Fight Club is about how the narrator can get a girl he likes and not let himself feel that he's too good and done with the girl he originally wanted. Everything in the movie just played out in his head.

There's something wonderfully poetic about that line: "if people aren't given grace, understanding, and avenues to find wholeness and purpose in the new world, then they'll do anything they can to live in the graveyard of the old one" I love that!

Yeah that's a beautifully written and very accurate line. Are you a writer? If not, you should be.

I think it's the point, it's very easy to use true statements to abuse people when they are in a bad place while looking like you are helping them.

"...morally deficient for even being sad about it..." It's OK to be sad about it, but wallowing is self-defeating. "...you're terrible for feeling like you should have reached those goals..." At the end of the day, some people are going to be more resilient than others - if only because of how they were raised and what they were exposed to that molded them into who they are. Being an obedient cog in a great machine is not what happy people do, unless they're lucky enough for everything to go exactly right (which most aren't) and/or they have enough tonic dopamine to handle whatever adversity and tribulations that arise along their path into their future. Accepting a path laid out before you is antithetical to being a leader, or even just being free at all. People who just take the path set before them as a grind that holds the promise of contentment at the end will forever be grinding away and never actually reach contentment. If they do reach retirement, as planned, they won't be content, they will already be forced to accept that they never did anything that actually made their life feel worthwhile, and will only be merely resigning to coasting into their grave now that all is said and done. You have to exhibit some measure of autonomy, some semblance of selfness, and will something different and fulfilling from your own existence. A planned trajectory through life does not take each person's uniqueness into account. Nobody should be striving for the mundane pre-planned cookie-cutter life, because that's not life. Everyone should be leaving their mark, otherwise what's the point? They'll be much less likely to suffer the disappointment of being a failure if they follow their heart instead of what they've been told to do. People crow over the ashes of failure because they themselves are afraid to build anything at all. That's the trend I've been witnessing over my life. Where are all the Elon Musks and Steve Jobs? You don't do great world-changing things by doing what you're told by someone else. Now everyone wants to make video games, when they missed the boat by over a decade. I do believe that an entire generation has been hoodwinked, and will be sacrificed in a great civil war, because they were never taught to make something, and do something, they were just told what to do. College is a big fat rip off now. The Silicon Valley lifestyle is overcrowded, and not like everyone thinks it is - which is only how it was 20 years ago. People have been deluded into thinking that they can make a living sitting on a computer, instead of working with their hands and bodies - and it especially seems to be the case with kids who grew up in cities. They have been sheltered from the facts of sustaining their own existence. Food and water are things that just happen if they can pay for it, and they can pay for it with a desk job. Meanwhile the other ~70% of humanity has to farm/hunt their food. This generation has become so disconnected from the reality of what it takes to sustain their own existence that they're going to be at a total loss whenever times get tough, like they are right now. That's no one individual's fault. They can either accept that they were screwed over and adapt to go on and do great things - like the many 3rd worlders who come to the 1st world to become successful when coming from nothing at all - or they can implode and take down as many innocent people with them as possible and be forgotten like all of the mass shootings that happen every year. The US borders have been opened up to everyone and anyone to combat an entire generation that's imploding because it's not capable of producing anything of value without an employer to hold their hand, living at their parents, expecting cush desk jobs because they can't handle the thought of doing plumbing, electrical, construction, etc... If there is one or more specific individuals they should blame for their predicament it would be their own parents for sheltering them to be so spineless and entitled - while people come to the USA from all over with nothing and build themselves up to be something. The phrase "spoiled rotten" comes to mind. If these people can come to the first-world and make something happen, kids born and raised in the first-world have no excuse. No matter what may come it will be the resilient and robust that live on to write history, and definitely not the wannabe-revolutionary ANTIFA types that were too whipped by their parents to take control of their own lives, who now take out their frustration on their local communities. I can't believe the arrest videos I saw, these young adults throwing literal temper tantrums because they were being arrested for breaking long-established laws. Clearly they are children trapped in adult bodies that have never faced any kind of hardship whatsoever. Did their parents ever even have them do chores? To my mind, parenting is how we get to what we're trying to build, where parenting entails setting boundaries, establishing responsibilities, and creating a sense of self-discipline. Tomorrow's leaders are today's kids. Or, tomorrow's lost, lonely, confused, addicted, homeless, etcetera are today's kids. Society should be focusing on the future by focusing on the kids. Anyway, that's my 2AM rant for the night. Thanks for sharing your comment.

