I really wish I had written my response before I read Giroux’s article. I had this idea… I was going to write about the significance of Fight Club’s presence in contemporary society. I was going to answer that question that Dr. Paul Smith tells me all Cultural Studies students are supposed to answer: Why this? Why now? I was going to go on a long diatribe about how this film is yet another Hollywood blockbuster in the guise of an intellectual exercise. And then I read that damn article. It said everything I wanted to say, but actually made sense. He used topic sentences, supporting details, relevant quotes and his reflexive moments were subtle. Well, as it is too late to speak of something else, here I go on my silly rant that ultimately is making the same point you have already read.
I guess I should begin by defending the article. I think he chose to only address the movie because he was specifically interested in the paradox of a big budget film bemoaning the effects of capitalism. His intention was not to produce a close reading of a text that less than one percent of our population will encounter. Furthermore, I don’t know that his beef was with the fact that the “story isn’t meant to embrace every single aspect.” Rather, I think he was more interested in the fact that the film did not perform as advertised. It was not a critique of capitalism; it was the championing of rightwing politics. It was a movie made for my father (the one who has seen every Schwarzenegger film and whistles at the sexy ladies on beer commercials.) It’s not that he wanted the film to address marginalized people, but he wanted some awareness that violence is not just men fighting in the basement to work out their Oedipal complexes, it is also battered wives and police brutality.
As for my own views, philosophy and big-budget films don’t mix. If the theories are essentialized enough to make it into a society of the spectacle, they are already worthless (please see I heart Huckabee’s treatment of existentialism). The novel, while I’m sure it has its merits, was chosen for adaptation because it is littered with sex and violence, not because of its astute treatment of post-Marxist theories. It had guns, sexy people, and just enough homoeroticism to make it chic. The violence in the film is depoliticized, and MTV’d up. If anything, it was made more palatable, consumable. A lot of blood, but very little gore. Where was the hole in the cheek?
Finally, I can’t be the only one not to mention Marla. Of course she is the oppressed, psuedo-femme fatale, but not because she is responsible for the death of masculinity. In fact, its just the opposite. She is there to reaffirm it, to be objectified and ultimately saved.