As I’ve been hankering away on my oral presentation all weekend, I’m sick of Fight Club, the book, the movie, the whole nine yards, primarily because, as a woman, I’m not that fond of the underlying misoginystic conception within the text to begin with. As you all may guess, Fight Club was my last choice to present on, and tomorrow, it will become quite clear as to why. My visual for tomorrow’s presentation will, disappointinly, not be a a technologically advanced one, but rather, it will consist of poster board and other eccentric anachronisms, so please refrain from narrowmindedness (just kidding- I think we’re all pretty open minded).<\/p>\n
Palahnuik’s witty narrative and catch phrases, the attractiveness of the narrator’s alter-ego, the Freudian complexities, and the social commentary on why it’s all so messed up for ‘the (white?) man’ in contemporary society makes the text an interesting experience, but the explanations are often flawed and misguided. Without revealing too much, Marla’s consistent degradation throughout the film and the novel is problematic and downright repulsive. The woman-hating and blaming for the social ills that constitute postmodern society is not only ridiculous, but it is socially dangerous and irresponsible. Some argue, "Juliet, your missing the point," and that really, the novel and the film is a critique of the evils of an inhuman, unfeeling consumer society. Some say the film brilliantly portrays the Freudian notions of ‘the Id,’ Tyler the alter-ego, verus the debased ego (the narrator\/Jack). Others insist its really about learning how to become a man and establish a credible identity in a P.C. society that explicitly resents all that is white and male due to the white man’s history of violence. Still, others believe Palahnuik’s narrative is a testament to the working class and the underprivelged (white?) men that are dispossessed by the consumer culture under which they are enslaved. Yes, this is all possible, but when all of this seems to hinge on a hatred toward women and what femininity represents, when violence and ultimately, terrorism, are presented as the only alternatives to "being a pussy," its hard to appreciate the complexity of the numerous overlapping themes in both texts.<\/p>\n
Marla is the problem, and by this, I do not mean it in the way that the narrator\/Jack\/Tyler do. She and everything that she represents, including consumerism and all women (since she is the only female in the narrative), is positioned as the enemy, when perhaps the real enemies are the narrator’s actual father, father figures, and perhaps, his corporate father’s who are, in reality, far more responsible for the contemporary evils of consumerism than women are. Marla is a scapegoat, when perhaps, (white?) men and their ‘forefathers’ should be held accountable for their current situations. Needless to say, my sympathies do lie with white men and the conditions they face in today’s society (no offense guys), since maleness and whiteness comes with privelges that are still unavailable to other groups in this country, regardless of the P.C. backlash against white male supremacy in the 1990’s. For instance, white men still run this coutry (and apparently not to bright ones at that), and men (not sure if this is true of specifically white men) get paid, on the average, $15,000 a year working the same job a woman works (a fact that easily verified through many online sources and studies). Sorry Mr. Palahnuik and Mr. Fincher, I’m not buying it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I’ve been hankering away on my oral presentation all weekend, I’m sick of Fight Club, the book, the movie, the whole nine yards, primarily because, as a woman, I’m not that fond of the underlying misoginystic conception within the text to begin with. As you all may guess, Fight Club was my last choice … Continue reading No More Fight Club<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}