fight club

Fight Club - Critical Approaches

• Crisis of Masculinity
• Freudian
• Postmodernism
• Nietzchean

Andrew walker review of Fight Club
Objectives

• To understand how to apply critical approaches for exam questions
• To be able to apply critical approaches to a short sequence from the film.
• To demonstrate an ability to respond correctly within written analysis.

How to approach your exam answer for Section C: 'Fight Club"
Don't explain the theory APPLY IT!!!!!
Don't be overtly descriptive, just state the scene: e.g Jack goes to the dentists. Not he goes to the dentist and meets his friend and goes out for coffee afterwards.
Respond in a personal way - what have You taken from it?

Polysemy

"Each text is seen to generate a potentially infinite range of meanings"

Crisis of Masculinity

Henry Giroux says its a failed critique which focuses on consumerist culture and how it shapes male identity and ignores how neoliberal capitalism has dominated and exploited society.

The film assumes that capitalism and consumerism are "impenetrable", and there cannot be resistance or struggle against them.
it focuses instead on defending "authoritarian masculinity" The fight clubs' violence are complicit with the system of commodification that it denounces because it ties into instant gratification, heightened competitiveness, and "the market-driven desire" to dominate and win in fights.
Fight Club ascribes to a world under the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes in which cynicism replaces hope.