fight club pres (2)

7/31/2019 Fight Club Pres (2)

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FIGHT CLUBA Marxist Analysis


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Quick Reminder

Marxism is a movement that grew up aroundthe philosophy of Karl Marx

It is a reaction against Capitalism It seeks a fairer distribution of wealth among

the under classes It believes in the ultimate dissolution of

centralised government It is different from Anarchism, though they

share many of the same beliefs


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The World of the Film Jack works in a

regular job, lives inan apartment andbuys Ikea furniture

Fincher sets him upas an everyman someone everyonecan relate to

He is shown as beinga slave to a systemwhere everything hasa price

I flipped through catalogs andwondered: What kind of dining set

defines me as a person?


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The World of the Film

In this world, people are commodities like anythingelse:

A new car built by my company leaves somewheretravelling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. Thecar crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside.Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-courtsettlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is lessthan the cost of a recall, we don't do one.


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He is a drone: an unmotivated worker goingthrough the daily routine of life

His life is consumed by shit we dont need


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This state of affairs is according to Jack the fault of thecorporations (likeStarbucks)

When deep space exploration ramps up, it'llbe the corporations that name everything,the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy,Planet Starbucks.


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Fincher puts forward a cynical view of theworld in which people are at the mercy of bigcorporations and have no individual power

We are taught to consume from an early ageto keep the wheels of capitalism moving

We are so desperate to keep the things thatwe have that we mindlessly conform to thisparadigm without every challenging it


8/16

Enter Tyler Durden Fuck off with your sofa units and

strine green stripe patterns, I saynever be complete, I say stop beingperfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the

chips fall where they may.

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all thispotential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waitingtables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobswe hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. Nopurpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritualwar... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe thatone day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we'reslowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.


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Enter Tyler Durden

Tyler is Jacks alter -ego. Tyler isJack as he wishes he could be

All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like youwanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable,and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you arenot.

If you wake up at a different time in adifferent place, could you wake up as adifferent person?


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In Tyler We Trust Tyler is presented as emancipated: free from

normal social conventions He pays no taxes as he has no legitimate earnings

He is committed to bringing the old orderinstitutions (like banks) down He wants all men to be free from normal social

conventions like him:

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free todo anything. He wants anarchy


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In Tyler We Trust In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the

damp canyon forests around the ruins of RockefellerCenter. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you therest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines

that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down,you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of someabandoned superhighway.

Notice the ruins of great financial centres: Rockerfeller,Sears, etc.

Notice the intrusion of the natural world (elk, forests,vines)


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A Socialist State You're not your job. You're not

how much money you have in thebank. You're not the car you drive.You're not the contents of yourwallet. You're not your fuckingkhakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

The all -singing, all-dancing crap of the world is a reference to theworking class, the proletariat, thenormal people who bringrevolutions about...


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What Tyler Wants

Corporations to be torn down For man to get in touch with his primitive

(animal) side No more advertising, consumerism or money An end to the established order of rich and

poor All men to be truly equal


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What Tyler Wants

It's getting exciting now, two and one -half.Think of everything we've accomplished, man.Out these windows, we will view the collapse

of financial history. One step closer toeconomic equilibrium.


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Is Fight Club a Marxist FilmYes

It presents a cynical viewof capitalism

It champions the working

man We follow a group of

people who want todestroy financialinstitutions and are

invited to share theirpoint of view In the end: the terrorists

succeed

No Jack fights against Project

Mayhem he is thecharacter we are invitedto empathise with themost

We are shown the abusesof power by Tyler willhis world be any better?

Although the terroristssucceed, Jack/Tyler endup dead (fair enough theyre terrorists), butalso Marla (who is aninnocent bystander)


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The Final Word

Fight Club has Marxist elements to it and wecan certainly use Marxist criticism to analyse it

The film criticises the capitalist world in whichwe live, but the alternative it offers is not seento succeed

Tyler is more of an anarchist than a Marxist, ashe does not believe in the social state

fight club pres (2)

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