FIGHTCLUB MOVIE: 11 Lessons

Daddy The Pimp

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Ok guys , this is one of the best movies and books i've ever read.
I found this GREAT article and i thought would be great to share it with you and you would learn something from it.

Its FIGHTCLUB *****ES.

Original Link HERE

“F*ck Martha Stewart” 11 Lessons from the Movie “Fight Club”




Tyler Durden: “We’re consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don’t concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy’s name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.”

Narrator: “Martha Stewart. ”

Tyler Durden: “F*ck Martha Stewart. Martha’s polishing the brass on the Titanic. It’s all going down, man. So f*ck off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns. ”



The movie fight club is filled with memorable quotes like this one…But embedded in the movie are also some great lessons that can be applied to everyday life.



1. Listen to people…Don’t just wait for your turn to talk
There is a scene in fight club where Edward Norton’s character talks about the reason he goes to group sessions for people with cancer and other illnesses. He says that “When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just (waiting for their turn to speak)” The sentence is finished by another character in the film. What this shows you though is that people DO realize that you are not paying attention when they are talking to you. Shut off the cell phone or blackberry, do not glance around the room for someone more interesting. Stand there, make eye contact, and really listen to what someone is saying.



2. We are victims of consumerism
Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt’s character) states…”The things you own end up owning you. Right. We are consumers. We’re the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession” We do not NEED all the things we think we need, and NEWSFLASH! when we get the things we think we need…they probably aren’t making us any happier.



3. Do something for someone else
There is a scene in the movie where Tyler Durden takes a young store clerk behind the store and puts a gun to his head. He scares the **** out of the young guy, then he asks him what he wants to do with his life. He ends up saying that he would like to be a veterinarian. Tyler then tells him he is keeping his license and he is going to check in on the young man, if he isn’t on his way to becoming a veteranarean in a few weeks…Tyler will kill him. A bit drastic agreed, but as Tyler Durden explains…”Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted. ” You can bet that Raymond also probably enrolled in school…We should try to have an impact on someone else’s life. Maybe a big life altering impact (but perhaps a little more subtle than a gun.)



4. Steer clear of major corporations
The small gang made up of the “fight club” has a major problem with corporations. A good deal of their energy is spent trying to bring down these massively powerful corporations. While this approach they take is rather primitive, it does reinforce a good point. Corporations are becoming too powerful. Everywhere you look you see nothing but chain restaurants, chain gas stations, and chain retial stores. Forget the few dollars you will save at the chain…Give the mom and pop shop a try. Chances are, you will get better tasting food, better quality products, and better service.



5. Seize the Day
“This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.” This quote is a somewhat negative way to look at life, but the idea behind it is to live for the moment. Don’t put off till tomorrow, what you could do today.



6. Do that thing that you have always wanted to do
Tyler Durden is threatening a driving crash and he asks the people in their car what it is they will regret they hadn’t done before they died…two of the men have immediate answers “paint a self-portrait”, “build a house”. Figure out the answer to this question, then go do it.



7. Accept things outside of your control
“I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let… lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.” We do not have to do/have everything. Accept your life. Be proud of it.



8. Challenge the status quo
The question is raised…Why do they have oxygen masks on a plane? The response…”Oxygen gets you high. In a catastrophic emergency, you’re taking giant panicked breaths. Suddenly you become euphoric, docile. You accept your fate. It’s all right here. Emergency water landing - 600 miles an hour. Blank faces, calm as Hindu cows.” This is obviously not the rationale that is given, or even what would be accepted. But…when you think about it…it seems like it could be possible. Approach all situations creatively, the solution may not be what is obvious and apparent.



9. Persistence is key
Tyler tells Edward Norton’s character, “All right, if the applicant is young, tell him he’s too young. Old, too old. Fat, too fat. If the applicant then waits for three days without food, shelter, or encouragement he may then enter and begin his training.” Sometimes we are tested by people or situations. Be persistent, don’t let “quitter” define you.



