Fight Club – The Movie About Anyone In Today’S Society

“I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables - slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. ” - Tyler Durden, Fight Club.

Fight Club is undoubtedly one of the most thought provoking movies of all time. The story is told through what is called an unstable narrator. Hence, there is an absolutely baffling twist at the end of the movie. It’s the story of an overworked employee who hates his job. He is referred to as “the Narrator” and is never mentioned by a name. The Narrator possesses materialistic things because he believes that things that people own define them. They each tell a story about the owner. He shops at Ikea and strives to own the things that he believed told the best story about the kind of a person that he was. But he hated his life. He felt dead inside.

Day in and day out in his job. Identical products marketed as different just so consumers buy them thinking that they need them. Once, after a flight home, he finds out that his house was burned to the ground. And everything that he owned with it. On the bright side, he did make a friend on the flight, called Tyler Durden. He then calls Tyler, who is a very charismatic and carefree person. After having a few pitchers of beer at the bar, they go outside and this is where history happens. Tyler tells him to hit him and he does that. They go back and forth and afterwards something amazing happens. He finally felt alive. The pain made him feel like a human, not a robot who was only alive to serve a purpose in the corporate world. Something he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He could finally sleep. Afterwards, they start a fight club. The club keeps growing and Tyler Durden makes soldiers out of some of these fighters through training them in intense conditions. He is training them for project Mayhem. Everyone in project Mayhem becomes a nameless tool. They are all there for one purpose; to carryout the orders of Tyler. As the project goes on, the Narrator finds out that project Mayhem is about blowing up certain government buildings, to clear everyone’s debt. He confronts Tyler and finds out that Tyler is in fact the Narrator himself.

Tyler Durden is an alter ego, created by the Narrator’s mind. Someone who is not so invested in how others view him, but loyal to his own values. There are many messages to be interpreted from the movie that fit into a much broader social context. Fight Club effectively portrays the reason for many people not succeeding in creating a successful life, and being the person that they dream of. We find these through closely examining the characteristics of Tyler, and the Narrator. We all have a “Tyler Durden”, that we wish we could be. There is no name mentioned for the Narrator throughout the film. Which is, most likely, to imply how the movie could have been about anyone in today’s society. Someone who has an ideal person in their mind, but is so consumed and terrified by how other think of him, that he can never actually be the person that he wishes to be. What holds most people back from becoming the person that they desire to be, is other people’s opinions. They are afraid that they won’t be liked if they act in a certain way. They don’t want to offend anyone. They want to stay safe. However, you can never achieve greatness if you want everyone to like you. As Mark Manson mentions in his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***, we choose what to care about and what not to care about. Choose your values carefully and only care about those values. Not what other people think of you. As Medal mentions in “5 Reasons Leaders Should Follow the Example of Tyler Durden From 'Fight Club’“, “Granted, Tyler Durden’s vision was bat-poop crazy, but he fought for what he believed in. He saw the world as it was and didn’t like it. He had different plans, and went to extreme degrees to accomplish his new-world vision. ”

Medal continues his article by drawing a comparison between Tyler and one of the greatest visionaries of our time, Elon Musk. There are many people that think Musk is crazy and how his ideas are impossible. Including people in the aerospace industry such as the former astronaut, Neil Armstrong and the Physicist/astronomer, Neil deGrasse Thompson. However, Elon Musk stays true to his own values and goes all out, pursuing his insanely ambitious goals. Which is precisely what Tyler Durdon does. In conclusion, most people are not successful because they are more invested in what others think of them, than being faithful to their own values. Another difference between Tyler and the Narrator is that the Narrator believes that his material possessions define him. After everything in his house burns, he tells Tyler about how he had just gotten a sofa, a respectable wardrobe, and how he felt that he was almost complete. The culture of consumerism makes us believe that we will be happy when we buy our next item. Afterwards, we realize we need to buy another thing that we didn’t even know we needed. We will be happy until we realize that we need to buy more happiness. This is why Tyler believes that, “You have to know, not fear, know, that at some point, you’re going to die. It’s only when you’ve lost everything, that you’re free to do anything. ” As mentioned in an article on Gradesaver, Tyler strips the soldiers of Project Mayhem off their possessions, thoughts, wants and desires to set them free. On another note, later mentioned in the article, Tyler is very attached to the idea of rock bottom. The idea of freedom being achieved through the loss of materialistic possessions.

In brief, Fight Club portrays an ideal person as content. They don’t postpone their happiness to the time of their next purchase. Their happiness does not depend on what materialistic items they posses. Moreover, the Narrator is a person who always has to be in control. He has to be completely certain about everything. This can be shown in a scene where Tyler is driving a car and he lets go of the wheel. The Narrator holds the wheel, shouting at Tyler, telling him to stop messing around. Tyler tells him, “why do you always have to be in control? Just let it go. ” After hesitation, he finally lets it go. Sure enough, they get into an accident. There is a magnificent lesson in this. First of all, one can never control everything, and if she does, she will be immensely disappointed when she realizes that somethings are just out of her control. Furthermore, if one only gets into situations that its outcomes are controllable, he’s only getting into safe and risk-free situations where growth is very minimal. Medal makes a great point about this in his article, ”This is obviously an arguable point, but I say take the full risk. We’re all so used to “playing it safe, ” “hedging our bets” and “covering our asses. ” You know what that does? It stifles our passion. If I’m mitigating all of my risk, all of the time, I’m going to be lukewarm about everything I do. I’ll lose my passion. If I’m all in, I’m all in. ” Girard also explains this concept in his article. He talks about how we are constantly trying to control everything, “our own lives, other people’s lives, our emotions, the economy, the stock market. We lose our jobs, our spouses, gf/bf, our house or what not. And then we get depressed and upset about it. We pictured having such a nice and comfortable life. Only to figure out that all of this was just a dream. That we can't control anything. e just can't predict the future. We suck at it. So instead of trying to control things, live in past and/ or future memories we should let go. We should let go and live in the now instead. ” This indicates another consequence of always trying to be in control. Trying to be in control all the time, takes the ability to enjoy the moment away from us. That way, we are never truly present in the moment.

Finally and most importantly, Fight Club shows us (by showing the car accident take place) letting go is not because of knowing that everything will be alright. It’s about knowing that, even if things don’t go as planned and disasters occur, that it will be alright. That you can bounce back from adversity. If learning how to fly, it’s better to jump and fall, than not jump. You’re going to be safe. But you won’t ever know the taste of flying.

In conclusion, there are many ways in which what happens in Fight Club is relatable to many people in today’s society. Many people have the idea of an ideal person in their minds that they are not letting surface in their own character. They are afraid of what others might think of them. Hence, they are not faithful to their own values, and lack a great vision. They are more concerned with what their possessions say about them and what to buy next, than what genuinely makes them feel happy and alive. They are always looking seeking happiness in what they buy and postpone their happiness to when they hit their next milestone. I’ll be happy when I get that promotion. I’ll be happy when I get the Porsche.

Finally, as demonstrated by Fight Club, the unsuccessful and unhappy people, are those who always want to be in control. Those people will never be able to live in the moment. Not to mention, they will never take a big enough risk in their lives. Hence, they will never amount to anything due to the fact that minimal risk usually leads to minimal growth.