parents had cut off his financial support and left young Godard with little money but big ideas. Along with contemporaries André Bazin, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut, Godard began his foray into experimental cinema, forming the nucleus of what we now call “French New Wave directors” or cahiers du cinéma. He dabbled in documentaries and short films before finally making his most successful and iconic feature film: Á bout de souffle.

Roughly translated as "Breathless", Godard’s first feature film, co-written by Truffaut, was released in 1960. It was praised for its uniqueness and innovation; never before has a director used the jump cut so prolifically. He uses back-to-basics filmmaking, abandoning sets in favour of real locations. He rarely uses anything but natural lighting and handheld cameras and intentionally breaks the spell of cinema. He has no problem with revealing cinematic artifice; at one point, our hero, Michel Poiccard is humming a tune while the shot cuts several times despite tune remaining intact. Poiccard also uses direct address. Here Godard uses abstract realism. His themes reflect the existential boredom suffered by the youth of the time, explored through his non-motivated dialogue and fragmented narrative.

Keyframe presents the online debut of Godardloop, a multi-part video essay on the films of Jean-Luc Godard. Produced by Michael Baute and edited by Bettina Blickwede, this video explores a treasure trove of imagery found in dozens of Godard’s features and shorts, grouping them among several distinct themes. 47 films spanning 50 years of filmmaking are transformed into a stream of images that attest to an inimitable talent: an artist who can transform the world simply by the way he looks at it through his camera.

Godardloop - Visual Motifs in Films of Jean-Luc Godard from Fandor Keyframe on Vimeo.

FM4: Postmodern Theory - Useful Notes/Site

This extract on Postmodernism and Consumer Society provides some useful quotes that may be applied to many of the topics for A2 Film and Media this year. 'Fight Club' (FM4) is the most obvious text but these concepts can be applied to other examples of Film/Television/Music throughout the year. Getting to grips with this type of theory and applying it to those examples will set your answers apart from other students who rely upon more descriptive responses.

Working with Frederic Jameson's categories (Postmodernism and Consumer Society)

(1) "the transformation of reality into images" (cf. Debord and Baudrillard)

(2) "the fragmentation of time into a series of perpetual presents"

"the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture" (Jameson).

Pastiche and parody of multiple styles: old forms of "content" become mere "styles"

stylistic masks, image styles, without present content: the meaning is in the mimicry

"in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum" (Jameson).

No individualism or individual style, voice, expressive identity. All signifiers circulate and recirculate prior and existing images and styles.

The postmodern in advertising: attempts to provide illusions of individualism (ads for jeans, cars, etc.) through images that define possible subject positions or create desired positions (being the one who's cool, hip, sexy, desirable, sophisticated...).

"our advertising...is fed by postmodernism in all the arts and is inconceivable without it" (Jameson)

For more useful notes on postmodern theory visit here.

'Fight Club': Single Film Critical Study (Postmodernism)

Postmodernism is a social and cultural concept that has dominated contemporary theory since the 1950’s. It has been widely used in film theory as a critical perspective that allows debate concerning social shifts in contemporary life and artistic practices in the wake of the decline of modernism.

Characteristics of a postmodern text that can be seen within ‘Fight Club’:

Intertextuality – the referencing of other cultural texts; either visually or verbally within the content of the text

Hybridity - the mixing and/or recycling of pre-existing genres and narratives to construct new forms or a ‘hybrid’

Simulation - a lack of any sense of reality to the real world

Surface – a text that is more concerned with the superficial and/or devoid of any depth of meaning

Pastiche – paying ‘homage’ to older texts

Bricolage - the collection of disparate or differing objects to help explain the nature of the prevailing culture and society

Irony – playfulness with the style, form and/or content of a text

House on Paper Street - 'Fight Club' (1999)

Alfred Hitchcock 'Psycho' (1960)

Edward Hopper - 'House By The Railroad' (1925)

The influence of American artist Edward Hopper can be seen in 'Fight Club', in the depiction of the house on Paper Street. The painting has also influenced other filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock in his classic horror film 'Psycho' - another film that documents a form of psychosis and alienation.

