Fight Club

Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the release of Fight Club. This is one of the movies that had a defining mark among my generation, especially among every male that is directly in my age range.

I have mixed feelings about this movie. I have never been a huge fan of Chuck Palahniuk, or even for that matter, the director David Fincher. Yet at the same time I feel like they did an excellent job on the film, although Fincher's intense close-ups of a wire inside a bomb for example had not got to be as annoying as they are now.

My major issue about this film though is how so many of my contemporary males latched onto it like it was their bible. They used as a method to describe their own anger with society, with commercialism, and with capitalism. Yet this anger was misdirected. A typical white kid from the upper middle class that loved this movie loved it more for the hidden agenda that it explained their own anger and resentment with father issues. The film talks about this, indeed it was on large Oedipal story. The movie briefly mentions this as Pitt and Norton talk about who they want to fight. The book went deeper into it.

"What you have to understand, is your father was your model for God. If you're male and you're Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out and dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?

"What you end up doing is you spend your life searching for your father and God.

"What you have to consider is the possibility that God doesn't like you. Could be, God hates us. This is not the worst thing that could happen."

I guess my point is that while I do enjoy the movie, I feel like all the other guys out there like it for the wrong reason. Most of these people think the movie is badass. That it is about fighting and fucking shit up. These are also the guys that probably liked it best to see Brad Pitt with his shirt off.

Fight Club is a great movie, but it is about a character's misdirected anger about his father not being there for him.

Get over it dude. All of society is fucked up today, and your problems aren't anything worse than anyone else's.