It is a good quote. To be fair to him, he does have some good quotes

@@mylittlethoughttree That's one of the fascinating things about this film. Tyler Durden is on to something. He does have legitimate, valid critiques of our modern society. The problem is that he goes so far in rejecting it, he becomes the very thing he railed against.

​@@CosmicPhilosopher yeah that's the thing. He identifies real problems with being a man in the modern world. It's just that his solution is exactly the complete wrong way to go about it. What the narrator (some people call him Jack) does at the beginning of the story is the real solution, the healthy solution, healthy masculinity. Whereas Tyler is toxic masculinity, the exact opposite. That's why teenage boys, who believe in performative masculinity more than why other demographic, find Tyler so alluring. He's SUPPOSED to he alluring. But also it's made so clear in the story that it's a complete mistake to follow him. Jack does the heathly thing at first, and it works wonders for him. He can sleep every night for the first time in his adult life instead of having chronic insomnia. He is healthier both mentally and physically than he's ever been, and Tyler is furthest away from existing at this point. He's happy, he's content in his masculinity. But when Martha comes into the story he feels emasculated again and so turns to the other option, he turns to toxic violent masculinity and becomes Tyler more and more until eventually he's more Tyler than he is Jack. I said it in another comment but it's no coincidence that Fight Club was written by a gay man, when gay men for all of recent history have been in this internal and external war, with the external being straight men who view gay men as being unmasculine, and the internal reaction to that of many of us gay men feeling the need to "prove" their masculinity to straight men by turning hypermasculine as a result, overcompensating. The gay community has taken decades to work out that we don't need to perform masculinity for the sake of straight men. And straight men have gradually worked out that it's OK to behave more like gay men in terms of being more willing to talk about your feelings and express masculinity in a healthy way. Each community has learned from each other. Especially back in Chuck Palahniuk's day when he was writing the book in the 90s, and going through the 80s as a gay adult man in his 20s with everything going on with the AIDS crisis and so on. It's a really common thing, at least for millenial men who are generally far more into healthy masculinity than any other generation of men since, I guess, ancient Greeks and Romans lol (I mean I'm saying that tongue in cheek because the Greeks and Romans had plenty of unhealthy masculinity too, but you know what I mean), where we watched it as young teen boys and the whole themes of the story completely went over our heads and we just thought Tyler was cool and fight clubs were cool. But then we watch it again in our 30s and understand the story for the first time and realise that it's not a story about fight clubs, or about a man with dissociative identity disorder, but it's about feeling emasculated by the modern world and the two directions, the two roads you can go down from there, to healthy masculinity or to toxic masculinity. The book and film are a criticism of men like Tyler and the Project Mayhem cult members, not an endorsement. Gen Z and Gen Alpha boys are worryingly seeming to go backwards, with there love of characters like Tyler, like Patrick Bateman, and real people like Andrew Tate. However I hope this is just a phase for them, like Fight Club was for us millenial men, and that eventually they'll grow up and understand how damaging that whole philosophy is to men ourselves. The victims of toxic masculinity, are men, and it's why we have a male suicide epidemic. Human brains don't finish developing until around age 25. Which does seem to match up with how boys and men see Fight Club completely differently when they watched it as teens and then watched it again once they were older than 25. I hope that young teen boys of today will look back and cringe at how much they loved Andrew Tate. If millenial men can do it, so can they. Fingers crossed anyway.