'Fight Club': Some Useful Notes

FM4 - Single Film Critical Study: Fight Club

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a social and cultural concept that has dominated contemporary theory since the 1950’s. It has been widely used in film theory as a critical perspective that allows debate concerning social shifts in contemporary life and artistic practices in the wake of the decline of modernism.

Characteristics of a postmodern text that can be seen within ‘Fight Club’:

Intertextuality – the referencing of other cultural texts; either visually or verbally within the content of the text

Hybridity - the mixing and/or recycling of pre-existing genres and narratives to construct new forms or a ‘hybrid’

Simulation - a lack of any sense of reality to the real world

Surface – a text that is more concerned with the superficial and/or devoid of any depth of meaning

Pastiche – paying ‘homage’ to older texts

Bricolage - the collection of disparate or differing objects to help explain the nature of the prevailing culture and society

Irony – playfulness with the style, form and/or content of a text

FM4 - Single Film Critical Study: Fight Club

Fight Club: Postmodernism

Fight Club on Prezi

FM4/MS4: Postmodern Theory - Everything is a Remix Part 1

Remixing is a folk art but the techniques are the same ones used at any level of creation: copy, transform, and combine. You could even say that everything is a remix.


Apply the same principals to your key texts (Nirvana/Radiohead/Lady Gaga) and you will develop theoretical constructs that are key to a better understanding of the way that media texts can be analysed more culturally and academically.

Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Re- posted from screenagers.me

FM4/MS4 - Postmodernism and Mass Culture

For some comprehensive notes on Postmodernism and Mass Culture use the link below.

pcpmod.doc

FM4/MS4: Postmodern Theory - 'Fight Club'/'The Matrix'

FM4 - Single Film - Critical Study: Fight Club

Postmodernism is a social and cultural concept that has dominated contemporary theory since the 1950’s. It has been widely used in film theory as a critical perspective that allows debate concerning social shifts in contemporary life and artistic practices in the wake of the decline of modernism.

Characteristics of a postmodern text that can be seen within ‘Fight Club’:

Intertextuality – the referencing of other cultural texts; either visually or verbally within the content of the text

Hybridity - the mixing and/or recycling of pre-existing genres and narratives to construct new forms or a ‘hybrid’

Simulation - a lack of any sense of reality to the real world

Surface – a text that is more concerned with the superficial and/or devoid of any depth of meaning

Pastiche – paying ‘homage’ to older texts

Bricolage - the collection of disparate or differing objects to help explain the nature of the prevailing culture and society

Irony – playfulness with the style, form and/or content of a text

FM4/MS4: Postmodern Theory - Useful Notes

FM4/MS4: Postmodern Theory - Useful Notes

Postmodernism: An Artistic Style

Postmodernist art reveals itself when:

1. It's self-referential. In other words, it refers to itself, or is about itself. Postmodernist artists often refuse to let their works be simply or totally about something else. Their works are about themselves as works of art, and they constantly draw attention to themselves as artifices instead of trying to be windows on some sort of reality beyond themselves.

2. It's "intertextual." That is, it's art that often likes to be about some other work of art, or some other "text." A famous pop artist named Roy Lichtenstein loved painting images taken right out of comic books. That's "intertextuality," he made art about somebody else's art.

3. It's category-defying, often in confusing ways. Postmodernist artists love to defy our expectations and do things they're not "supposed" to do -- maybe to remind us that the rational categorisations we often use to understand art never work as well or as perfectly as we like to think they do.

4. It's "pastiched." Fancy French word, that. "Pastiche," to recent art critics, is the practice of borrowing elements of different genres and different styles from lots of different historical periods, then mixing them all together in a single work of art. It creates a kind of historical collage.

5. It's not snobbish. In fact, postmodernist art can be very "pop." It often draws its subject matter from the realm of popular culture and employs pop-culture forms and genres. Most postmodernist artists don't draw the sorts of distinctions between "high" and "low" culture many artists of the past did -- and so they defy yet another mode of categorisation.

