‘Fight Club’ and Marxist’ Ideology. Work by Matilde Lopes

Throughout this essay, I will analyse and explore the connection between David Fincher’s film, ‘Fight Club’ (1999), and some of the elements that define the Marxist Ideology, developed by Karl Marx and, to a lesser extent, by Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. I will present connections and examples between the social and philosophical ideas portraited in ‘Fight Club’ to some of the ideals of the Marxist Ideology.

‘Fight Club’ is a 1999 film adapted from the novel with the same name, written in 1996 by Chuck Palahniuk. The director David Fincher, that by 1999 had directed films like ‘Alien 3’ (1992) and ‘Seven’ (1995), was selected to direct this film due to his passion for the story, being that he also helped Jim Uhls in writing the script.

In ‘Fight Club’, the audience follows the story of an unnamed narrator (Edward Norton) who finds himself completely disconnected from his life, his office job and the current social environment he lives him. The narrator also suffers from chronic insomnia and in one of his attempts to get some sleep in an aeroplane, he meets a soap salesman named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Later, they meet in a bar were Tyler asks Edward Norton’s character to relieve his anger by hitting him. This is the moment that leads to the creation of the ‘Fight Club’. The Club would become a symbol of freedom to the oppressed men living in a materialistic society, where money and material possessions are the main care, and that imposes certain social behaviours and moral expectations to the everyday common men, making life a capitalist cage. In the film, the audience also gets to meet Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), a character that offers a female view of what it is like to live in an oppressed society, mostly dominated by the male figure and its roughness, ending up experiencing similar feelings and thoughts as the main character.

This film introduces a connection between violence and freedom in several scenes, while also presenting deep questions about real-life issues and philosophical questions about the warped materialist society that men built.

In an interview, David Fincher said that ‘Fight Club’ is like a coming-of-age film but for people in their 30’s. The director explains that the narrator tries to do everything according to the way he was thought and tries to fit in by becoming an ‘everyman’ without his personality. Fincher also points out the fact that the unnamed narrator follows a path to the enlightenment in which he must kill three symbolic parts of his life. He starts by ‘killing’ of his parents, which happens in an earlier part of the story. Later, he ‘kills’ his God by doing morally questionable things. The last part he must kill is the figure of the teacher, in this case, Tyler Durden, which happens in the final scene. By following this path, he becomes completely ‘free’ by the end of the film.

Now that we have outlined the plot and some key points of the story within ‘Fight Club’, we must explore the Marxist Ideology. Is important to notice that Marx developed these ideas a century and a half before the release of the film ‘Fight Club’.

In order to better understand Marxism, we must outline the three original ideas in which it was founded. First, the idea is of philosophical anthropology, then a theory of history and what he called historical materialism, and finally an economic and political program that could be implanted in society.

The central question of philosophical anthropology is: What is the difference between man and other living beings? Karl Marx tried to answer by trying to understand human nature and the human’s species. By doing this he understood that there is an anthropologic need to live in society, which leads to the creation of classes and power dynamics.

When it comes to the theory of history, Karl Marx explores history itself to understand the how’s and whys behind the building of societies and communities. One of the ideas he developed was the one of the historical materialism, a theory of socioeconomic development according to which changes in material conditions are the primary influence on how society and the economy are organised, being that capitalist societies value money and economic status above all things.

“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto.” (Marx, Karl, 1859, “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy”).

Marx concludes that the need to produce and to generate material goods ends up consuming a society, making it entirely focused on the production and letting go of the human consciousness and character. Men are just machines part of the economy, means to make money.

But Karl Marx did not only focus on the philosophical questions and the creation of new ideas. Marx wanted to create a ‘program’ in which society could follow his ideologies and improve on itself, a ‘program’ for humanity. To do it, he needed to understand the relation between Men and society.

"Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand." (Marx, Karl, 1859, “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy”).

Marx pointed out that the basis of human societies is the need to produce and obtain goods. This contributes to the creation of classes according to your rule throughout this process. When the dominant class is displaced by a new emerging class, by overthrowing the "political shell" that enforces the old relations of production no longer corresponding to the new productive forces. This change can occur through violence and riots.

Karl Marx developed a new notion of a collective society, that focused on the growth of the humanity and its contributions to building a new economic and social dynamic, free of the materialist obsession that corrupted men.

After exploring some of the key points that Karl Marx developed to support and create the Marxist Ideology, I can now present some examples in which the film ‘Fight Club’ reflects on the problems of a materialist society and exposes some of the ideas behind Marxism.

