I just watched the film "Fight Club", which I had heard so much about, for the first time. The ending had long since been spoiled, so I was not surprised to find out that the Brad Pitt character Tyler Durden was the same person as the Edward Norton character who narrates the film. As I watched, I was constantly asking myself why? Why does this person feel the need to hurt, to cause chaos and destruction? Is this merely a representation of toxic masculinity? Is it suggesting that men (because it is made clear that the club exists solely for men) have this primal urge to destroy? Then the cult arrived and I began to question whether any of this was real or if it was all a figment of the narrator's imagination, a fever dream of power and influence he would never have just as Tyler was the embodiment of his darkest and most base desires. Did his apartment really get blown up at the beginning? Did any of the story actually happen?
I had my doubts about the reality of the Helena Botham Carter character Marla from the beginning. The moment she showed up to his support groups smoking her cigarette, I suspected that she may not be real. For one thing, there are parallels between her character and Tyler Durden. First, as I saw pointed out in a different review, they dress similarly. Second, neither Marla nor Tyler ever face consequences for their actions. They steal, lie, and cheat with impunity. Only the narrator shows concern for their lack of morality, suggesting that he is the conscience and they are both the darker parts of his psyche.
But the movie is more than a look at one man's descent into madness. It is a critique. Not just of the capitalism and consumerism which render the narrator's macabre job realistic, but of the toxic masculinity that Fight Club represents. We see this criticism as things spiral out of the narrator's control, and in the threat of castration which is levered over anyone who dares to defy the cult leader and foil his plans. We see this criticism in the narrator's interactions with Marla (whether she is real or a figment of his imagination, she is representative of women in this story). When he isn't screwing her, he treats her either coldly or as an awkward friend he doesn't really understand his relationship with.
But what if Marla is a representation of the narrator's feminine side? What then does the ending of the movie represent when he kills Tyler and welcomes Marla holding her hand as they watch the chaos that Tyler sewed come to fruition? Tyler must always be a representation of toxic masculinity. He is the violent one. The one who defies rules. Who uses women and then tosses them aside. And it is also important to realize that it is just as the narrator is getting in touch with his feelings that Marla makes her first appearance. He is beginning to let himself feel, cry, be vulnerable. That all stops when Tyler Durden appears and he is instead gripped by the catharsis of violence and destruction. So if Tyler represents toxic masculinity and Marla represents his feminine side, which won? On the one hand, Tyler's plan of destroying the credit card companies to plunge the world into financial chaos was successful, on the other the narrator was able to fight off Tyler, killing him, and keep Marla by his side. I think the end is up for interpretation. What do you think?
