An Evaluation of Fight Club and corporate America.
The film Fight Club shows the influence of consumer culture in America and how it destroys our individuality. It tells a tale about liberation from corporate controlled society, with the narrator representing the ultimate consumer. It takes a violent approach to enlighten the lives of others. It is a multi-layered film with subplots and themes. Fight Club shows how we can distance ourselves from how we are told to think and act. Roger Ebert says, "Fight Club" is the most frankly and cheerfully fascist big-star movie since "Death Wish," a celebration of violence in which the heroes write themselves a license to drink, smoke, screw and beat one another up. (Sun-Times 1).
The narrator, a wealthy young professional took all the right steps towards the common American goal. He went college, got a high salary job, and lives in the luxury condo with all the accessories. Representing the 20th century American, he cannot be "complete" unless he has certain things in his possession. He refers to his belongings a part of him. After his condo blows up and everything in it is destroyed, he tells the detective, "That was not just a bunch of stuff that got destroyed it was me!" .
(Fight Club 00:57:10).
In the beginning of the movie he is looking through an IKEA catalogue and asks, "What kind of plates define me as a person." ( FC 00:57:10 ) He's not asking what personal characteristics define him, but what possession most accurately does. We think .
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this way about ourselves all the time, shopping endlessly for the perfect items. Why do we need possessions to define who we are? The need and desire for material possessions is impressed upon us by our consumerist culture. Tyler says, "You are not your job. You are not how much you have in the bank. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking Khakis.
