The basic premise of Fight Club seems pretty blatant: capitalism, consumerism, the "condo life," is destroying the human experience. Tyler Durden awakens the (importantly unnamed) narrator from his insomnia and his boring lifestyle and argues against the conformity and dullness of the corporate, white-collar life. The first time I watched this movie years ago, I was attracted mostly to the concept of individuality in an increasingly corporate world, which this movie also addresses (e.g. Microsoft galaxy and Planet Starbucks). Yet after this time, I'm struggling with the concept of individuality in relation to the movie's socialist and Marxist themes. It's like the movie simultaneously encourages and undermines individuality.
Part of it has to do with the movie's handling of capitalist structures. The "single serving" everything that the narrator always talks about when traveling everywhere shows the material and temporary side to the life that we lead, devaluing human relationships and individual fulfillment in favor of business trips and white shirts. Ikea catalogs, the automated voice on the telephone, and the lack of interest in the surrounding world (emphasized by the insomnia: "everything is a copy of a copy of a copy") emphasize the bore of the corporate world. So I thought that the path that the movie would take me would be the one about following your heart, not succumbing to the dull material life, and so on.
But Tyler Durden's ideals almost entirely contradict the promotion of the individual as well; his statements are when I realize that while Marxist theories and individualism aren't entirely mutually exclusive, if the film were to pursue its Marxist themes, then individualism would have to step aside for a little bit. The anonymity of the men in the fight club, along with his "you-are-not-special" speeches emphasize is lack of interest in the value of the individual. It's actually all about leveling the playing field and destroying the capitalistic machines.
-Carrie
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