Masculinity in Fight Club to support WJEC FM4 film studies exam

1. MALE REPRESENTATIONMALE REPRESENTATION
“Fight Club is talking about very simple concepts,”
Fincher told Film Comment in 1999. “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.”

2. Masculinity: Social Context Feminism
Traditional male roles: Cowboy; Hunter; Defender;
Achiever; Warrior; Breadwinner
Exposed as myths by the feminist movement
Men left without a clear identity after Feminism
questioned the role of man
Traditional Male roles/unachievable images of strength
ALSO imprisoned men
• Repressed male rage – Frustration about:
• The Feminization of Man and an increase in ‘consumption’
• Repressed ‘Raw’ Masculinity
• The dehumanizing effects of corporate consumer culture
• Manual jobs in decline

3. The ‘New Man’
• The ‘new man’ has lost touch with his masculine ‘core’
• The ‘real man’ has been lost by consumerism and the
media
• Film depicts men's’ frustration at the media’s ‘feminisation’
of men
• Mans obsession with consumerism has replaced traditional
male symbols: strength, honour
• Attacks lack of male role models – men raised by women
due to men working
• Fight Club attempts to reassert supposedly ‘obsolete’
Violent, Mindless Masculinity

4. The Narrator
• How is the Narrator presented to us a ‘man in
crisis’?
• What does the Narrator’s ‘Power Animal’ say
about the state of contemporary masculinity?

5. Norton (The narrator)
• Introduced by credits hurtling through his brain
• The ‘Unreliable Narrator’ – gains audiences trust
but is untrustworthy due to his mental state
• The ‘new man’ character – he is ‘emasculated’
• Consumerist: Job + Possessions + Clothes + Car =
Happiness
• His male status is an illusion – accumulation of
possessions but no happiness
• Traditional male role is lost – no male friends, no
sexual partner, no libido, no ‘action’ job
• Fantasises about dying
• Has his masculinity questioned by others
“Airport Security Officer: Nine times out of ten it's an
electric razor. But … every once in a while [looks
around, leans in conspiratorially] … it's a
dildo. [leans back] Of course, it's company policy
never to imply ownership in the event of a dildo.
We have to use the indefinite article, "a dildo",
never … your dildo.
Narrator: I don't own a dildo!”

6. Mise en Scene & The Narrator
• Mise en scene
depicts the Narrator
in a constricted,
unsettled world
• Spaces which
constrain him/give a
sense of
confinement; Low
ceilings cluttered
sets; no colour
(chiaroscuro)
• TRAPPED in his suit

7. The Narrator’s ‘Power Animal’
• What does the Narrator’s ‘Power
Animal’ say about the state of
contemporary masculinity?
• Power Animals: Lion? Tiger?
Shark? Penguin
• Connotations of the Penguin:
• Small; Incapable of Flight;
Childish; Harmless; Tuxedo/wears
a suit
• Penguin is juxtaposed against
Narrator’s dream of masculine
empowerment

8. Remaining Men Together
• We are introduced to two men that have
attempted to conform to traditional roles of
masculinity and failed.
• In what ways have they both been
emasculated?

9. Bob
• Bob’s character is seen through
the eyes of the ‘Unreliable
Narrator’ –
• Norton’s unstable perspective:
How he see’s contemporary
man:
• A muscleman with breasts
(Traditional Masculinity V’s the
New Man)
• In trying to attain ideal male
physique gets breasts!
• Gives maternal, feminine care
to Narrator

10. Tyler
• What role does Tyler play in the narrative?
• What does he embody & how is he different
to the Narrator?

11. Tyler
Played by Brad Pitt – the star
most men would want to play
them in a movie of their life
Male aspiration figure for the
Narrator – his care-free, hot
ideal alter ego: answers to
nobody
• Created from frustration and
repressed rage
Introduced wearing sunglasses,
leather jacket, chiselled jaw,
spiked hair, a colourful
juxtaposition against the ‘grey’
suited Narrator
Everything the narrator isn’t:
Charismatic, Sexually Dominant
Aggressive, Powerful, in charge
of his own destiny
Tyler rejects consumerism/
materialistic lifestyle

12. Angel Face
Played by Jared Leto
Represents feminised male
Can be seen scrubbing the kitchen,
jumps up to serve the Narrator
Narrator becomes jealous of his
friendship with Tyler
Narrator breaks rules of Fight Club
when he beats up Angel Face. As he
does so he rejects politically correct
environmental ideas
“I felt like putting a bullet
between the eyes of every
Panda that wouldn't screw to
save its species. I wanted to
open the dump valves on oil
tankers and smother all the
French beaches I'd never
see. I wanted to breathe
smoke.”

13. Group Task
• Create a list of the binary opposites that exist
between the Narrator and Tyler.
• Choose one of these and write up your notes
in full sentences.

14. Male Binary Opposites
• Occupies corporate
spaces: Offices, Planes,
Hotels
• The same as everybody
else – just another grey
suit (‘A copy of a copy of
a copy’)
• Occupies shadowy
underworld
• Outlandish,
Flamboyant, Unique,
Original – link to Anti
Globalization themes

15. The Fight Club
The creation of ‘The Fight Club’ plays
an essential role in freeing the narrator
from his crisis of masculinity.
Mostly filled by white middle class
achievers who feel there material
successes are empty, or working class
men frustrated by their social status.
It is almost like a ‘trial by fire’ initiation
ritual for the modern man.
The focus of fighting is endurance –
taking the beating and defining one’s
identity through the pain.
• Scenes of physical displays of violence
in an attempt to find inner ‘man’
• Men resort back to a tribal, raw
masculinity = another empty role

16. Project Mayhem
•Prospective members have to wear a
black uniform and shave heads –
rejection of designer clothes
•Use the threat of castration to control
enemies
•Destroy simples of power and
authority
•Ejaculate into food
•Look up to Tyler as a father figure