"This is called the change over, the movie goes on and nobody has any idea..."
As the adapted from literary, cinematic bible of the modern male identity unfolds through Fincher's 1999 guru (better than master) piece Fight Club unfolds it’s natural that in the first dozen necessary viewings to consider, among many greatnesses, the moment of true unveiling in this movie to be that moment when the protagonist realizes the true nature of his identity, and his relationship(s), and his sanity.
And that common consideration is not entirely wrong, from the stand point of plot, but that analysis loses this fist fight if you're after a victory and if your dilemma is theme.
The dilemma begins with a discussion of what this story is really about. The interpretation of this humble viewer/reader, and I can say with confident modesty that I know this story well, begins with a question about the modern male identity. To put it simply: "Why do we know what a duvet is?"
As the first act moves into the second, the confused male identity encounters the assured and their friendship produces a series of possible answers to the image of the masses polishing the brass on the Titanic. We in the discussion consider a primal answer, a path from under the covers and through the catalogues.
But the story does not end after Fight Club's first two rules.
Fight Club becomes Project Mayhem in Act Three. The fighting men, the waiters, gas station attendants, and the slaves in white collars who are cathartically accepting that they will never be movie gods and rock stars gather on the porch on Paper Street to become loyal space monkeys. We approach the change over, and this is where the real dilemma begins.
It is quite fine and acceptable in the ingestion of movies and books and stories of such depth to stop at face value. The device of the plot twist involving the two protagonist identities can be viewed as a twist for plot's sake, while the action moves and resolves, and the buildings fall and the Pixies play. But here is the changeover...
That's not the changeover.
The answer in the form of fighting our way to rock bottom only becomes more questionable in the pursuit of anarchy.
Men defining themselves in opposition to modern convention becomes a paradoxical undefinition as a commune of soldiers seeking to demolish the consumer paradise around them, as they become disciples and acolytes, a paradoxical parody of the identities they rediscovered in those basement brawls.
What is this story saying about the male identity in the post-post modern era? Who are we supposed to be, as we emerge from the shadows of our fathers and confront the conveyor belts of society, beckoning us into consumer servitude? Is the answer to gather in basements and fight, to rise from them to forge a very masculine anarchy? Shouldn’t we be seeking some individuality digging down to rock bottom?
I will avoid my own Durdenesque tendencies and answer with no answers. I actually have more questions.
What are we without balance? Who among us doesn't identify with both protagonists in various sections of the journey? Who doesn't see himself as part James Bond, part Plato, part thinker and part fighter, knight and scoundrel, simultaneously a product, opponent, reflection, improvement, and a weak interpretation of his father?
Isn't that the point? Balance with chaos, another bad guy after the last, a mountain with no peak, a race with no finish?
The modern man, standing across the basement in the meeting we’re not supposed to talk about, and not supposed to talk about, is a fight with ourselves that we can't win, won't lose, but will always show up for. Keeping your dukes up, because nothing is certain, the only answer is more questions…
…And we are not our fucking khakis.
P
