Warning: This post contains spoilers.
When Fight Club opened on Oct. 15, 1999, so many critics hated it. But did they get it all wrong? The year 1999 was a great and wonderful year as many directors made many great movies. Even though time has changed against it following the sexual abuse allegations on Kevin Spacey, American Beauty was a loved cherished movie for some time. There was Stanley Kubrick’s last movie Eyes Wide Shut. Then, The Matrix changed up sci-fi and action. Other movies like Magnolia and Being John Malkovich showcased the talents of Paul Thomas Anderson and Spike Jonze turning them into film auteurs.
But Fight Club wasn’t really anticipated. Entertainment Weekly who gave the initial review a grade rating of D only had a small mention in the their summer movie preview issue. Of course, 20th Century Fox didn’t really know how to market it so it was moved from the proposed August release to mid-October. Hey, no one was anticipating The Sixth Sense being such a huge movie. The summer blockbuster that year was supposed to be Wild Wild West, which got awful reviews and made over $200 million worldwide but its budget was a reported $170 million. So, it actually lost money considering marketing costs.
Released in almost 2,000 theaters in North America, it made almost $11 million its first weekend, but there was over a 42 percent drop by the second week. It ended up only making $37 million domestically and over $100 million worldwide. But just like The Sixth Sense, it had a twist that people didn’t really see coming on first screening. But unlike that movie, they weren’t paying money to see it again so they could see what they missed.
Again, the following contains spoilers. The movie marketed off the celebratory status of Brad Pitt, but it’s actually Edward Norton who is the lead protagonist. However, he is only referred in the credits as Narrator as the movie is told with his voice-over. But his real name is never finalized on. Some have argued it’s actually Jack. He attends group therapy sessions under fake names such as Travis, Rupert and Cornelius. The first two are the names Robert DeNiro’s characters in Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, respectively.
But he tells Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) his real name is Tyler Durden. And he tells that to other people. There’s just one problem. Tyler Durden doesn’t actually exist as Pitt plays him as an imaginary person that the Narrator befriends on an airplane. After an explosion destroys his condo apartment and possessions, Tyler welcomes the Narrator to come live with him in a dilapidated house in an industrial part of the city. The movie is supposed to be set in the Wilmington, Del. area but there’s never any mention of the city but other real Delaware towns.
The Narrator works for a major car company in a white-collar job where he travels around investigating collisions, some of them very major and fatal. However, he and others in his company under their supervisor, Richard Chesler (Zach Grenier), have been falsifying safety reports and using biased equations to avoid the need for recalls. This has caused depression, anxiety and especially insomnia on the Narrator. Because he has to spend so much time in the field, he suffers also from jetlag.
His doctor suggests he attend a group therapy of men suffering from testicular cancer. He does and meets Robert “Bob” Paulson (Meat Loaf), who lost his testicles because of using steroids and then his body upped the estrogen level and he developed huge breasts. The Narrator is shown affection by Bob and he finally cries letting out some of his guilt and is able to sleep. He attends other group therapy sessions where he is able to get out his guilt and pain so he can sleep.
However, one day, Marla arrives and begins to appear at the same groups he does, causing the insomnia to come back. Then he meets Tyler who only allows him to stay if they get into a physical fight. Afterwards, they begin to have regular fights in the parking lots of Lou’s, the local dive bar hangout. It attracts other patrons who ask to join in a one-on-one fight. Eventually, the bar manager lets them use the basement where they have now called it Fight Club.
The club is only for men who fight each other and then go on about their lives not holding any grudges depending who wins or loses. Eventually, Tyler changes it to Project Mayhem where he builds an army of men to do pranks such as erecting outrageous billboards or putting a lot of bird feed near a BMW dealership so the birds will defecate all over the cars. But Tyler’s behavior turns more violent. The Narrator witnesses him threaten to shoot a liquor store clerk unless he promises to changes his life. And he leads the army in vandalizing a city skyscraper that it looks like a huge smiley face.
But it is only after Bob is killed when Project Mayhem attempts to destroy an object of public art that it will damage a franchise coffee bar, the Narrator begins to feel differently. And then, he discovers Tyler has left while Project Mayhem are preparing for something but won’t tell him. As he follows Tyler’s travels as he sets up other Fight Clubs in other cities, he discovers that people refer to him as Tyler, as well as Marla.
Finally Tyler appears out of nowhere in his hotel room admits that the Narrator has been calling himself Tyler and speaking to everyone as if he is Tyler. It’s at this reveal some of the things you might have missed click, such as Marla asking “Who were you talking to?” after Tyler and the Narrator talk not too far away from her. Also, you can hear Tyler and Marla having sex off-screen but when the phone rings, it stops as the Narrator picks up the receiver.
