Our home computer had a trailer my brother downloaded for Fight Club, he was aware of this before the general public got a hold of it. I think I saw it on VHS first, then for class I had to watch it at a local independent theatre. And while we had an operational IMAX theatre, I got to see it there too. I had the soundtrack, I knew most of Tyler's lines. I wrote about it in an essay after only seeing it once, I think, so my ability to retain a lot of detail about a film after one viewing is pretty impressive. (And yeah, bitch who told me to write 3000 words on three forms of orchestral music, I can write that much on fucking Fight Club, American Beauty and the depiction of men in media. I am capable of saying A LOT if I CARE about it).
I hung out with guys who threw shit off a tower in an act of defiance. I spent the night with a guy (nothing actually happened) and we watched it, and I knew it pretty well, so he thought I'd seen it a lot more than I had. But they also weren't complete incels (maybe they were I didn't see it) and I was still trying to be "that girl", the "one of the guys" girls, and I was hanging out with more guys than girls if I did hang with anyone. It was important (it still is) for me not to be the Yoko, or the Marla, so to speak.
But Marla was cool, you're supposed to side with her, she's not the bad guy. If you see Tyler as the good guy, you've missed the point. And I kinda did, I kinda idolised the swagger and anti-capitalistic rhetoric, but then you grow up and find out Brad Pitt is a piece of shit human being with anger issues. He's never been "cool". (I'm also old enough to understand the concept of cigarette burns on a film and remember seeing them). I kinda drank the Kool-Aid but I'm not a fan of actual destruction as a form of protest. I'm okay with kids interrupting a pointless dinner or performance in protest of whatever economical/ecological disaster the rich are perpetuating that week, I wouldn't be that annoyed if they did it to me. I only don't agree with wanton destruction or getting in the way of your own people trying to get on with their lives. So I don't "believe" in Project Mayhem any more than I could believe in the tenets of Fight Club. (I can't recite the rules, by the way). And I'm pretty sure a chunk of the film's audience never bothered reading the book, which ends differently. China's not allowed to see the actual ending, by the way, it's been edited with a written epilogue. Which intimates that Tyler is either real or Edward Norton's character is the one sent to an asylum, he's not even "killed" by Norton's character. So that would suggest you're still supposed to think Tyler is real. That's bad, China. I want to know if the kiss is in that version too, since its subtext is homoerotic, and you're not supposed to have gay stuff in movies in China, so did they "fix" that too? The bass drop after the kiss even has a sexy feel to it, before it gets graphic. (This fake ending is kind of in line with the book's ending too, which makes it funnier and subversive if you think about the narrator leaving the hospital in 2012, when Project Mayhem's already taken over the world).
When Tyler's questioning the "point" of women, you're not supposed to take the red pill, boys. Or the black one. Nobody's asking you to take the blue one, either, btw. Maybe don't take any fucking pill and think for yourself (be a Sigma, man). Discern facts from fiction. None of the men in Fight Club are actively attacking women until Marla's an issue, and they're not entirely comfortable with it, really. They're trying to pick fights with a male stranger, they're not being told to go out and pick up women. They're recruiting men. They're supposed to lose. Acting like Tyler won't get you pussy. You're not supposed to like Marla so why would you agree with her sexual appetites? Wouldn't a woman saying she wants to have your abortion freak you out, anyway? That's an alternate cut, I know that.
The music is amazing, it holds up even if some of the effects are outdated. It's okay for you not to subscribe to gym body worship, you can be you, that was also the point. If you have nothing to truly aspire to in terms of being a decent man, this movie isn't supposed to be your alternative. If Fight Club's the actual reason for the haircut and nice manicure, that's not cool either, bro. I want to be Marla for Halloween. You should love a girl like Marla, she's not making you clean anything in your piece of shit house, she lets you go through a box of condoms in a night and leave them in your clogged up toilet. She puts up with your shit, man. You should LOVE her. How is SHE the problem? She let you fuck her brains out ALL NIGHT. (The shot where Tyler walks in just as Marla mentions the death rattle, we saw the narrator leave at that point, so it's not a continuity error, Tyler's "there" the whole time). Tyler is effectively "hate fucking" Marla, so the narrator is participating in that without getting to enjoy it. She's also comically loud and Tyler sounds like it fucking hurts, it's quite funny. Because it's satire, dickhead. It's all satire. It's sad you couldn't enjoy this as a black comedy, really. It's sad you don't get irony the way you think you do. Find that robe Tyler wears, get it filthy and wear it unironically. Hell, Marla said you can borrow her shitty clothes. You don't get why she's singing the song from Valley of the Dolls. I have said "sticking feathers up your butt doesn't make you a chicken", that's a Tylerism I live by. You're not willing to actually live in actual filth. You actually have standards, probably higher than mine. You can live a step above sin and be closer to godliness if you just tidy up your room once in a while. And if your father failed you, what does that really tell you about God? (You know there isn't one and you can be a better man than your deadbeat dad). I wanted to lose everything at some points and to know what it was to be free. I wasn't taking that big a risk walking away from my job. Providing you a clean slate isn't society's responsibility to fulfill for you. That also doesn't mean you get to hurt society in order to get it.
You don't want Marla but you should. She's not even trying to be the mother you never had. She's willing to put up with the abuse, to an extent. You don't spend a lot of time "analysing" film either, so if you had any clue about it you wouldn't have reached the exact opposite conclusion you came to. She gives a shit if someone's burning the shit out of you. She wants to know if you care. And you do fucking care. Or else, she'd be dead, right? You can't scare her off the way Tyler thinks. She'll stand beside you as the world fucking falls down. Isn't that what you want out of anybody, not just a woman?
I went to work with a shiner and said I'd joined a club I wasn't supposed to talk about. Only one guy got it, the other one had no fucking idea what I meant.*
*I wound up in a social scenario where nobody believed it was an accident and everyone talked about it like it was the biggest news in the office that morning. It was bizarre and unnecessary but said a lot to how seriously people took a perceived instance of violence. It's sad I had a physical indicator that had nothing to do with my depression at the time, but my actual emotions and problems went unregistered a lot longer. Plus, people knew me to be quite meek so I had to be lying about how it happened. Which is kind of insulting to suggest I would be such a wilting flower about it. I wouldn't put up with that shit, I put up with emotional abuse since it's never registered as damaging. Me being totally fine and joking about it wasn't the best way to deal with it but people wouldn't leave me alone.
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