​@@duffman18This really speaks to the way that bigotry, or externalized hatred of particular demographics, is self-harming in addition to whatever damage is done to the intended target. We look at a group, we decide that they're a problem, and we stereotype them. Then we don't want to be part of the problem that they represent, so we avoid the behaviors that they stereotypically engage in, and eventually we've closed off entire parts of ourselves, aspects of ourselves we probably need. Since the parallels between what we see as traditional masculinity and stereotypical homosexuality were mentioned in your comment, we can use that as an example. Platonic physical affection between heterosexual men has not always been a taboo, and neither has the idea of men expressing emotional or physical pain. But we don't want to appear homosexual so we stay away from those behaviors. We may even ruthlessly belittle anyone who does display these traits, and berate children who aren't aware of these taboos and are unreservedly emotional and affectionate. After a couple of generations, the majority of straight men just... Don't know how to be affectionate anymore, don't know how to process emotion outside of the range of the ones society has deemed acceptable. And there's no one to teach them. They just kind of hurt and feel repressed and don't know what to do. Then there's the knock on effect. They can't form relationships. They hesitate to properly examine themselves, because self-examination is painful and they don't know how to deal with pain. If they can't look honestly at their own shortcomings then they stagnate, which just makes them feel more hopeless. They struggle to connect with their children. They make their romantic partners (if they have them) their therapists, which is both unfair and exhausting. And maybe their partners are so indoctrinated to the same worldview that they find masculine vulnerability off-putting, even when it's just a healthy request for support. It just keeps spiraling and growing until no one is happy, everyone is frustrated or angry, and we don't have what we need to fix it so we have to almost re-learn how to be fully human all over again. I'm rambling but I agree with you: What the Narrator was doing initially was seeing the wholeness of his humanity again, even if it was a hazy view. Then he shut the healthy doors and doubled down on the resentment and the rage. This movie is so good.

@@TheOneTrueDaedelus yep you're completely spot on. You explained it much better than I did. And you're completely right that this really is just a trend, that started toward the end of the Victorian era. There's a lot of writing by queer academics about how at the end of the Victorian era, straight men being affectionate and emotional and caring with other men began to be criminalised. Oscar Wilde is the quintessential example of this, although he was gay of course, but it had a huge knock on effect for straight men too. He was made an example of. And so from then on, throughout the entire 20th century, this very modern trend of men thinking masculinity means being stoic and unemotional and never talking about your feelings and never being caring and affectionate and tender with your male friends anymore, it just became the dominant way of thinking about how men should behave, at least across the western world anyway. I don't know too much about how it worked elsewhere in the world, but I know that certain places like in the middle east for example, men never really stopped being tender and caring with their male companions. They'd walk around hand in hand with them, and still do today, in places like Saudi Arabia, which is somewhat surprising at first. But they feel fine about doing that because they literally will publicly deny that gay men even exist in their countries, and so they think there's no "danger" from being affectionate with their male friends. They can be as affectionate as they want, because "gay men don't exist" in their countries according to them. But yeah in the west, especially in countries like the UK and the US, all of this kind of behaviour was criminalised. Before Oscar Wilde's time, men would be so much more affectionate than you'd imagine, they'd even kiss each other on the lips, and nobody thought it was "feminine" to do so. For most of history it seems, men were allowed to be affectionate with each other and express their feelings without fear of ridicule and social exile. At least within certain boundaries and framing of the behaviour. So the 20th century really did a number on men's psyche and mental health because of all this. But because it really is just a relatively short trend, and is already reversing today with more men than every being open about their feelings and their mental health, talking about it openly, seeking professional help from psychologists and therapists and so on if needed, not being afraid of expressing certain behaviours that previously would get you shamed by other men and many women too for being feminine and unmasculine. So I'm hoping that that continues and things get better for men as time goes on. And yeah everything you said was correct, like even today some women (not the majority, but still a fair amount) see these behaviours as unmasculine too and will ridicule men who do this, even people they've been in a relationship for a while and claim to love, when men open up their feelings to them, a break up soon follows. But yeah you're also perfectly right that all this bottling up of their emotions meant that a lot of men dealt with them in terrible ways, as you say turning their girlfriends and wives into their therapists because they refuse to go see a professional, which is just completely unfair and a huge burden to put on your significant other. Even if you're married, it isn't their job to manage your emotions like that, like you're a kid. Obviously it's great to both talk about your feelings and mental health and help each other through difficult times, but yeah there's a difference between that and just dumping everything onto them and expecting them to fix you like they're a trained doctor. And of course a lot of men turned to things like alcohol and used that as their way of dealing with bottled up emotions. It's such tricky thing. But dealing with feelings at the start, when they're still small, nipping them in the bud instead of bottling them up for years until the bottle one day finally explodes all over everyone and harms all the people closest to you, friends and family, is the best way. And it's getting more and more accepted these days. So yeah this will be eventually seen as simply a relatively short trend, that lasted maybe 150 years or so, but then eventually things returned to how they were before the late 20th century and men's mental health will improve greatly. That's the hope anyway. Sorry I'm rambling too now lol. But yeah you explained it far better than I could. So thank you for that. I completely agree with you.