10. Not everyone is a winner
The current generation that is being raised is a generation where every kid on the team is the “MVP”, everyone is picked for every team, everyone is special. The real world is not like this. There are winners and losers, and the people that learn from their losses are the ones who end up winners. Much of what happens in life is a result of the hard work you put in, and the “luck” that you create.



11. Live your LIFE!
“If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don’t you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can’t think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you’re supposed to read? Do you think every thing you’re supposed to think? Buy what you’re told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned”
 

Dedication

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Daddy The Pimp said:
3. Do something for someone else
There is a scene in the movie where Tyler Durden takes a young store clerk behind the store and puts a gun to his head. He scares the **** out of the young guy, then he asks him what he wants to do with his life. He ends up saying that he would like to be a veterinarian. Tyler then tells him he is keeping his license and he is going to check in on the young man, if he isn’t on his way to becoming a veteranarean in a few weeks…Tyler will kill him. A bit drastic agreed, but as Tyler Durden explains…”Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted. ” You can bet that Raymond also probably enrolled in school…We should try to have an impact on someone else’s life. Maybe a big life altering impact (but perhaps a little more gun than a subtle.)
This is by far the best lesson out there, i will remember to help other people in the future :trouble:
 

Trimalchio

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Daddy The Pimp said:
1. Listen to people…Don’t just wait for your turn to talk
There is a scene in fight club where Edward Norton’s character talks about the reason he goes to group sessions for people with cancer and other illnesses. He says that “When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just (waiting for their turn to speak)” The sentence is finished by another character in the film. What this shows you though is that people DO realize that you are not paying attention when they are talking to you. Shut off the cell phone or blackberry, do not glance around the room for someone more interesting. Stand there, make eye contact, and really listen to what someone is saying.
One of Tyler's most striking features in the movie is that he actually is paying attention very carefully and really listening to what the Norton character says and how says it. That sets him apart from all the superficial characters the narrator has encountered so far, and this is why he gets stuck with Tyler. My favourite moment in this respect occurs in their conversation on the airplane.

TYLER
What do you mean?

JACK
What do you do for a living?

TYLER
Why? So you pretend you're interested?

Jack laughs.

JACK
Okay...

TYLER
You have a kind of sick desperation in your laugh.
One thing that needs to be pointed out though is that the film gets increasingly critical about the fanatic rise of the Fight Club idea, up to the point where the whole thing turns out to be a psychotic compensation fantasy of the narrator, which already has gotten out of control. Thus Tyler's "Guru"-like teachings get a nasty edge that really questions what we have seen before. The movie leaves you with this unsolved ambivalence to figure for yourself.

So an additional lesson might be:

12. Stay relaxed, take it easy, and don't become a psychotic terrorist fanatic maniac. :up:

(On the other hand, the film makes a point, that it is almost inevitable to become this way, if men are not allowed to be men in our politically correct consumer's world...)

Also note that the following scene is wildly ironic:

Tyler Durden is threatening a driving crash and he asks the people in their car what it is they will regret they hadn’t done before they died…two of the men have immediate answers “paint a self-portrait”, “build a house”.
And so are most of the scenes quoted above, the "do something for someone else" being the most obvious one, and indeed the first scene when Tyler's behaviour becomes more and more extreme and frightening.

So the "message" of the movie is by far more complicated, subversive and double-edged than the "lessons" above might imply...
 

Jitterbug

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Trimalchio said:
So an additional lesson might be:

12. Stay relaxed, take it easy, and don't become a psychotic terrorist fanatic maniac. :up:

(On the other hand, the film makes a point, that it is almost inevitable to become this way, if men are not allowed to be men in our politically correct consumer's world...).
I'd reword it as:

Take control of your masculinity or it will control you. Misplaced masculine energy is dangerous.

Those emasculated guys joined Fight Club to experience what it's like to be masculine and not under someone's thumb all the time, but they let theirs get out of control and still end up being used & controlled by someone else.
 