6. It gets fact and fiction all mixed up. Postmodernist artists aren't much interested in the distinction between real and make-believe. They often make famous "real" historical figures interact with fictional characters in their works, and they often re-tell "actual" textbook history in peculiar, unsettling, often illuminating ways. Mixing fact and fiction is a way to amplify this idea.

Read more here.

FM4/MS4: Postmodern Theory - 'Fight Club'/'The Matrix'

Postmodern Ideas

1. We no longer have any sense of the difference between real things and images of them, or real experiences and simulations of them.

2. The distinction between media and reality has collapsed, and we now live in a ‘reality’ defined by images and representations – a state of simulacrum.

3. Postmodernism rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another. All judgments of value are merely taste.

4. Culture ‘eats itself’ and there is no longer anything new to produce or distribute.

5. All ideas of ‘the truth’ are just competing claims – or discourses – and what we believe to be the truth at any point is merely the ‘winning’ discourse.

6. Postmodern texts are said to be intertextual and self-referential – they break the rules of realism to explore the nature of their own status as constructed texts.

7. In the postmodern world, media texts make visible and challenge ideas of truth and reality, removing the illusion that stories, texts or images can ever accurately or neutrally reproduce reality or truth

FM4 - Single Film - Critical Study: Fight Club

Student Work

'Fight Club' in 6 images/6 key themes/250 words

1. Escapism

2. Desire vs. lack of love (position of women)

3. Marxism

4. Brotherhood/Fraternity

5. Rebellion

6. Narcissism

Fight Club is a comment on different issues within the American society. Firstly, its comments on postmodernism are extremely central from the start, through mise-en-scene, and this is also highlighted through the protagonist. ‘Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy’. This belief is shown within the house that Tyler and Jack live in, a place where everything has rotted because nothing new has been constructed. This is a comment on society because if nothing new is introduced, everything will lose its value and cease to contain any meaning. Nothing is new anymore within our postmodern society, everything is removed and recycled from its original source; lacking its’ initial meaning and everything is diluted over time.

The film explores the falseness of not only society’s belief in materialism but in its relationships amongst it. This is perhaps the lack of true emotions within the world, so the idea of going to ‘self-help’ groups give the illusion to the protagonist of being cared for and having a voice.

‘Fight Club’ explores the idea that this society is engulfed with possessions they don’t need; materialism shapes everyone’s identity. The idea of identity is seen when the characters do not, essentially ‘like themselves’ and find it hard to identify with a world without materials, with just raw rules. It also defines the way the world is always advertising a new image of their new personality, fitting in with the postmodern theme of a world that tries to constantly ‘re-create’ itself, a recyclable feature that is beneficial to no-one.

A lot of this film is entirely about the way in which the characters seem to be fighting against themselves, to the extent that Tyler is created, Marla is suicidal and completely unperturbed with the sanctity of her own life, and for the most part the members of Fight Club are simply fighting against a lifestyle. Apart from the obvious violence, there is a lot of fighting going on within the personality traits of all of the characters and we see this throughout the film which moves them all forwards in their fight to become someone else, or someone better - a postmodern version of Nietzschean philosophy.

The film shows a dark comic side of modern America and the irony is in the fact it is a product of what it is rejecting. The film shows the insanity of the social position literally and philosophically but also shows that destruction is no better than what we already have. The films narrative shows Jack’s character having an almost a moral misanthropic view of others who creates Tyler to show someone who is supposed to be perfect but in the end rejects him and chooses Marla instead who is shown as almost an opposite of Tyler (the lowest of the low); showing that people today never know what they really want. The film shows that addiction is necessary and almost an addiction its self, the film passes from one obsession to another, from consumerism to self-help groups to Marla to Tyler to fight club to destruction, showing that nothing is good enough and nothing lasts.

The idea of a white male, middle-class and working in an office in America, provides the idea of being a ‘favourite’ of the USA, so perhaps this film explores the male who wants to rebel against this anonymous identity, and becomes more accepted as a destructive, masculine form. This is shown when Jack is trying to fit in becoming comfortable with his sexuality and gender like his alter-ego, something he would never do in reality if he was ‘himself’.

