Interesting responce from a student about the issue of gender in Fight Club

Student Response

What different attributes and characteristics are associated

with masculinity and femininity in fight club?

What does it suggest about the ideology of the film?

Masculinity is a strong theme played throughout the film. Fincher is trying to portray the different views about masculinity and femininity and how our society shapes them. Fincher has said that Edward Norton is an example of a modern man who has lost touch with his traditional masculine side. An example of of Edward's modern man characteristic is his emphasise on consumer pleasure and materialistic goods. In contrast traditional pre-industrial male traits were those such as being focused of physical sex, being the bred winner and supporting a family; all attributes which are missing in Norton's life.

Robert Bly upheld these points of traditional masculinity in his mytho-poetic essentialism. Such points were “men had a clearly defined role in pre-industrial society. They were required to be violent when hunting animals, and when society became industrial based – to protect the farm and family. Modern society refuses men this role – unless at wartime”.

Robert Bly suggests males should reject the consumerist pleasures. This is portrayed in fight club where Norton and Tyler live in a run down flat and they wear dirty clothes. Another of Bly's solutions is to separate yourselves from the 'tender' feminine world. Fight club shows this by females such as cancer patient 'Chloe' taking a male focus on life; as she speaks about wanting sex, the lack of nurturing female characters in the film and lack of females in general. Bly also suggested we should do initiation through enduring pain. This can be strongly seen in fight club, by self-inflicting acid burns, the huge amounts of fighting and pain, and Norton's emotional pain experienced from leaving behind society norms.

In the modern society, masculinity now includes taking care of yourself and your image. Fight club attempts to rejects this by taking masculinity views on appearance back to the pre-industrial society. However, even though fight club members reject current images of male 'beauty' and express their hunter/gatherer role through the use of violence, the style of the film has been criticized for doing exactly what it aimed to go against; by making their bodies conform to a female idea of beauty through fighting as a sport and gaining a muscular attractive body.

Confused masculinity is element seen in fight club. The pre-fight club life of the narrator is an example of a modern man and the superego; he is 'emasculated' and a consumerist, he's confused between whether this has brought him happiness or not.

His job, his possession, clothes and car has made him 'happy', however his male status is an illusion; it's an accumulation of possessions but there's a lack of real happiness. He's lost his traditional male role and has no male friends, no sexual partner and no 'action' job. Society influences what people find important, and has made the modern man have a more female mind-set e.g. choosing IKEA furniture. The narrator is low in hierarchy at work, this portrays how he's not achieving highly how masculine providers should be. By choosing to spend money on furniture over food for survival (constantly empty fridge) he's attempting to make the 'perfect home', for a family he doesn't have. This suggest the ideology of fight club is to emphasise to males the importance of keeping the traditional masculine roles and way of life.

The cancer groups are another example of confused masculinity; these are men who have attempted to conform to traditional masculine roles, but who have failed. The testicular cancer patients can no longer 'provide' for females, they have been stripped away from being able to become a father, and the lack of testosterone has resulted in a lack of masculinity. This can be seen in the father-figure who's wife left him due to him being unable to provide her with children. The character 'Bob' is a another example; oestrogen has caused female tissue fat to grow and has taken away his 'perfect masculine' body. Males such as these are now left confused how to live their lives after having their masculinity taken. This emphasises fight clubs ideology of the importance of masculinity in male lives.

Norton's 'power animal' is a penguin. This is a message showing contemporary masculinity to be useless. Penguins are black and white which represents the 'new man' being boring and basic. Penguins can't fly, showing the 'new man' to be skill less. Male penguins also look after the children in their habitat; this portrays the 'new man' as a home man and therefore not fulfilling his traditional masculine role.

A problem said to be with the modern man is their lack of having a role model and the focus being on the mother raising them; resulting in a lack of a father figure. The narrator created Tyler from his own self-conscious needs because he felt he needed one. The narrator can be seen to look up to Tyler; following his rules, his way of life and believing his views. Being brought up primarily by the mother means the child will naturally have feminine attributes within their personalities. Fight club goes against this and attempts to show how the father figure is hugely important in the child growing up to achieve their full masculinity. Traits such as separating the 'son' from the feminine 'nest' can be seen when Tyler takes Norton away from the comforts of his materialistic world. Teaching the 'son' about the 'real world' is portrayed through Tyler showing Norton how to fight and how to live like a 'real man'. The 'son' then kills the father to enter adulthood; seen through Norton's rejection of Tyler and resulting in Norton killing him. To an extent fight club proposes a traditional Oedipal narrative and the importance of other males being present.

Overall fight club's ideology and message is to the modern male; it's expressing the view that the 'new man' is feminised and isn't going to succeed if relying on materialistic goods and consumerism traits. However it does offer other views by incorporating Marla and introducing the importance of a partner. It also results in Norton killing his masculine role model; offering the idea that perhaps the 'new man' is a good and an a important adaption, but needs to find the right balance between pre-industrial society and modern society to be the perfect man.