Yeah the line about his dad is great! One simple sentence that gets to the heart of so much. If I was ever to make a character analysis, that's such a fascinating point I should do those films, yeah!

I always liked "Bob. Bob had bitch tits." Really stuck with me.

Thinking of some of the gay men I knew back in the 90's makes Marla's character make a lot more sense to me! Thanks for the info!

Yeah, I was going to mention that, especially the fact they're called "human sacrifices" but then I wondered if I was misunderstanding and those are the IDs of people who joined project mayhem

This was clarified in the book. The IDs are of the victims of “cut and run”. The whole scene with Raymond K Essel didn’t happen in the book and instead there were castrations of innocent men. The author was obsessed with castration.

Marla? No… she is real. Idk where people get that. I’ve seen that on Reddit. It’s interesting, but objectively wrong.

I personally prefer her being real because I think the narrator holding her hand at the end gets to symbolise him finally engaging with the real world. Nonetheless, there are reasons that could suggest it and there's still a lot to gain from that interpretation

I thought about that too, and it is possible. The only thing is that other people interact with Marla in ways that don't happen with the narrator/Tyler

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ra51atJz27XPaYk.htmlsi=M6dgFDD3ywzQ5XxU

Marla is real. That is explicitly made clear at the end of the novel. Marla arrives at the top of the Parker morris building with the support group to check on the narrator. At that instant Tyler disappears because he is not real. But Marla is still there because she is real. And Bob is real. The only fake personality is Tyler. This is made very clear in the novel.

This video is a great double feature with Cinema Therapy's video on Aragorn from LotR (the movies specifically) as an example of positive masculinity.

Nooooo!!! It's such a good film, especially for therapeutic ideas. It explores so much that so many struggle with

It's interesting at the time that gay writers had their own genre in bookshops and Chuck didn't discuss his sexuality until later, which is absolutely fine. But at the time there was a casual and widely accepted homophobia, as can be seen in episodes of friends from the same time. I love the book and film, although it's appealing to more right wing perspectives now. But at the time there was very little discussion of maleness and constructs of masculinity. Other than ken in the recent Barbie film, perhaps there still isn't. Thank you for the video and your insights.

@@darkfuture3291 it is funny as the first scene in the book from my memory is on a nudest beach where tyler is described by the narrator in way that is not subtle. The unfortunate thing being that that right wingers totally miss the point of the book and the film, Tyler identifies real problems however his solutions are juvinile and unsustainable.

The nude beach scene is like at least 20 pages in. The first scene is at the top of the Parker morris building where Tyler has the narrator hostage and the space monkeys are throwing things out the windows. And the plan is to blow up the building in order to destroy the real target: a museum next door. Then the flash backs begin. It’s pretty similar to the movie

I could see that making some sense. Eitherway, I think it's different to a situation a stranger forces you into, where you remain terrified that they have your ID and will be back in another 6 weeks

@@mylittlethoughttree yeah, that's my reality. paranoia/hypervigilance is already an issue for me on a good day. I'm too busy wondering if rustling leaves are people creeping around. I don't have time for some guy with a gun who talks to himself to know where I live.

Oh my god the bridge was one of the hardest documentaries for me to watch in my life. The only one that surpassed it is Dear Zackary 😭

The bridge was such a hard watch… honestly, when they showed the long shot and then you hear a splash and you realize that was a person who had jumped… that sticks with me.

Do you mean katie episode 13? Yeah, there is a community post or you can find it via the playlist. It is unlisted but all of them are put in the public playlist I have for the katie videos

And you're so sure you do?

