Male identity in the 1990s

Rating: 10/10 (25 October 2002)

No spoilers here, but this may be a comment for those who've seen Fight Club and are thinking about watching it again.
After looking past all the violence, extreme cinematographic techniques, computer-enhanced images, and other tricks Fight Club plays on us, we see another level to this film. It's a show about young men trying to find their place in society at the end of the 1990s.
Edward Norton and Brad Pitt play a couple of typical guys in typical situations for men of their age, with no idea where to go with their lives. (Okay, you can argue that Pitt's character isn't so typical, and that he has some idea what to do. I'd say he's only about a half-step ahead of Norton.) These guys went through school, graduated college, and got normal, thoughtless jobs (jobs, not careers) because they felt it was expected of them. Now they don't know what's expected of them. Their fathers are gone--can no longer tell them what to do. They've been confronted with opposing images of what constitutes a man all their lives--the cold, power-hungry yuppie; the sensitive, caring friend to the environment; the politician that cheats and lies to the people he represents; the attractive actor/model who don't seem to be capable of having an original thought.
They're finally coming to a point (and this is where Pitt is ahead of Norton) where they have to figure out what _they_ want to do with their lives, or give up live by these images society presents them.

Convinced that real life and growth come about from conflict, they start fight club. Norton and Pitt's characters discover that in this repressed, politically-correct society, the best way to really know yourself, the only way to really grow, is through conflict. They fight to see what they're capable of giving out and taking. They fight to conquer each other, but more importantly to conquer themselves. They fight to recognize each other as human beings and to gain respect for themselves and each other. Whether you're offended by the violence or not, you have to appreciate the symbolic importance of the conflict here.