Speaking of phones, the Narrator calls Tyler from a payphone outside his condo apartment building but there is no response. Then it rings after he hangs up. You can’t see it clearly but there is a writing on the phone that reads “No Incoming Calls Allowed.” When the Narrator and Tyler get on a mass transit bus, only the Narrator pays his fare. Also, they both get in the driver side of a car and after it wrecks they get out of the same door. There’s been a lot of fan theories and Easter eggs about the movie since it’s been released.
A lot of people have noted similarities with Calvin and Hobbes. Another fan theory online suggests that Marla herself is also imaginary. We never really do see Marla at any time unless she’s in the same room as Tyler or the Narrator. It would explain why she keeps putting up with the Narrator after he is hostile to her. At the end of the movie, when the Narrator and Marla watch the skyscrapers implode and collapse, they both look the same in the legs.
But I happen to agree with a fan theory that Tyler Durden was an actual person who died in a car fire. The Narrator and Tyler are seen passing by each other at an airport terminal not aware of each other’s existence. This is implied to go along with the Narrator’s question of “If you wake up in a different, in a different place, can you wake up as a different person?” But I think this is the only time we’re actually seeing Tyler alive. The Narrator is actually investigating fatal car wrecks. He stops at a hotel where he views a commercial of the hotel’s restaurant as the servers are all saying in unison, “Welcome!” as they smile. You can see Pitt dressed as one of the servers. This has been considered a joke that was done because people wouldn’t notice it at first glance.
But David Fincher, who directs this movie as his fourth feature, is the type of director who gives a lot of attention to the smallest details. In his previous movie The Game, a scene where it looks like Sean Penn’s character is trying hard not to laugh on first examination looks like bad acting. Later it’s revealed the character had helped orchestrate the game for his older brother played by Michael Douglas. He was trying hard not to laugh because he knew none of it was real and his brother wasn’t in any real danger.
Yes, I think the Narrator has been doing all these illegal and unethical things because that’s what his high-paying job requires. It’s caused him insomnia. When group therapy didn’t help anymore, the anxiety and insomnia came back. But when he was on the road investigating a fatal car wreck in which the real Tyler Durden died, he has a nightmare on the plane ride that it’s hit by another plane which has headlights like a car. It’s highly possible that as part of his investigation was to stay at the same hotel where Tyler worked where he got a glimpse of him on the in-house commercial. Then, he remembers him as the man with the flashy sunglasses he saw at the the other airport.
Have you ever had a dream where someone you’ve only barely knew from many decades earlier popped up? That’s what has happened to the Narrator. When he wakes up, on his way back to Wilmington, he sees Tyler sitting next to him thinking he’s a real person. But his mind has created this hallucination. Yet the Narrator’s bad side has taken form in this hallucination. It’s also through guilt the Narrator takes a job as a prestige hotel’s restaurant where he will tamper with the food with his own bodily fluids even his ejaculated fluids.
The Narrator through Tyler is getting back at all the “white-collar” people who consider themself high and mighty. At first the Narrator was one of them as he would order expensive furniture and items as well as clothing. He even notes after his apartment explodes, his refrigerator contained mostly condiments and no real foods. That’s because he’s been eating out a lot. If you ever notice the people who are in Project Mayhem are mostly those who work blue-collar jobs or jobs in the service industry.
Ricky (Eion Bailey) who is the first who joins the army worked as an office errand man for the Narrator and his boss. Another person who joins Fight Club and later Project Mayhem is the maitre’d at the nearby food court where the Narrator frequents. Another loyal member of Fight Club/Project Mayhem is a mechanic played by Holt McCallany. Others work in the food and beverage service world. It’s implied one of them is the mass transit bus driver. Another works in a dry cleaners.
It’s never really implied in the movie but it’s mentioned in the 1996 novel of the same name written by Chuck Palahniuk that the Narrator has gone heavily in debt. This is why he can’t really leave his job. That’s why as Tyler he organizes Project Mayhem to target all the credit card company offices in Wilmington. Because if you erase the debt, everyone goes back to zero. Even in 1999, I think there would be financial records stored more on electronic databases that couldn’t just be destroyed along with the building.