Well I'm here to tell you there is such a magic wand. Something that will make you almost completely irresistible to any woman you "point it" at. Something guaranteed to fill your life with love, romance, and excitement.

Quote taken from The SoSuave Guide to Women and Dating, which you can read for FREE.

MisterMcGee

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"masculine" is a social word, be wise how you understand it as a word.

Fight Club is amazing, and it is about humanity, not masculinity.
 

Aenigma

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Found these posts on another board.

Re: Fight club
« Reply #11 on Nov 30, 2008, 12:25am »

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Nov 27, 2008, 4:32pm, espio wrote:I saw fight club when it just came out in theaters, this was when i was in high school, and I thought it was okay, I thought the anti-materialism and anti-government themes were inspiring. But I saw parts of it again last night and it had new meaning when I thought of it from a men's rights activist perspective. Especially the part where Brad Pitt's character (Tyler) is talking about how he used to do chase the formula society laid for out for him: go to college, get a job, get married, etc. Then he said:

"A generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is the answer we really need."

Tyler also makes references to the "hunter and gatherer" system that life should be like, that men are made to live in.

I thought about all the fights I got in when I was going to school and how I was suspended and almost expelled for. Because male instincts have been made illegal in this society, that is why there are so many men in prison. As other people on this forum have pointed out, I think the theme of this movie is to stop finding value in things outside of ourselves (including material things and especially women) and find what we value personally.



Years from now, you will one day watch the movie again. And you will realize that Fight Club is a Gay Movie.

The author of the book, Fight Club, is gay. It is easy to see that it is gay by the first page of the book (also the first lines of the movie). The Fight Club story starts with the main character, on his knees, with a long metal shaft down his throat (the gun). Tyler Durden, who doesn't exist, is played by iconic Brad Pitt, suntanned, with a six pack, and either has his shirt off in too many parts of the film or is wearing bizarre clothes.

Consider that the main character at first calls the girl, hangs up on her, and then calls "Tyler". They go to a bar, have a drink, and Tyler takes the main character 'home'.

Fight Club is not a celebration of masculinity. It is a celebration of gayness. Gays are obsessed with sexuality and tend to lean one way or the other in terms of masculinity or feminity. For example, this is why you see gays dressed 'super macho' in leather, very muscular. It is more 'macho' than masculine.

Consider the nihilism of the movie. Manliness drifts toward the heroic. There is nothing heroic in Fight Club. There is no nobility. There is, now that I think about, a large degree of Slave Morality. The main character 're-sentimentizes' his life and considers himself enslaved. Enslaved by what he buys, his job, and convention in general. Fight Club is largely a slave morality response to that. Yet, like all slave morality, there is no achievement except nihilism.

The movie ends with a giant erect penis. It is not debatable that this is a gay film. No man wants to see giant erect penises except... for gays. A naked woman... sure. But there was only one woman in the entire film and she was pure, pure trash and there is the epitome of nihilistic.

Yes, Fight Club champions 'masculinity'. Yes, Fight Club champions 'men fighting back'. But it is all in a gay context.

Fight Club is not the movie of Man. It is nihilistic and looks only inward, into the self (i.e. not soul). Don't be fooled by the violence and 'slave revolt' type utterances. Feminists love this movie and have written many papers on it.
 

Aenigma

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Second Post

Re: Fight club
« Reply #16 on Dec 1, 2008, 3:22am »

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Nov 30, 2008, 3:05am, espio wrote: Your thoughts are interesting but I disagree that it supports a slave mentality. You say there is nothing manly about the movie, and you equate manliness with heroism. In my opinion, heroism=slave mentality. Heroism means sacrificing oneself for another, which is a slave mentality. Self-sacrifice is not an alpha male trait, an alpha does what he wants, and could care less about what those around him think, this is the mentality that fight club supports and it is not a slave mentality.




Slave Morality and Master Morality are Nietzsche terms, and I have noticed the terms have been quite useful for me lately.

