Masculinity And Consumerism In David Fincher's Fight Club

Consumerism has various effects psychologically and physically. This can be seen through the narrator (Edward Norton) who is lost and misguided. Fight Club (1999), directed by David Fincher, follows the narrator as he seems overwhelmingly trapped in a society that is preoccupied with acquiring consumer goods. He finds freedom in fight club where men fight to release their everyday stresses but this club follows a different course that reveals various issues surrounding the narrator. Fight Club reveals the issues with masculinity and materialism as a result of consumerism, and how global events can cause changes in a generation of people. People have become adapted to materialistic values that restrain consumers, resulting in dissatisfaction

Men are biologically more aggressive and violent. Men are genetically born to be hunters, but consumerism represented in white collar jobs and Ikea shops, results in emasculation. The setting shows the narrator flipping through an Ikea catalog saying, “What kind of dining set defines me as a person?” Flipping through the Ikea catalog had become a ritual, where the narrator buys compulsively. He is never satisfied with what he has, with his office job and his consumerist way of living. This makes him lose his sense of masculinity, which, in turn, he regains with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) as they form a fight club. Fight club was made in an attempt to free himself from an almost nonexistent life he was living. Fighting, and the violence of it, acts as a rebirth, where members gain the opportunity to live free

The scenes with the neuro transmitters play a big role, because neuro transmitters are associated with the brain thus life. The cinematography in this case is used to contrast life and the lifeless life the narrator leads. Earlier scenes show the narrator in dark and grey scenes, wondering what his life has become. In later scenes he becomes more alive and free when he joins the fight club. This characterization is essential to understand the effects of consumerism both psychologically and physically. Once he becomes free he’s almost a different person, he seems more in sense with his senses. Consumerism is capable of running the lives of people. There are several consequences to letting consumerism control every aspect of life which is shown throughout Fight Club. Masculinity becomes an issue along with the obsession over materialistic goods. The narrator faces these issues but eventually finds release from these issues in the fight club, where he regains his sense of freedom and masculinity through violence. Consumerism causes a feeling of being lost and disempowered but by trying to regain his roots, the narrator finds a sense of freedom and