It’s also mentioned that the Narrator is 30. This would make him part of the Generation X era. (There’s also a scene where Project Mayhem members watch TV as a Pepsi Generation Next commercial featuring the Spice Girls plays. This is not an accident.) Because he’s gone to work for a car company that values money over lives and because of all the consumerism he’s been subjected to, he had to create someone like Tyler to deal with his hatred and disdain. The Narrator even voices in a maniacal joyful way how they’re stealing human fat from liposuction facilities to turn into soap that they sell to high-price stores that cater to people who have the money to do liposuction. “We were selling rich women their own fat asses back to them.”
Unfortunately, a lot of people mistook the overall plot and message of the movie. Tyler isn’t one to admire. He’s actually a villain. While splicing frames of porno in kid’s movies might be a harmless prank, a lot of what they do is very, very dangerous. Only after Bob is killed does the Narrator see how dangerous he has become by using Tyler to encourage them to stand up. Also, the demolition of the skyscrapers, which are supposed to be empty, will lead to many of the same people in the service industry losing their jobs. All because the Narrator has incurred too much of a debt.
The movie is wonderful at showing how a group of people can unknowingly turn into part of a cult without realizing it. Project Mayhem is easily a terroristic cult that sees themselves as the answer to everything. It’s no big secret anymore that Chuck Palahniuk is gay and some people have noted the homoerotic overtones in the movie. The Narrator adjust Tyler’s bowtie before he goes to work at the restaurant while he notes they acted like “regular Ozzie and Harriet.” Tyler notes while taking a bath a few feet away from the Narrator that his father’s advice of getting married isn’t wise because they’ve been raised by women and another woman may not be the answer.
It’s never implied if Project Mayhem is for gay men. Tyler (and the Narrator) have sex with Marla but it seems that’s all she’s used for in the relationship by Tyler. Jaret Leto, who plays a young Project Mayhem member called Angel Face, comments that the news reporter woman is hot which the others members in the room agree. However, there are scenes of dominant/submissive characters as the Narrator walks through the house which is full of members and some look like they got others in the corner in a suggestive BDSM way. They also all wear leather and vinyl clothing which is a trait in the gay man lifestyle.
You can see remnants of Fight Club in real terrorist organizations such as The Proud Boys and their declaration to stay away from sex. It could have been the Millennium that caused some people to embrace Fight Club‘s message the wrong way. Less than two years after this movie came out, the 9/11 attacks occurred using commercial passenger jetliner planes to crash into the World Trade Center. I seriously doubt this movie would’ve been able to be made post-9./11. Palahniuk’s second novel Survivor dealt with a cult member hijacking a plane to crash.
I know people who were in seriously dangerous cult like the FLDS and are connected by marriage to Warren Jeffs. It is a strange way they indoctrinate people from birth or go after the weak or very gullible. The ironic way of people romanticizing this movie is that the Narrator basically like a spoiled child when he becomes upset with his job and lifestyle. He blows up his own condo apartment not realizing who else he could endanger. It’s like a kid mad at his mother will jerk his hand away from her and run, sometimes into traffic. And tampering with food can be deadly as well. Ever heard of Mary Mallon, otherwise known as Typhoid Mary?
Yes, they may look like harmless pranks. But they soon turn very bad. You can see the correlation between Fight Club/Project Mayhem and the terroristic organization Weather Underground. They were too birthed out of something they saw as opposition to the status quo and conservative normalcy. The Counterculture Movement of the 1960s was supposed to be about peace and love. Weather Underground bombed government buildings in opposition to the war in Vietnam and the Nixon Administration ordering bombings of most southeastern Asia countries like Cambodia and Laos.
You could say Project Mayhem is a far right organization. There’s no mention of the politics of the time except for basic opposition to “political correctness” like in King of the Hill. But they’re main opposition is against corporate greed and consumerism. Yet, it seems now, with Elon Musk and Jeffrey Bezos, we seem to have embraced more corporate greed and consumerism basing the economy solely on how the stock markets do.
Tyler says he’s setting people free but it’s only a ruse to use them to do his dirty work. The Narrator has already turned himself into the police and he’s a fugitive who aimed a gun at them. He’s also behind a big terroristic event. Without having Tyler as his split personality anymore, his fate isn’t promising as many members of Project Mayhem will roll over on him.
It’s no wonder people see Tyler Durden as a hero. We’re a society that has romanticized the juvenile antics of Ferris Bueller and the angry white man Boomerisms of Bill Foster, aka D-Fens, in Falling Down. However we don’t really see the full narcissism and lust for anarchy on all three characters. It’s very telling of our society. They say art is a reflection of the society in which it was made. I know many people would argue Fight Club nor the other movies I mentioned aren’t true art. But you can’t deny that many people have really missed the point.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 