Master Morality is that goodness is power-enhancing of talent or other natural ability. Badness is mediocrity. Master Morality is optimistic, energetic, and happy.

Slave Morality has it that what the Master Morality values is what the Slave Morality despises, and vice versa. Slave Morality is interested in easing one's suffering,; it is pessimistic and fearful. To Slave Morality, what is bad is not mediocrity but being 'sinful'. The Master Morality loves being feared by its inferiors as they view strength as good, while the Slave Morality prefers to 'put people at ease' because they view strength as 'sinful'.

Interestingly, these two moralities sum up the two American political ideologies quite succinctly. Conservatism is a Master Morality where they think America being strong is a strength, despise welfare and affirmative action because it makes people weak, and look at liberalism as generating weakness. Liberalism is a Slave Morality where they think America being strong is 'sinful'. They view welfare and affirmative action as great because it eases people's suffering. Liberalism looks at Conservatism as 'evil'. It amazes me how easy the ideologies fit one of the 'moralities'.

But the most important element of the moralities is that the Master Morality is value creating while Slave Morality "resentiments" what the Master Morality is doing as 'sinful'. Slave Morality is also easily manipulated for praise which they desire more than anything. Master Morality is noble. It is aristocratic. Slave Morality is... not.

So let us look at Fight Club. Is the 'Fight Club' value creating? (No) Is it nihilistic? (Yes) Is it mostly a response to someone else's values? (Yes. Fight Club is nothing but a 'resentiment', a reaction, to the rest of the world in how it 'enslaves' us.) Is Fight Club optimistic about the future? (No.)

Let us look at the last question further. The most quotable portions that those who think exalt the movie are actually that which damns it. Consider:

"**** off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may."

That thought is the exact opposite of the aristocratic mindset. The Slave Morality desires not being 'perfect'.

Tyler Durden: **** damnation, man! **** redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it!
Narrator: OK. Give me some water!
Tyler Durden: Listen, you can run water over your hand and make it worse or...
[shouts]
Tyler Durden: look at me... or you can use vinegar and neutralize the burn.
Narrator: Please let me have it... *Please*!
Tyler Durden: First you have to give up, first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die.

The Slave Morality is obsessed with death.

"It's getting exciting now, 2 and 1/2. Think of everything we've accomplished, man. Out these windows, we will view the collapse of financial history. One step closer to economic equilibrium."

The Slave Morality has an obsession with 'equality', especially economic.

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy **** we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. "

This celebrated quote is the epitome of Slave Morality. Despair. Pessimism. Anger at others.

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

Obvious Slave Morality.

"Narrator: Oh, it's late. Hey, thanks for the beer.
Tyler Durden: Yeah, man.
Narrator: I should find a hotel.
Tyler Durden: [in disbelief] What?
Narrator: What?
Tyler Durden: A hotel?
Narrator: Yeah.
Tyler Durden: Just ask, man.
Narrator: What are you talking about?
Tyler Durden: [laughs] Three pitchers of beer, and you still can't ask.
Narrator: What?
Tyler Durden: You call me because you need a place to stay.
Narrator: Oh, hey, no, no, no, I didn't mean...
Tyler Durden: Yes, you did. So just ask. Cut the foreplay and just ask.
Narrator: Would - would that be a problem?
Tyler Durden: Is it a problem for you to ask?
Narrator: Can I stay at your place?
Tyler Durden: Yeah."

I'm including this quote because of the gayness. Ugh.

"Tyler Durden: Where'd you go, psycho boy?
Narrator: I felt like destroying something beautiful"

Slave Morality likes destroying the beautiful because they cannot create it.

"Tyler Durden: You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your ****ing khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world."

Slave Morality despises the 'status' of the economic world. Master Morality celebrates it.

"Tyler Durden: Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else."

Master Morality would say that you, or rather himself, IS special and unique because he generates the values. An aristocrat would never say Tyler's above quote.

