FIGHT CLUB
Movie Summary
Fight Club for me is a movie about exploring one’s idol self. Being who you’ve always dreamt of being but never had the guts to just get out there and do it. Tyler is like this idol self; I think he phrased it best with,
“All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.”
Tyler is free of all the social norms that most people are subjected to. He says what is ever on his mind, he dresses extravagantly, and his charismatic personality calls people around him to let go like him. He is someone that people want to be like because he encompasses what many envision as the counter culture icon. He believes in something and fights for it. Tyler takes this idea of over coming the advertising vanguard of contemporary America and forging a new essentialist identity. He rejects any idea of what people think he should be like and turns it on on its head. Maybe it’s my unbridled youthful angst talking but that idea translates well to feelings that I share with my generation about rejecting what parents and teachers say should and shouldn’t be. We as a generation, myself included, are at odds with many of the expectations presented about what to do with ourselves. It is the striking independence that Tyler exhibits that appeals most to me. He rejects all these popular notions and cultural influences and evolves into a developed person free from any and all pressures of society. He encompasses that universal longing of children to be free of the rules set by the parents. Tyler redefines his own universe from knowledge he’s learned first hand. It is analogous to a headstrong youth moving off to college or where ever life takes them after adolescent.
There is a unique struggle between the idol self and the perceived self in this movie. Tyler embodies whom we want to be, the kind of individual who takes our place when we rethink the ‘should have dones’ in our life. While the perceived self (the narrator) is the personification of the audience’s self, composed of all the inadequacies that one could feel when facing the world. As the main character draws closer to the idol self, the idol self just becomes more psychotic and unrealistic to embody. When the narrator finally stops following Tyler, he a vague symbol of coming to terms with who we are; he stops chasing this image of what Tyler is, and act on his own accord, free of what had become a peer pressure a situation.
The movie as a whole really helps me to not forget the importance of being an individual and using your head in the real world. There are countless people that are afflicted by social originating problems. Problems like poverty because we feel pressured to buy things we don’t need. Eating disorders because we are deemed imperfect by the image mediators of the world. These are problems emanating from the faults in society; something personal strength can help with when facing these issues. This movie breathes idea like free will and strength that its hard for me the not use a word like genius when you think of the how and what this movie communicates to a audience of young a open minds.
