A good friend of mine is a big fan of the movie "Fight Club" and we have seen it several times. So it was interesting to see it mentioned in our reading of men's movements and it made me think about the movie in a different way.
On page 105 Wood describes "Fight Club" as being about men who feel their lives are without meaning. On page 108, in the discussion of the Mythopoetic movement and their view of modern man's emotional emptiness being due to father hunger, "Fight Club" is also mentioned. Ed Norton's character laments about not knowing his father and tries to compensate by building a close relationship with Brad Pitt's character.
I always saw the movie as just a bunch of men doing a very immature man thing -- fighting. I now see it very differently. Society's definition of male and masculine do not permit outward expressions of closeness (it's a feminine trait), yet as human beings they still need that closeness. The first person who could fulfill this is their father and when that is not available they turn to other men. Yet they can't do it in a way that is not masculine -- so the men in "Fight Club" fight.
The "Fight Club" group of men are close with a shared experience that is theirs alone yet cannot be conceived as feminine in any way. Society will accept that they fight before they'll accept that the get together to simply bond! I think after taking this course "Fight Club" will not be the only thing I will see differently.
Dori
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