"Tyler Durden: Like a monkey, ready to be shot into space. Space monkey! Ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good.
Tyler Durden: From now on, all those with shaved heads: "Space Monkeys".

There is your 'self sacrifice'.

"Narrator: He was *the* guerilla terrorist in the food service industry.
[the Narrator looks at Tyler, who's urinating in a pot]
Tyler Durden: Do not watch. I cannot go when you watch.
Narrator: Apart from seasoning the lobster bisque, he farted on the meringue, sneezed on braised endive, and as for the cream of mushroom soup, well...
Tyler Durden: [snickers] Go ahead. Tell 'em.
Narrator: ...you get the idea."

More Slave Morality. This is the 'slave' "getting back" at the master.

Many people like to look at Fight Club the way they want. After all, there are some flashes of Master Morality in it:

"Tyler Durden: You have a kind of sick desperation in your laugh."


"Narrator: If I did have a tumor, I'd name it Marla."


Narrator: A guy who came to Fight Club for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood.


And for some last quotes that enshrines Fight Club as a Slave Morality:

Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvet is?
Narrator: It's a comforter...
Tyler Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
Narrator: ...Consumers?
Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. We're the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession.

Tyler might as well said 'slaves' of a lifestyle obsession.

Tyler Durden: Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space.

Pain! Sacrifice! These are the 'values' of Fight Club.

Tyler Durden: We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
Narrator: Martha Stewart.
Tyler Durden: **** Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So **** off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns.

Slave Morality desires the destruction of the masters' civilization. They don't desire to succeed in it.

Narrator: [looking at a Calvin Klein ad on a bus] Is that what a man looks like?
Tyler Durden: [laughs] Self-improvement is masturbation. Now self-destruction...

Master Morality is all about self-improvement. Slave morality is about the opposite.

Narrator: Fight Club wasn't about winning or losing. It wasn't about words. The hysterical shouting was in tongues, like at a Pentecostal Church.

This last quote should be proof in and of itself.
 

Trimalchio

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Interesting finds, Aenigma...

Fight Club hit the nerve of a whole generation of men like no other movie of the nineties. What makes the film so disturbing is that it picks you up at a point where you can strongly and even enthusiastically relate to and then leads you deeper and deeper into the disaster. Tyler knows how you feel, seems to know the way out but leads you into even more deeper trouble. The nihilism of it is all too apparent, and the FC's answer to society's emptiness is not something constructive but something even more destructive and nihilistic. Men being kept in civilisation's cages, castrated by a feminized society until they get sick of it and become insane violent animals. Fight Club is all about masculinity in a pathological crisis, and Tyler's "cure" turns out to be not a solution but in fact part of the sickness itself. It might be somewhat true that the film ends with a symbolical "giant erect penis", but note that it is collapsing just as the Twin Towers a few years later. Compare this to the final scene of the 1949 Ayn Rand movie "The Fountainhead" when Nietzschean Uber-Alpha architect Gary Cooper stands proudly on the top of one of the hugest, hardest ****s in the history of cinema, the modernist sky-scraper he has created by his unflinching willpower, struggling against the prejudice and narrowmindedness of backwarded underlings...

Some people though seem to respond to Fight Club in a naive way, overlooking the ironies and trappings. It reminds me of how some see Al Pacino's Tony Camonte as a "Alpha Male"-model, not realising that the character despite all the admitted balls und guts he has got is an undisciplined sociopathic ****-up who wastes his life for greed and violence.
 

Tell her a little about yourself, but not too much. Maintain some mystery. Give her something to think about and wonder about when she's at home.

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Elmoshow21

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It is important to remember that Fight Club is a satire. People often think of Fight Club as inspiring individualism when in fact the opposite is true. For example, look at when Tyler takes the most devoted members of Fight Club to form "Project Mayhem". The rules of this group are 1&2) Don't ask questions. 5) You have to trust Tyler. Those rules aren't individualism; they are the exact opposite.
 
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