Fight Club as metaphor for US foreign policy

I saw that movie Fight Club (IMDb page and official movie site with fancy flash intro) last night for the first time.  If you're, like me, one of those movie goers who like to draw parallels between the film world and contemporary situations around the world, you might like it.  It was a good movie, if maybe a little confused idealogically.  Both conservatives and progressives will find some clever parallels here with contemporary society.

First, you could definitely make an argument that Fight Club is a conservative film.  Here's the synopsis: (warning spoiler alert!)  Guy rebels against corporations and consumerism, such rebellion quickly becomes out of control and leads down the slippery slope into outright lawlessness and gratuitous violence, guy needs to kill off that part of himself in order save himself and society from anarchy (anarchy here meaning violence and chaos, another conservative myth, not the dictionary meaning of leaderlessness or the theory of radical egalitarianism). 

The film is based on a Chuck Palahniuk (official site and more informative Wikipedia entry) novel of the same name and should not be mistaken for yet another boxing movie (which is why it took me this long to see the darn thing!).  It's more like The Matrix than Million Dollar Baby so don't be fooled.

For any you who are not USians (i.e. the rest of the world) this would be a good "typical American" movie to watch if you would like to better understand the American psyche.  Not typical in the sense that you could say that we have a certain kind of movie that is typical and not typical in the sense that you can say all Americans are like this of course but what I mean is that it's typical in the sense that it portrays a character trait that is common in our society simply because we have made it so.  We've cultivated it.  Let me pause here to explain what I mean. 

There is a certain set of such character traits, or even more broadly, common themes, recurring motifs, or meta-stories, that run through our collective national consciousness.  Some of these themes are good, admirable things, some not so attractive.  Every country/culture has them.  The most recognizable example of one of our most famous ones is our love of individualism.  Everyone knows that Americans place a high priority on individualism.  In our movies, bad guys hate and/or destroy individualism.  It's easy to see where this comes from, and how it relates to our economic system, which, ironically, as it gets bigger gives birth (in the form of globalization) to a tendency to do the opposite: standardize.  So you have an ongoing tug of war in the American psyche between this love of individualism and a society/economic system that is increasingly mono-everything. 

Another example of an American meta-story: the underdog story.  In the US, we love underdog stories.  This goes back to our independence days when we were a group of struggling little colonies fighting the big Empire.  We like to see the little guy win.  And here again we have this internal tug-of-war going on because we love underdogs but at the same time we can no longer claim to be anything but Goliath on the world stage.   We are very tormented about this.

And finally, arrogance is another one of those national character traits and this is the one that relates to the movie.  Our arrogance dates back to our discovery of the "new" world, the forced conversions of native peoples, it was reinforced during World War II when we were actually on the right side for once (although the enemy of my enemy isn't necessairly my friend) and it is wholly related to our rise to the status of world super power in the years following.  This is where the "ugly American" stereotype comes from.  We Americans can be downright self-righteous and just plain obnoxious!  Gotta love us!

You with me so far? Ok, back to the movie.

Tyler is arrogant enough use violence to force people to do what he thinks is good for them.  Remember that scene where he's about to kill the convenience store worker in order to "give him the best day of his life tomorrow" and make him go back to school and make something of himself?  Sound familiar?  Our current foreign policy is wholly wrapped up in this notion.  Just listen to any of the rhetoric around Iraq these days.  I say "wrapped up" because the core of our foreign policy hasn't changed --doesn't change-- it's pretty consistent from one administration to the next because it's very simple and it's the same as any other world power's: preserve geo-political interests by maintaining the status quo (if you're not a world power, your interest is the opposite: attain geo-political interests by distrupting the status quo).  What changes is how different administrations go about these goals, whether they are more or less brutal in achieving them and how they sell them to the public. 

Can you tell I'm getting ready to go back to school?

This semester I think I'm going to take Survey of International Security, Statistics for the Social Sciences and Gender and Language.  I'm already starting the read the books for the security course and yes, it's affecting everything I do right now.  This blog is about to get very analytical.  Sorry 'bout that!

Comments

[Dylan]

Interesting take, but I kinda disagree about the broader themes.

But it's because I think the film is more about personal themes than broad themes (although, to be sure, consumerism and American materialism is a big part of it). The most telling part of the film, to me, is when Pitt talks about being a nation of men raised with no fathers. To me, it's about the changing nature of what it means to be male in this society and following a certain psychological path to it's inevitable conclusion. Most modern men have wondered what it might be like to go back to a more Neanderthal existence where one's self-worth and worth to others is measured in his ability to attack and survive. Also, the stereotypical male fear to commit has always been viewed, in the male psyche, as remedied by turning to a more nihilistic existence.

But following that to it's ultimate conclusion is chaotic, confusing, and unfulfilling. To me, the "killing" of Tyler Durden is symbolic of realization of this. I don't see the conservative/liberal connections to it so much as the socialogical implications.

But yours is an interesting take. I highly recommend watching the commentary track on the DVD with Brad Pitt and Ed Norton. Pitt doesn't really talk much, but that's mostly because Norton does most of the talking, and is pretty interesting. He brings up lots of the themes that they were trying to get across.

[barb]

oh right on, Dylan, that take makes a lot of sense too. I think I'm just on an IR kick where everything I see is about world politics! lol

[Ajayi Harris]

You never talked about the liberal parts of the film. but I think the liberalness of the film is exactly the same as the conservative elements, except we know that anarchy is not leaderless ness, its liberation, and consumerism and the corporate world is still taking away our indie identity. I do agree with Dylan, that the film has largely been viewed through the lens of what it means to be a man today. “You are not your fuckin’ khakis,” is my favorite line in that movie. Viewed though your lens, it does have some parallels.

We know ‘what’s best’ for the world, and the best way to do it. “We don’t need a permission slip’ to defend our country. We invade Iraq without UN support, the Abu Ghraib scandal that the US has largely been not held accountable for. The policy does not change, but the tactics do. So does that mean the tactics of the current administration are unethical? Yes. While Tyler used violence to give that guy the ‘best day of his life’ the guy did still needed a way to have that. In his case it was the tactic that mattered. I think our way of life is better than most ways of life. How we spread that idea is the debate.

I think other counties don’t hold a similar outlook. Osama’s campaign speech in October was largely about ‘Hey don’t invade our country and we won’t commit terrorist’s acts against yours.”

[Dylan]

I wanted to just mention that I'm not saying there's no room for broad, foriegn affairs and governmental symboligies to the film.

And, I understand Barb. I'm the same way, except that I always tend to look for the religious interpretation in every film I watch.

[Mercenario]

Llego un par de años tarde a la discusion pero tenia que escribir esto, igual la peli es del 99 anyway...Primero que todo no tengo ni idea de politica y mucho menos de politica de USA, tal vez por eso me parece tan interesante el post, Fight Club es de mis peliculas favoritas y creo que lo que la hace tan interesante es que mezcla lo personal con lo politico. Para mi la pelicula es sobre Marla, la soledad, "Where is my mind" de The Pixies y claro sobre la locura (muy al estilo de Psycho)

Increible, la anarquia como un mito conservador, suena bien.