The schizophrenia theme within the film is coherent to its meaning and its other themes running alongside it (violence, rebellion, consumerism, relationships, masculinity, sexuality) because it gives Tyler and Jack a blurred identity of all of these ideas, a liminal of what is reality and what is fantasy. It gives forth the role of an ‘idol’ present in many ‘road’ films; considering it’s a hybrid of genres, as the person must go on a journey to find ‘themselves’.

There are many elements of ‘Fight Club’ that give way to the conclusion of the film being about American values; Jack and Tyler are oppositions of honour and freedom because Jack is intent on keeping his moral beliefs and values, but Tyler simply wants to be free of it all, to the extent of terrorism. Both simply wish to be free of the connotations of a ‘grey collar worker’ and the security offered by America.

‘Fight Club’ is a compendium of ideologies being recycled that fundamentally questions and comments on society simultaneously. ‘Fight Club’ discusses issues that riddle modern America and the foundations of modern society, whilst beating one another to escape the monotony of the ‘Grey collared’ workers everyday lives. Fight club mastermind Tyler Durden visually represents the masculinity, nihilism and terrorism that are present in every single ‘average Joe’. This deeply self-referential postmodern observation on society uses irony to playfully invert us out off our ‘false consciousness’ by splicing as many ideologies as possible into a single film. Criticised by Alexander Walker but appreciated by ‘cult’ film fans it discusses Jameson’s ‘dustbin of ideologies’ whilst mixing undercurrents of homophobia on a background of psychosis - the ending will make you say ‘huh’, which makes it so essentially postmodern.

FM4 - Single Film - Critical Study: Fight Club

Student Work

'Fight Club' in 6 images/6 key themes/250 words

1. Terrorism

2. Sexuality

3. Branding

4. Pleasure/Pain

5. Meaninglessness/Fake

6. The Nietzschean concept of the 'superman'

‘Fight Club’ is story that deals with the concept of postmodernism in a very postmodern way. The narrative is constantly referring to the re-use of things and recycling texts, literally intertextually referencing older movies like ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘Psycho’. The film constantly refers to itself to remind the viewer that it is a movie and that its not reality. It also deals with the crisis of masculinity and deals with the apparent nature of males of their constant need to be part of a fraternity of like-minded people and their willingness to follow any opposing ideology no matter what it is. Also it displays the idea that all problems men face in life can be fixed through therapy, fighting or terrorism as if it is what they were born to do. It also has narrative themes of mental instability and split personalities exploring the idea that men are weak minded yet physicality strong. The character of Tyler is also a strong Marxist showing the political messages in the film of conformity with everyone being the same and working together for the same purpose. This is shown to be interchangeable with how people will blindly follow ideas with little thought of the consequences. It could also be interpreted as having homosexual themes shown through the relationships of Angel Face, Tyler and Jack, as Jack feels threatened by the growing relationship between Tyler and Angel Face.

‘Fight Club’ has many themes, I think that the main one is about recycling; this is shown throughout the narrative and through the fact that the film itself is a postmodern film. ‘Fight Club’ reuses many iconic scenes and shots from other films, the most notable being ‘A Clockwork Orange’. The constant reuse and references to other older films, and the overall lack of meaning, unresolved points and disappointing ending, demonstrates clearly that over time if things are constantly reused they lose any sense of meaning. In the end everything becomes a diluted and almost unrecognisable simulation of an original idea. The theme of recycling is referenced within the film also, seen clearly by the making of soap from unwanted fat to be re-sold to the same people that it was initially extracted from.

‘Fight Club’ is a complex film with multiple meanings and contemporary social ideas. Binary opposition and irony symbolises the dual personality of the main character. We see consumerism versus originality, rejection versus acceptance, escapism versus entrapment and importantly love versus hate. Jack is shown to be an insecure individual who finds it difficult to accept, not only himself, but also societies opinions and ways, thereby refusing to conform. As a form of perhaps escapism, the character of Tyler is created as a doppelganger of Jack and everything he wishes he could be.