In ‘Fight Club’, on the mark of 00:04:50, the audience gets the first notion of the capitalist society the main character lives in and how it as affected is own personality. We see Edward Norton’s character sited in the toilet, holding a furniture catalogue while ordering a new piece of furniture for his house. The audience can also hear the same character narrating and specifically naming the store, Ikea, which a multi-million chain store across the world, which in itself is a symbol of capitalism and consumerism. This scene not only shows us how easy it has become to acquire things but also how the action of purchase as becoming almost meaningless. The scene continues, now with a panoramic shot of one living room where everything has a tag with the name, the price and a description of said piece, while the narrator says, “I flipped through catalogues and wonder: what kind of dining set defines me as a person?” (‘Fight Club’, 1999), suggesting a society where individuals are defined by their belongings.

Around the 22-minute mark, the audience meets Tyler Durden, a soap salesman. He represents freedom and anarchy, the opposite of the narrator. A few moments later we see that the narrator’s apartment add exploded and we see him with a sad look on in face while reminiscing his lost furniture almost like he had lost someone. This is another indicator of an individualist society where people care about themselves and their belongings only.

The narrator calls Tyler in hopes to get a place to stay. They meet at a local bar where they talk about different things. They go outside and Tyler says to the narrator to hit him. This is the moment where violence starts. This part represents a change in the attitude of the main character which is now allowing himself to break the moral codes imposed by his society. As Marx pointed, there is a point where certain individuals from certain social groups have the need to break the shell of society and give place to the new, in my opinion, this is the moment where that change starts and that carries throughout the film.

When both characters create the Fight Club, the audience gains access to a group of individuals from different social groups and different upbringings. This group represents the order in the chaos, an Eden for violence and freedom. One of the points that I would like to underline is that the club is exclusive to the male gender, making the point that is men are the ones that suffer the most from the restraints imposed by society and at the same time they are the ones that have the strength to fight it. This male dominance will also bring up the issue around the representation of the male figure in a materialist society, a problem that is usually more associated with the women. This problem is then introduced in a scene where the narrator and Tyler ride on a bus. In the bus the narrator sees am ad for Gucci underwear. Here we see a depiction of the ideal men being represented on media, which is highlighted as another problem within this extreme materialistic society. We hear the narrator talking about how high the standards for men are, because not only do they need to have material goods and pay for a certain lifestyle, but they also need to look a certain way, with muscular physic and manly features. This shows a society that makes people care deeply about the way they look, profiting from the deep desire to look like the ideal specimen. ‘Fight Club’ explores this problem, which is deeply associated with the female gender, by putting the male figure depicted on the poster as an object desire by women and envied by men. The narrator takes the side of the ones that question this ideal chosen by society and how difficult it is to achieve.

The focus of the plot is the need to overthrow the ‘Big Men’, the corporate men, in order to change the current state of society. A film that also represents this need for a change is ‘Sorry to Bother You’ (2018). Both films present oppressed classes, men completely numb to their white-collar jobs and tired of struggling to manage to get what to eat and a place to sleep.

The problems depicted in both films continue to exist in the current societies of the world. In Marx’s days was the complete control of royalty and the lack of vote that oppressed the lower classes in a Europe that was built on appearances and power dynamics between the wealthy. Nowadays, even when elections take place, the power of money can dictate who is above the law and who needs to be controlled. Recent events in the USA, like the manifestations, led by the death of George Floyd, show us that people are still ready to fight in hopes to change a materialistic society that only cares about the one per cent.

Filmography:

‘Fight Club’ (1999) Directed by David Fincher. USA/ Germany/ Italy.

‘Sorry to Bother You’ (2018) Directed by Boots Riley. USA

Bibliography

Engels, F., Marx, K. (2014) ‘The Communist Manifesto’, Penguin Classics

Etherington-Wright, C., Doughty, R. (2017) ‘Understanding Film Theory’, London: Macmillan Education UK, “Chapter 6- Marxism” (pp. 104-120)

Marx, K. (1970) ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’, Progress Publishers.

Ta, Lynn M. (2006) ‘Hurt So Good: Fight Club, Masculine Violence, and the Crisis of Capitalism’ (p. 265), Blackwell Publishing. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1542-734X.2006.00370.x (Accessed: 18 January 2021)

Webography

“Fight Club”, IMBD. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/ (Accessed: 22 January 2021).

“David Fincher”, IMBD. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000399/?ref_=tt_ov_dr (Accessed: 22 January 2021)

Lizardo, O. (2007) ‘Fight Club, or the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism’, Taylor & Francis Online. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14797580701763830 (Accessed: 22 January 2021)

McLellan, D. T. (1998) ‘Marxism’, Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Marxism (Accessed: 22 January 2021)

Veltmeyer, J. (2019) ‘The Cultural Marxist attack on Western society’, The Washington Times. Available at: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/aug/22/cultural-marxist-attack-western-society/ (Accessed: 22 January 2021)