Selling Soaps and saving Souls: A Study of violence in Fight Club

Professor Msc. Sandra MinaUEPA, Belem, PA, Brazil

Introduction

Fight Club (1999) directed by David Fincher was considered by critics as the most shocking film on violence at all times until the release of Dogville (2003)that became known as the most violent and visceral film at all time, replacing the it. However, Fight Club still fascinates for the various form of violence conveyed in the big screen.

Object of study

Fight Club (1999), directed by David Lincher

Objective

• This work aims at: • studying the several types of violence

depicted in the movie production. • Scrutinizing the roles of the main characters

Tyler Durden, performed by Brad Pitt and the nameless character, or narrator, played by Edward Norton in being both the source and the end of the violence.

Research relevance

Media literacy can provide the audience with “the skills necessary for analyzing and questioning the ideologies that often work at a subtextual level within media texts. “ (DINES, HUMEZ, 2011, p. 1)

And this work will attempt to access the subtextual meaning behind the textual media.

Methodology In order to perform this study, the three aspects by Dines

and Humez was adopted: *Studying of the political economy/production in the

moment of production of the film. *Performing the textual analysis. *Reading through the perspective of the audience.Besides that: * Studying of Johan Galtung concepts of violence. * Observing carefully the production. * Performing the study of the types of violence in the film.

Some concepts

Typology of violenceSurvival needs Well-being

needsIdentity needs Freedom

needsDirect violence Killing Maiming

Siege, Sanctions Misery

Desocialization Resocialization Secondary Citizen

Rpression Detention Expulson

Structural Violence

Exploitantion A Exploitation B Penetration Segmentation

Marginalization fragmentation

Direct violence

• The four classes of basic needs - an outcome of extensive dialogs in many parts of the world (Galtung, 1980a)-are:

• survival needs : death. mortality; • well-being needs: misery, morbidity;• identity, merrning needs : alienation;• freedom needs: repression). (p.292)

Structural violence • This simply means that some, the topdogs, get

much more (here measured in needs currency) out of the interaction in the structure than others, the underdogs

• . The underdogs may in fact be so disadvantaged that they die (starve, waste away from diseases) from it: exploitation A.

• Or they may be left in a permanent. unwanted state of misery, usually including malnutrition and illness: exploitation B. (GALTUNG, 1978, parts 1-111).

cultural violence

It s the legitimizer of both direct violence and structural violence.

And can be classified in the following fields. • religion and ideology, • language and art,• empirical and formal science (p.297)

Study

The narrator, played by Edward Norton, lives in a rich Condo, works under the supervision of a strict boss. Despite the fact that he is employed and able to purchase fine products to fill his new place, he is victim of the structural violence.

Structural violence

Topdogs: • Company of credit cards

through which the narrator purchases his fine products.

• His boss – always demanding more production

Underdogs: • The people who suffer

exploitation. In the film all the members of the support groups are outcasts of that society, not being able to cope with the violent structure.

“A violent structure leaves marks not only on the human body but also on the mind and the spirit” (GALTUNG, 1978, p. 294)

The narrator suffers from insomnia that obliges him to join support groups in order to feel the release and be able to sleep. Later the audience figures out that Tyler is in fact himself or his own hallucination. Tyler speaking to the narrator: “Hey, you created me. I didn't create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility! ”

Direct violence

Lack of identity – alienationTyler to the narrator.

“You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.”

Cultural violence

• Consumerism. •Media.• Fashion.That justify the direct and

structural violence.

Reaction to the structural violence , direct violence and cultural violence

• Direct violence as a form of relief, the creation of the Fight Club.

• Destruction of what is beautiful.

• “Tyler Durden: Where'd you go, psycho boy?

• Narrator: I felt like destroying something beautiful. ”

New: Direct violence / structural violence

• “Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club! Third rule of Fight Club: someone yells "stop!", goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: No shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight. ”

• Creation of a counter structure of violence

The narrator meets Tyler Durden who starts a fight group that later will be configured as a militia.

Fight club – discourse of counter cultural violencte

Tyler Durden: “Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. 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. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. “

New cultural violence justifies the reaction.

Fight the topdogs: the company of credit cards that are to be blamed by the oppression and consumerism.

Tyler’s job on making and selling soaps out to human fat disposed by liposuction clinics represents a discourse against fashion, media and consumerism.

Creation of a new cultural violence

• In the final scene, the narrator already aware that he is Tyler, and he had organized a militia, he just watch peacefully for the explosion of the credit card company as a final struggle against the topdogs and the system. The destruction ironically resembles a firework attraction on 4th of July, the day of independence Day in the US.

Final words

• The film Fight Club(1999) by Lincher conveys the violence of the system and the various types of violence that are generated from it.

• The audience is led to agree with the discourse of the creation of a new cultural violence conveyed in the film, as only a violence reaction would be capable of changing the system. However, there is not shown consistent change in the end, and the violence becomes an artistic language in the film.

• The individual has created the system and yet the system has created outcasts. Once the narrator is a victim of that system, he is the target of a violent system, that acts directly and culturally on his life. However, the narrator reacts generating violence, becoming also the source of more violence in society. The explosion of the credit card company does not represent independence for the citizens in the US, but a symbolical representation of a nostalgia for the independent will at the core of the creation of that nation.

Works cited

• A Cultural Studies Approach to Media: Theory. In: Race, Gender, and Class in Media. Ed. Gail Dines, Jean M. Humez. London: Sage. 2011, p. 1-5.

• GALTUNG, Johan. Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research. Oslo: Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway .Vol. 27, No. 3. Ago., 1990, p. 291-305

• Fight Club. Directed by David Lincher . 1999.