Throughout the film, America is portrayed to be a society ruled by consumerism with everything seeming to be “a copy of a copy of a copy”. Ironically Jack detests this, yet we see him wanting to be a copy of Tyler and furthermore, they create copies of themselves when creating project mayhem. A further aspect of irony to this is the film itself. Intertextuality references copies of shots, themes and representations from an array of other films mixing conventions of multiple genres.

'Fight Club' lacks any overriding meaning but this is the point as it is an ironic statement on contemporary culture. The film presents the idea that we do things because we are consumed by multiple ideas yet we are all consumers as we watch the film, accepting passively what we see, this in itself is ironic. The film is a hybrid of many genres, the predominant ones being film noir and crime/ gangster, that reflects the mix in our own society, being filled with different types of people all wanting to show something, with sexual conflicts emphasizing the need to be in control and exhibit power. The film predicts that we will be so consumed with our own conflicting beliefs that we will resort to self-destruction. The theme of addiction is also explored as we subconsciously become consumers, we accept Jack and Tyler for what they are as we generally revert to being members of a passive audience. No matter how many times we overcome one addiction it will always be replaced by another.

FM4 - Single Film - Critical Study: Fight Club

Student Work

'Fight Club' in 6 images/6 key themes/250 words

Anarchy/Terrorism

Anti-consumerism

Re-cycling/postmodernism

Fighting against feminism

Self-destruction

Insomnia/Mental Illness

1. Nihilism

2. Crisis of Masculinity (homosexuality, men becoming feminised)

3. Rejection of Authority

4. Recycling/Postmodernism

5. Loss of Individuality (Meaningless, insignificant)

6. Anti Consumerism

‘Fight Club’ is a film that incorporates a postmodern narrative with themes of mental illness and messages of capitalist control. The film could be considered postmodern as it features cultural and literary references as well as being a hybrid of several genres and their conventions mixed with a similarly diverse variety of narrative roles. The film visually portrays a dark and critical exploration of deranged friendship and masculinity.

The film is trying to make a statement about modern America as it shows a very nihilistic view of the world and it is trying to reject aspects of authority, consumerism and order. The film constantly tries to show flaws in society through literal examples mixed with philosophy and shows the characters rejecting enforced ideologies. For example Jacks character creates Tyler as a way of rejecting modern social constructs like consumerism, almost as if he was being oppressed by ideology; Tyler is his way of becoming the person who he wants to be. The film also shows constant themes of postmodernism to express the view that everything is a copy of something else and nothing is original, no one is individual, everything is constantly recycled and degraded which could be seen as representative of society and the way it has degraded into something meaningless and chaotic. An example of this post modernism is shown through the way that Jack/Tyler makes soap from human fat, he is recycling other people’s waste and turning it into something that he then sells back to them. The constant theme of postmodernism is shown in the film to express how since nothing is original, everything will eventually degrade and decay into something worthless, in relation to society it would mean the loss of order and reason, which Tyler is trying to achieve.

The film ‘Fight Club’ is an attack on the fact that we, as a society, are consumed by standard morals and beliefs. This is where the main part of the film comes in to play, as Edward Norton’s character (who leads a normal, boring, mundane life) creates an imaginary character out of his own mind, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) - someone who is everything he would want to be – to help him escape from the conformist life that he leads. The two of them going on a nihilistic journey that leads to the mass destruction of the entire financial city block – an attack on consumerism; something that Pitt’s character talks about most of the time throughout the film. Another major theme of the film is the idea that men are gradually becoming more and more feminised in society, hence why the actual fight club is created – something that will allow men to regain their masculinity. However, this is something that has to be done in secret, away from the public eye, which could be seen as a theme of homosexuality, and Norton’s character trying to deal with his own sexuality. Norton’s character is also the subject of the theme of mental illness, as he (at the beginning of a film) suffers from insomnia, and needs emotional release to allow him to sleep - Brad Pitt’s character could also be the result of sleep deprivation, as hallucinations are prone to occur during insomnia.