@@kieranstyx3633I mean, they’re likely right…the main litmus test is whether you think Tyler’s actions and philosophy are correct.

Which Tyler? The real one or the imaginary one? Which actions and which philosophy? Many of the things done and said by Tyler, the narrator, or the movie itself are completely (and most likely intentionaly) contradictory. The problem here is one can only actually find a "point" to this film by intentionally ommiting or ignoring aspects of it to project a narrative they WANT to see.

@@kieranstyx3633Yes…which is what certain groups of men do, hence why the original comment said that media literacy is down; they don’t see the contradictions.

The only way to actually get to the heart of seemingly oxymoronic narrative like this is to actually go to the source and look at the writers intentions. Chuck has specifically said that he thinks art should be and is best when its a rorshach test. Considering most people, including himself, consider fight club to be his magnum opus, it stands to reason that this is exactly what Fight Club actually is.

My point was that it's not as simple as that. I'm someone myself who almost lost my life but to give someone a near death experience and see it as a total positive because it'll make them appreciate life, is far too straightforward an approach to what Tyler does. There's still trauma, there's the threat of further danger, there's his loss of agency in his own life decisions, there's the fact he might not even want to be a vet. I don't deny there's logic to Tyler but thst doesn't make it right

He does indeed, but all the emphasis is on what he wanted to be back then, without asking what he wants to be now. He threatens Raymond into pursuing what he once wanted to be, based on a college ID, without ever considering there might be a reason he broke away. Tyler could've easily asked why Raymond left. Raymond loosely mentions "too much studying" but does that mean he "failed" and needs to try again, or does it mean the studying wasn't right for him, or that it hindered his ability to pursue other interests?

Technically yes, there are odd little moments in this film where I see Tyler like an insecure 12 year old boy or something, trying his best to seem tough. There's something about that that strike some empathy from me, however he is really a projection of the narrator's, and what he thinks strength means, so the fact it is so completely flawed and opposed to deeper empowerment, agency, and self confidence is a very fun irony

As far as we know from the movie, the only person that actually dies as a direct result from project mayhem's actions is Bob. All of their other destructive actions involve no casualties, at least none that are actually shown or reported or mentioned. And he doesn't want a dog eat dog world, he wants to end that in favor of small community cooperative living.

@@bolo2393 That's a pretty good point! To me, I see that more in the context that Bob is the only person the narrator learned the name of, the only one that would matter to him. Others may have died, he just may not have recognised or taken them to heart. It's easy to enjoy chaos until it hurts someone you know. That's my interpretation anyway. I love how endlessly it could be discussed in a new light

His name was Robert Paulson

Ahh if only it was as cool as Tyler makes it look! 😆

Is she? I thought she was real!

"you have six weeks to win an election and become the American president"😂

I have, I very nearly drowned at sea and thought it was over. I suppose the fact is not everyone experiences everything the same way, and this isn't just about a near death experience. Tyler says it is but it's also the threat of a man coming back in six weeks and killing you if you haven't performed well enough. I reckon there's a big difference in that

Well you're not wrong, no. The child example was an analogy I admitted didn't fit exactly however you still have to ask why hit something that breaks? What is it about destroying it that feels important? There are many possible answers there but also why hit it with your plain fists, knowing it will hurt, rather than grabbing something to hit with or kicking or throwing? I don't think the answer is a 1-1 situation. Often it's a lot of different contradictory things but with all the narrator talks about death and even fantasises about it, his own destruction is definitely one factor

@@mylittlethoughttree I believe I know the answer. The child is being raised in a chaotic environment, where morals and dogmas are touted, but never adhered to. Children are more in tune with plain and simple truth than the society/cultural (root word being cult) groups rearing them.

Not really sure what to make of your comment, you might need to elaborate? I was 16 when I saw it on dvd, I was born in 1995. I also dislike the phrase toxic masculinity but concede it is one people use nowadays and that it's supposed to mean taking ideas of masculinity to such an extreme that they become destructive and self-sabotaging. Toxic is a phrase that has evolved to take on different meanings. I have read a lot of Camus but I concede I have not read the book yet, I really do need to although I don't think there's anything wrong in making a video about the film, especially when a lot of people including Chuck himself, have suggested the film is better. Modern psychology has no desire to make anyone a cuckold or to emasculate, though. That's kind of my point when I say the film pokes fun at the group therapy: they feel emasculating to the narrator. They do not work for him, and therapy can often fall into that trap for men. However, I personally think it's mistake to chalk off modern society as wishing to emasculate men or make them cuckolds. I think it's that kind of extreme that led someone like the narrator to jump too far into the opposite extreme, chasing whatever the hell feels most "masculine" to the point he actively damages his life and loses a greater sense of agency

That's fine, I can understand people disagreeing. I know times I've felt like an ape in chains but I also know seeing it that way, by definition, creates a perspex where I'm making myself a prisoner. We have to engage with the world as it is. I think a lot of men can live happy and fulfilling lives. Even hundreds or thousands of years ago, great gurus and zen masters are interesting from that viewpoint

Admittedly, I changed the title after the video was performing poorly (not that that's helped 😆) Of Marla being imaginary, it is definitely one valid interpretation. As I say, there's about ten different interpretations I could've made videos about, Marla being imaginary would fit into several of them. Generally, I personally prefer seeing her as real, though. There's no concrete evidence to suggest that she isn't (the way Tyler is explicitly revealed to be imaginary) and I think it undermines the themes and the narrator's growth if holding hands with Marla doesn't get to represent engaging with reality again

​@@mylittlethoughttree I assumed she was imaginary because every time she had sex with Tyler, the narrator is "self improving"... reading, exercising etc... I thought that was him masturbating because of what Tyler said early in the movie.

If it's an old house, good walls. If it's a cheap house, I imagine the bedroom wall is either hollow or plasterboard. It's worth adding I work mostly with children from low income families

I dunno if it was known that would happen. I think they have a vision for art and they follow that without too much conscious thought of how its message will be received or what its influence will be. That said, there is a long, long history of people deliberately misinterpreting stories to fit their agenda. I personally think it's always going to happen regardless but if people can get sucked into the wrong of fight club, then eventually learning to recognise that and see the film properly, that realisation I think could have a big affect in changing a person's viewpoint: if they can realise the thing they loved isn't what they thought at all. I don't think that's bound to happen either, but I do think it's all hard to judge

It is very disappointing but it’s unfortunately reality. I mean, think of religion. It’s made many worse contributions to societal norms than this movie yet it is still considered a peaceful, loving religion because some of the followers say so, despite many people interpreting its teachings as reasons to harm, conquer, murder. I’m not one to usually defend religion, I don’t really think I am, but more so defending that, as my little thought tree said, people will always choose to misinterpret things to fit their own perspective. Taking everything art related away, from movies to pictures to stories, will not change them, they’ll only start saying the leaves are whispering truths to them.

Oh so you're a fascist, then? You only want people to interpret art the way you want it interpreted? New ideas, and associations aren't born from it. The human race doesn't progress for good, or bad. Awkward conversations you will learn as you age are necessary conversations. Fear is for weaklings.

I would rather have so called dangerous ideas readily available to be openly discussed than to have "thought police". The latter makes the world an infinitely worse place.

Well as I say, does he actually want to be a vet? Would he feel it's his achievement or something he was just forced into under threat of death? Would that stunt his passion? And yes, the trauma of being taken at gunpoint and being told you're about to die. That's almost certainly a traumatic experience. I'm not saying there isn't a logic to Tyler's idea but it's nowhere near that simple. I'm also not just talking theoretically, I have known people who were held at gunpoint and it can be a very damaging experience for them

Pretty sure you have no earthly idea how someone would be affected by that. The irony of you calling someone else out for speculating on the topic is absurd

Nah, that's kind of what I meant too. His image of great sex is super aggressive, destructive, dominant towards the woman. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself but it is a good symbol for his view of women, especially the woman who's very presence made him feel vulnerable (not that she actually made that happen, but you know what I mean 😆)

I was 16 years old and had a lot of rage, and the idea of fighting felt appealing in that sense. We thought with gloves and not in pub basements, but I completely misunderstood the film at that age, yeah 😆