Masculinity in

Fight Club

Masculinity

Masculinity is possessing

qualities or characteristics

considered typical of or

appropriate to a man.

Task

On the handout provided write down 5 characteristics / traits

that belong to the ‘typical’ male

This all changed

•The Second Wave of feminism •Women became increasingly empowered as legal reforms such as:The Equal Pay Act (1970) and The Sexual Discrimination Act (1975) can into force

The death of the industrial male

In the 1970s and 1980s a lot of Britain’s heavy industries were dismantled as the country moved towards a more computer driven, service based economy where traditional male roles were taken away and replaced by jobs that could be undertaken by women.

Aids: the queering of the mainstream

AIDS raised the gay profile; suddenly you couldn’t ignore the existence of the homosexual male.

The financial muscle of the pink pound.

The queering of the mainstream brought eroticised images of the male body into fashion and advertising

The feminised maleWears nice clothes (or skirts in Beckhams case)

Keeps himself groomed

The emasculation of traditional male identity has led to a ‘crisis of masculinity’.

Men were no longer certain of what their role in society was.

Confused Masculinity

Robert BlyAn American poet, author, activist and leader of the mythopoetic men's movement, most famous for his Iron John: A Book About Men (1990)

A deeply troubled situation in which most men find themselves in

western societies today

Men raised by women

The decline of the father's role in the modern family

Men are an "experimental species" and have to be taught

what it is to be a man

Rites of passage

Older men would teach young boys on these gender-specific

issues.

Today's men as half adults, trapped

somewhere between childhood

and maturity

Confused masculinity in FCBoth the author, Palahniuk and the director have said that the story of Fight Club

reflects and explores real men’s lives today.Palahniuk said he wrote his book ‘in public’ by talking to real men in diners, bars,

coffee shops and their work places.Fincher said that the unnamed narrator is “an everyman. Every young man”

FC and collective identity3 principle examples of the modern man’s confusion over masculine roles and what being a ‘man’ actually means:

FC and collective identity

First example: the life of the narrator pre- Fight Club

Based on an illusion of materialist accumulation and career hierarchy,

The pursuits of these false goals = no male friends, no sexual partner in the ‘nest’ apartment, no physically demanding work or action-based solution to problems. No libido:

“we used to read pornography; now we read the IKEA catalogue”.

Sees himself through his meaningless possessions

“a refrigerator full of designer condiments and no food”.

He is emasculated by pursuit of consumerism

Second example: The ‘Remaining Men Together: testicular cancer group

This group is compromised of men who have attempted to conform to traditional roles, but who have failed. They have been emasculated by castrationFirst speaker- talks of ambition to be a father, a goal he will never achieve; the ultimate insult is that wife has abandoned him and procreated with another man.Bob- pathetic and grotesquely breasted. His attempt to attain a traditional male image, the Muscle Man has resulted in the exact opposite and becoming feminised

Third example: the group of men in Fight Club

Supposed to be the ‘solution’ to the problems of confused masculinity. But it eventually turns into another form of the same confusion: the neo-fascist-anarchist ‘Project Mayhem’. This form of ‘male fundamentalism’ is, ultimately as empty as the other male roles it reacts against.

Other examples:

23” Vibrating bag on plan – The Dildo NOT your Dildo

25” Possessions being burned – first signs of destroying the female

31” Cinema pornography – destroying it

43” Gucci MAN

58” Using women's fat and ‘boys scout’

List all MALE CHARACTERS

List their MALE characteristics and their FEMALE characteristics

Are they a ‘NEW MAN’ or a ‘REAL MAN’?