Masculinityinfightclub 101007044624-phpapp01

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.”

Masculinity: Social Context Feminism

Traditional male roles: Cowboy; Hunter; Defender; Achiever; Warrior; Breadwinner

Exposed as myths by the feminist movementMen left without a clear identity after Feminism

questioned the role of manTraditional 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

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

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?

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!”

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

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

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?

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

Tyler

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

to the Narrator?

TylerPlayed 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 DominantAggressive, Powerful, in charge

of his own destiny Tyler rejects consumerism/

materialistic lifestyle

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.”

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.

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

The Fight ClubThe 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

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