In Fight Club, the man and the woman clasp hands in what could be a mutual redemption. (Faludi “Thelma” 89)

Thus, “Fight Club is ostensibly an anti-New Age satire on both the dehumanizing effects of corporate/consumer culture and the absurd excesses of the men’s movement” (Smith 58). Faludi’s opinions concerning the film sound remarkably like those of the film’s director, David Fincher. Fincher explains the movie’s crux: “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. In that societal emasculation this everyman is created” (qtd. in Smith 58). Compare this to Faludi’s assessment of our emasculating society: “In an ornamental culture where worth is measured by bicep and SUV size, by image and celebrity, men feel severed from fellowship and a tangible craft, valued only for their stock-market portfolios” (Faludi “Rage” 31). Faludi’s reading of the end of the film indicates that something useful is being said about the futility of violence and the role of women in creating a new world:

Nelson’s study of “imagined fraternities” notes that most fraternities are dependent on the absence of women and the imagined presence of absent men: “As I repeatedly discovered, white men seem able to achieve the equalitarian reassurance of unmediated brotherhood only with dead or imagined men” (Nelson x). Tyler as leader is the definitive imagined man. He is the “imaginary friend” of Jack, and his exploits are immediately made the subject of tall tales. Men all over the nation talk of the mystical founder of their fraternity, spreading rumors of his stamina, killing power, and frequent reconstructive surgeries. Bob Paulson’s martyr death allows him to fulfill the role of the idealized dead man in the fraternity.

Religious overtones pervade the movie. Even the film’s structure—that of a prolonged, narrated flashback—has the connotation of a deathbed confession. Jack’s therapy sessions include Eastern traditions of faith as the participants meditate, recite mantras, and visit their caves and power animals. As Jack says, he is born again every night. When Marla disrupts his quasi-religious nightly rebirths, he seeks something stronger. The lure of the Christ-father embodied in Tyler is irresistible. At the most basic level, Tyler is wiser than Jack and Jack is able to seek refuge with him in a way that indicates he’s never had that sort of refuge before. Jack confesses that his father was absent for most of his life—setting up, as Tyler puts it, “franchise families” all over the United States. Tyler says that he would fight his father if he could, which has significance if considered after the revelation. The point must not be lost that Tyler becomes Jack’s father as he sets up his own franchise families of Project Mayhem. When Tyler disappears, Jack notes, “My father dumped me, Tyler dumped me,” indicating their association in his mind. Yet Tyler proves to be more than a father to his sons. He rebukes Jack’s reluctance to surrender to great pain by reminding him, “Our fathers were our models for God—if our fathers bailed, what does that say about God?” Tyler, who has become father, also offers himself up as a substitute God. At one point, Tyler exacts Jack’s promise that he won’t discuss Tyler with Marla. The promise is exacted three times, mirroring Peter’s famous three-fold betrayal of Christ. Despite the methodical lunacy of his actions, Jack affirms, “In Tyler we trusted.”

Only one idea comes through clearly about the quest for masculinity. Fincher states, “I don’t know if it’s Buddhism, but there’s the idea that on the path to enlightenment you have

Some topics in this essay:
Fight Club, Project Mayhem, Judith Butler, Faludi Stiffed, Jack Tyler, Jack He’s, Moreover Jack’s, Jack Bob, Mayhem Christ, Bonham Carter, fight club, project mayhem, masculine subject, jack tyler, smith 58, tyler disappears jack, tyler jack’s father, jack jack, tyler jack’s, course film, jack able, jack’s father, “rage” 31 faludi’s, qtd smith 58, faludi “rage” 31,