Anti-Capitalism in Fight Club

Nicole and Sam

“The things you own end up owning you.”

Capitalism – Definition…

An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

Henry Giroux…

Giroux states that the film is a failed critique which focuses on the consumerist culture and how it shapes male identity and ignores how Neoliberal Capitalism has dominated and exploited society.

Relating to or denoting a modified form of liberalism tending to favor free-market capitalism.

Schuchardt’s opposition to Giroux’s view…

Schuchardt disagrees with Giroux’s view that Fight Club attacks Capitalism. He claims “Its (Capitalism) alternative, Project Mayhem, which evolves out of fight club takes far more of its members’ individuality – names, clothes, hair, identities –than consumer culture can.”

Consumerism…• The Narrator does not have a name,

but ironically, he has an IKEA catalogue. He buys extensively from this catalogue to fill up his ‘empty sense of self’

• The most memorable sequence in regards to Anti-Consumerism is the well-known pan around the Narrator's apartment as it slowly fills with IKEA furniture which he chooses from his catalogue.

• This accentuates the fact that people (in David Fincher’s view) rely too heavily on big corporate companies to live. ”I flipped through catalogues and wondered:

What kind of dining set defines me as a person?”

Consumerism Continued...• Even the people the narrator

meets on airplanes are classed (by him) as ‘single-serving friends’. This implies that he has even started to view those around him from the point of view of consumerism. They are simply there to accompany him on his journey, once the journey is over, he can metaphorically ‘throw them away’, he has no reason to be friendly with them anymore.

”Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They're single-serving friends.” - The Narrator

‘The Office Scene’...

• Another scene which highlights people’s dependency on material goods is ‘The Office Scene’.

• Everybody in the office is drinking coffee. He goes on to say that ‘Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy’ This can be read as Fincher attacking the way Consumerism destroys individuality, everyone becomes similar as they have the same material goods.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol9CdCpSMac

Tyler Durden on Consumerism...• “We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession.

Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear.”

• Tyler so clearly points out that he feels that the world is becoming too dependent on material goods. Ironically, Brad Pitt graduated from university with a degree in journalism... He wanted to go into advertising... The exact thing his character is criticising.

• Giroux comments upon this, stating that it is poor casting, he says that it is very hypocritical for a man who started his career as a model to act as an anti-consumerist ‘vigilante’.

The Ending Sequence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Huy-JP1xo

Significance of the ending sequence…

• The final sequence of Fight Club sees Tyler on the verge of blowing up the major credit buildings. Through this, Fincher has highlighted the fact that people are too dependent on their personal belongings, and so, in order for everyone to be equal, these belongings must be destroyed. Perhaps Fincher is stating that Fascism is more beneficial to society than Capitalism?

To Conclude...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZqHYBezwx0