The first time I saw Fight Club, when it came out in 1999, I said, “I am going to teach the fuck out of this.”
And I have.
It’s a beautifully constructed film (dir. David Fincher), based on a powerful novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
It also strikes a chord with those of us who want to understand and who fear toxic masculinity.
(Sadly, it also appeals to those who are toxic. I have had a few young male students misunderstand the film, seeing it as an endorsement of Tyler Durden’s worldview, instead of as a critique of it.)
I most recently taught it in an advanced composition class as part of a zeitgeist assignment.
Fight Club set now would be a very different movie.
A 2019 Fight Club would still critique consumer culture and its role in what’s bothering our straight middle class white men–Susan Faludi explained in 1999 that contemporary Western men feel adrift–they are no longer respected simply for being men; they struggle to financially support themselves and their families. Faludi noted that they were actually in a position close to women in the 1950s–encouraged to find satisfaction by looking good (hitting the gym and using product) and buying the right things. Faludi called this the culture of ornament.
The protagonist in the film isn’t satisfied in ornamental culture. Divorced from real connections with people, he attempts to find happiness in self-help groups and then in a hyper-masculine paramilitary terrorist organization.
Notably, he doesn’t ever try helping another person or finding an honest connection with others.
Our protagonist would still have the same choices before him if he were having his crisis in 2019. More might be made of escaping with drugs, though. In the film, he asks for sleeping pills–his doctor refuses because the narrator needs real sleep. It’s likely he would have gotten his hands on pills some other way–and perhaps pain killers–if the movie were set now. (One can also imagine an epidemic of opiate use in the Fight Club members–there are so many emergency room visits–so many broken bones.)
A 2019 movie would likely show the men to be even more misogynistic than they were in 1999. Tyler explains that they were raised by women and abandoned by their fathers–he questions whether they need women. But it’s likely those same men now would also be incels–the whiny, insecure men who think they are owed sex, that women shouldn’t get to turn them down. Tyler famously said: “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.” Inherent in the promise of being a millionaire movie/rock star is the promise of women chasing you. Not having easy access to sex is part of why weak men are very, very pissed off now.
And incels are a growing problem in domestic terrorism.
Speaking of domestic terrorists, Fight Club‘s world is overwhelmingly white. Would today’s Tyler be resorting to racism and a fear of immigrants to make his army? Probably.
Watching Fight Club in the #metoo era is interesting. Project mayhem isn’t just attacking corporations and chain coffee places–one of the headlines we see is “Performance Artist Molested.” One shudders to imagine what they did.
But the biggest change when watching this movie now is the intense discomfort when the protagonist threatens to commit a mass-shooting at work. We hadn’t had as many of those incidences in 1999–not enough for the manager to fire him and call the cops, which is what I’m assuming would happen now.
The protagonist makes a clear threat after his boss asks him about the Fight Club flier in the copy machine:
“Well, I gotta tell you: I’d be very, very careful who you talk to about that, because the person who wrote that… is dangerous. And this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho might just snap, and then stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. This might be someone you’ve known for years. Someone very, very close to you.”
He then notes these words are Tyler’s.
How does anyone watch this now and think Tyler’s ideas are good ones?
Update: McSweeney’s also played around with how we should understand Fight Club 20 years later here. It’s awesome.
Second update: When I taught this in Winter 2020, one of my students said it looked like a pretty Republican world, because he saw so many American flags. I then had to explain that back in the 1990s, flying or wearing a flag had nothing to do with political party. It’s only after the 2000 election and 9/11 that Republicans somehow co-opted it. (Notably, that’s the election that invented the idea of “red” and “blue” states.)
A few days ago, I had lunch with an old friend. She admitted she was worried about bumping into her ex, who presumably still lives in Davis.
“I’ve been rehearsing in my head what I’d say to him,” she confessed.
“I do that all the time,” I admitted.
And I do. I rehearse arguments in my head rather chronically. I think it’s a mixture of being a worrier/PTSD sufferer and a conflict avoider. My brain is convinced that if it worries and plans enough, it can solve things and avoid conflict and the things that lead to PTSD.
It can’t, of course–and my head spinning excessively in circles makes my body sick, but my brain won’t listen to me when I tell it to stop.
So when I happen to think of exes (I see something one gave to me, hear a song that reminds me of them, listen to a tale of woe that sounds familiar), my head starts rehearsing what I would say to them.
It’s not every ex–mostly the recent ones and the ones I might have unfinished business with, emotionally. My brain knows that I didn’t get to have my say.
“You were rude to my friends,” it says.
“Would it have killed you to come to my place sometimes?”
“Dating you was the worst mistake I ever made.”
And that’s it, really.
It all has way less to do with these men than it has to do with me.
My anger, my prepared speeches–they’re a form of projection.
It’s me I’m actually mad at.
Why didn’t I stand up for myself?
Why did I think I didn’t deserve better?
Why did I let you treat me this way?
Until I can answer, I guess my brain will keep scripting.
In 2016, I mentioned that I had the pleasure of seeing John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons at Berkeley Rep.
You can now have the pleasure of watching it too–it’s on Netflix.
Leguizamo’s shows are amazing–he’s funny and high energy and always dances for us (he’s a great dancer), but more importantly, they are poignant.
This is my favorite of them all.
Leguizamo’s son is getting bullied and is stymied by his history project, which asks about heros–who are the heroes from his culture? They certainly aren’t in his history books.
Leguizamo realizes that he knows nothing about his culture’s heroes either. But he did a lot of research. Here, weaved into his family’s story, we get the highlights. You’ll learn, you’ll laugh, you’ll cringe. This is a master writer, actor, and comedian at work.
Watch this with your friends and family. And then make sure you watch it again next year for Thanksgiving, as we balance our thankfulness for family with our mourning for our colonial past and our admiration for the Latinx heroes in this nation, like John Leguizamo.
All I knew about The Bone Doll’s Twin, the first book in the Tamir Triad, was that it was a fantasy novel written by a women. I couldn’t remember which internet list had recommended it to me.
The series takes place in a medieval-type world, in country long ruled by women. Once a male in the royal line takes power, he attempts to secure his patrilineal line by doing away with women who could claim it back. There’s a prophecy and a ban on training and allowing women to be warriors, although they had been for aeons.
There’s a prophecy, difficult choices, madness, and magic.
This is also a thoughtful meditation on gender, sex, and sexuality, asking what it means to foster and fight sexism, what happens when your true self is denied, and what difference a body makes to the self.
As in much contemporary fantasy, we explore class, gender, war, battle strategy, othering, education, love, and friendship.
Many will enjoy the LGBTQ themes in the book; I enjoy that our cast is varied, just as our world is.
The Bone Doll’s Twin was published in 2001, followed by The Hidden Warrior in 2003, and by Oracle’s Queen in 2006. I’m looking forward to reading the companion series, The Nightrunner.
My Google calendar shows me all the American holidays.
This year, it lists Black Friday as one of them.
I’ve never been one to “celebrate” this holiday. I don’t like crowds or shopping. I don’t buy big ticket items for myself or others. I didn’t grow up shopping that weekend–Thanksgiving was always at my grandparents’ house, in the country.
I can’t remember when this day became big, but I have vague memories of seeing reports of the crowds, the near-riots. And I remember being upset when stores started opening on Thanksgiving night (according to the internet, that happened in 2011).
I have ex-pat friends overseas who are confused by the UK retailers’ efforts to stage sales on the Friday after Americans celebrate a holiday–in a country where people don’t celebrate Thanksgiving and thus when no one has the days off, what is the point?
A couple of years ago, I was flabbergasted by my students’ response to “Bart vs. Thanksgiving,” from Season 2 (1990).
“It’s not realistic–they didn’t talk about Black Friday.”
I tried to explain to my students that the episode does capture an older form of Thanksgiving–one in which the holiday wasn’t linked to shopping in that strong a way.
I love that he stayed at a difficult job to pay off the student loans for his PhD.
I love that he has a PhD.
I love his singing voice.
I love his optimism.
I love the way his optimism is challenged sometimes, because mine is too.
I really hope that the rumors that the show is going to stop writing him into storylines aren’t true.
In many ways, I don’t get to have an opinion about this–I’m white and have the privilege that goes with it, including the privilege of most TV shows showing people with my skin type and white characters not being asked to be representative of all the real people with the same skin tone.
But if he goes, I will miss him.
If the show were introduced today, I would object to the brown-face voice.
But I don’t know if making him disappear will fix the problems he represents. Hari Kondabolu has said his voice shouldn’t be recast, although he appreciates Azaria’s offer to step down.
But fixing the brown-face won’t fix the actual problem. If Apu had been played by an Indian (American) actor, it wouldn’t have meant that Apu wasn’t stereotypical–The Simpsons is a satire that trades in, to use Jonathan Gray’s term, hyper-stereotypes.
How would Apu exist in a world along with Chief Wiggum, Groundskeeper Willie, and Homer without being, well, Apu?
Having a different actor play Apu all along also wouldn’t have affected the two other big complaints–a) that Indian and Indian-American children are teased by being called Apu and b) that Apu is one of the few Indian (American) characters on television.
Apu is a beloved well-rounded member of the town–many episodes focus on him, and not all are about him being an Indian (American)–instead, he is a husband, a father, a businessman, a vegan, a community member, a workaholic.
I love Apu for many reasons, but it’s his workaholism I identify with. I understand how frustrating it is when people keep telling you to relax and spend time with them, how it hurts to know you’re neglecting your family. But it’s because when we do try to stop working, the guilt is intense.
(Today, I’m having trouble breathing because of the fires. The muscles around my lungs are sharply in spasm–I keep involuntarily crying out. But I’m taking a “break” to write this–after grading all day. It’s a problem.)
I don’t really get a vote about what’s going to happen to Apu. And I don’t get to tell anyone else how they should feel about it.
But I love him. And I’d miss him if he were gone.
Context: This page has a great history of Apu and a list of his appearances. Apu became an American citizen in “Much Apu About Nothing” (1996). The last episode centered on Apu was “Much Apu About Something” (in 2016). There was an episode about racial stereotypes in literature that referenced Apu in 2018 (“No Good Read Goes Unpunished”).
“In a rather high risk strategy, The Simpsons employs what we could call hyper-stereotypes. From Scottish Groundskeeper Willie and Quik E Mart owner Apu, to the show’s depictions of Japan, Australia, East Africa, Canada, and Brazil in family trip episodes, the show rounds up multiple stereotypes and jams them into one character or episode. The result, although admittedly this is a strategy that passes many by, and hence risks backfiring on itself, is to make the process of stereotyping the target, rather than the people themselves. Certainly, while many Australians were offended by a Simpsons episode set in Australia, for instance, the episode’s key targets were American behavior overseas and smalltown American mindsets that view other countries in one-dimensional ways” (Gray 64).
Last week, I was fortunate enough to see Lynn Nottage’s Sweat at CapStage. Sweat won the 2017 Pulitzer, and Michael Stevenson’s production is the Sacramento Premiere.
We start with a functional if imperfect community–generations have been employed by the local mill–there’s time for a drink with friends after a long day on the line.
But then the company wants to take advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, using the threat of closing to hurt their workers and destroy their union.
Unfortunately, this pits worker against worker, as they try to survive.
I don’t come from a mill town, but this story is still familiar. In the South, we don’t have unions–people have been able to stoke racial prejudice to keep it from happening. “It’s not that we’re exploiting you,” the rich company says. “The blacks/hispanics/immigrants that are the reason you’re poor and poorly treated.” Even when I worked full-time for a major research university there, I didn’t get benefits.
UC Davis lured me here easily, with the promise of health insurance. The union had demanded it. Right now, my union is fighting with the university for me, but the threat of us turning on each other is there.
It’s easy to see why this play won a Pulitzer–it captures us. That’s why it fits so well in CapStage’s season, #SearchingforAmerica.
It’s a heartwrenching/heartwarming story, with just enough moments of humor to help us look into the mirror it holds up to us.
The staging is simple and effective, and the acting is so beautifully done, the characters so realistic, that you half expect to see them on the line at the mill the next day.
In class, we go over all the things we do now, from the development of a solid research question to fine editing.
But I don’t grade a student’s paper until it’s good.
If the student turns in something with a terrible title (“Essay 2”) or even a meh one (“Antibiotic Resistance”), I get to hand it back. “In the real world, I wouldn’t read this.”
If the introduction is boring, I get to hand it back.
If there’s no sense of audience, I get to hand it back.
If the organization makes no sense, I get to hand it back.
If the counter-argument is a straw man, I get to hand it back.
If there are a bunch of grammar errors, I get to hand it back.
If the conclusion is just a summary, I get to hand it back.
Etc.
The class would be pass/fail. To pass, the student would have to hand me a paper I was okay with (if not thrilled by) the whole way through.
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