the DEEPER dilemma in Fight Club | therapist explains

so there's this interesting scene in the film Fight Club that raises a good question Tyler Duran is this hyper confident unrestrained character who in one scene grabs a shopkeeper named Raymond and takes him out the back on his knees with a revolver to his head he discovers Raymond wents to college and asks him what he wanted to be which was a veterinarian crucially he also tells Raymond he's about to lose his life so Raymond thinks it's over but then actually Tyler let him go free however keeps Raymond's ID and tells him he's going to check in again if Raymond isn't on his way to becoming a vet in 6 weeks then he will die it's quite a shocking moment brilliantly filmed to convey Raymond's distress but also a sense of power from Tyler that can almost seem intoxicating the moral conscience of Ed Norton's character is kept at a bit of a distance and when he asks Tyler what the point of any of that was he explains tomorrow will be the most beautiful day br's life his breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted Raymond had a near-death experience feeling he was about to die with all of his dreams and potential unfulfilled and so therefore being given a second chance will motivate Raymond to really really go for it and finally live the life he always wanted to live he will in the end be thankful to Tyler and like the logic kind of makes sense as the film puts it it made sense in a Tyler and sort of way but is that really true would Raymond's breakfast next morning really taste like the best meal of his entire life for me the answer is an obvious no I think at the absolute best it might give you the necessary motivation to then actually become a vet like you did always want however it' still feel less like your own achievement out of your own ability than something you were just forced to do and it would probably turn what was your passion into a simp of fear and shame for you if you were thankful to Tyler Duran for that I think it'd be more out of the eagerness for the trauma to have meant something positive than the reality here you might just as easily break down under the pressure and then fail to become a vet you might not even try you would most definitely be traumatized we could pull in whatever criticisms here about tough love that I have done in the past but really I don't think the debate about whether or not this would actually work is the important question here I think there's a much bigger point to do with Raymond that gets to the heart of what this film is really all about and I think it's a good point that I'm excited to make this video for but it's naturally a point that starts with Ed Norton's character the narrator so let's have an introduction and then let's get going [Music] like a lot of people I first watched this film when I was I think 16 and it immediately became my favorite movie it sticks with you and it took me a while to understand why that was but I did know from the beginning I was gripped initially because it spoke to some of my own disc contentment and frustration or at the very least I thought the fight club looked really really appealing this is a film where Tyler Duran played by Brad pittz asks the unnamed narator played by Ed Norton to punch him as hard as he can [ __ ] they fight and it breaks down their barriers it feels alive it's an outlet they start doing it every Saturday and then other men think it looks appealing and ask for their turn fighting and it builds into a much bigger Underground club it is obviously a mistake to idealize Tyler dur in the way a lot of people still do but that doesn't mean we should ignore the powerful appeal in all of this I went away at 16 and wanted to form a Fight Club I had fights with my friends I think it was one of the motivations that first got me into boxing of course you could Analyze This film from the context of self harm the fact um spoilers I I do need to spoil the big twist of this film at some point during this video so I'm might as well do it now you'd be better off clicking away if you don't want to hear that now Okay Tyler and theator are actually the same person so this fight Club is literally started by the narrator beating himself up and it all builds to end with the extreme of shooting himself through the cheek alternatively you could just see the Karis of getting to destroy to express more Primal instincts to release aggression and rage you know I'm a children's counselor I've had sessions before with kids who told me sometimes they punched holes through their walls or Windows or whatever even though it hurts them and even though they feel stupid for doing it afterwards and you know sometimes their parents then take measures to pad whatever it is they punch make it softer and less damaging for them next time and I can ask the kid if this works and they tell me sometimes yes but sometimes they just then start looking for something else to punch instead something that hasn't been made soft and will hurt their hands again why they don't always know why and it's not a good thing to punch holes through walls or doors or Windows or whatever but clearly there is a part of them that wants to do that clearly there is something they're getting from the experience Tyler Duran has his answer for why though he knows exactly what he thinks it is and he's not going to entertain any other ideas he's going to make damn sure you hear his view point with a Charisma and a directorial Brilliance that does make it all quite compelling ESP especially when you're young or You're vulnerable or you're feeling a lot of rage yourself he says that this is how men are meant to be angry destructive Primal men aren't supposed to look perfect or manicured or be concerned with self-improvement and responsibility he says self-improvement is masturbation but self-destruction imperfection to be full of scars and bloody lips and cracked teeth free to be an animal rather than restrained by social expectations for into a suit and tie or judged by what Calvin Klein or Hugo Boss or whatever other brand presses them to be forget all of that forget being heroic athletes and rock gods we were raised to Aspire to be that but it never happens no one made us into these wonderful perfect unattainable celebrities so screw it I don't want that I want to be the complete reverse although this is of course all said by a man who looks like Brad pittz and who clearly spends a great deal of time styling and jelling his hair um it's easy to mistake aggression with power and strength it's easy to mistake the freedom to follow your basist impulses as Freedom itself but what we end up here with is essentially a group of lonely men who tell themselves they are free whilst all shaving their heads all being stripped of their names and are still just as judged by the expectations of Manliness only it's a slightly different idea of what manliness is you know instead of expected to wear a tie and be responsible they're expected to be shirtless and raging all of the references to castration make it pretty clear what they think of men who don't conform to their new expectations Tyler's big Rebellion against consumerism and social expectations of masculinity isn't freedom because they are now forced to conform to the Opposites of consumerism and those social expectations it's technically the same thing just a different aesthetic it feels free because there is an outlet for regression and you tell yourself it's rebellion and you do crazy things like vandalized cars and burn faces into buildings and you tell yourselves that all means something and will lead to some great Revolution somehow rather than it just being things you're doing because it feels kind of good but the film is not shy about the parallels it makes for example between the negative way they talk about franchises and that kind of corporate consumerism when deep space exploration ramps up it'll be the corporations that name everything Planet Starbucks only too late to describe the growing Fight Club itself as a franchise Planet Tyler Tyler had been busy setting up franchises all over the country the narrator's own imagining of freedom from social restraints and freedom from what other people think of him is to get in their face about it make it as overtly obvious as he can that he does not care what they think but of course he does that precisely because he does actually care deep down he cares a hell of a lot that people see him as to free to care look the point was we have a film about mostly men who feel lost and angry with their lives and become addicted to chasing what feels like freedom and feels like empowerment I suppose a kind of dopamine hit version of those aspirations rather than really struggling to find real agency and empowerment and ever asking themselves to question what do I actually want from Life yeah that question is so absent from everyone's lips in this film what do I as an individual actually want to be fair when I recorded this I'd forgotten about this moment guys what would you wish you done before you die paint a self-portrait build a house and you I I don't know however the example here is kind of the opposite of finding agency and direction in your life These are more like little bucket list things than actually finding purpose Tyler is almost certainly not going to let them pursue these and it's more a dramatic example used to illustrate his philosophy again rather than anything transformative to individual human beings it feels like it's powerful to be put in this position but there is a difference between being faced a philosophy and living your life the only person who is properly asks this is Raymond what did you want to be yes we're going to return to him shortly but first I do need to send you out on an assign to smash up a load of cars and paint this onto a billboard World Anvil yep they sponsor this video they're still here hopefully they'll stay here uh wild Anvil is an online tool for building worlds creating characters designing and managing campaigns for a whole sloof of games sloof isn't the right word I don't know why I said that look you can do all that you can plan and write stories you can do all sorts of different stuff for creative projects I use it for the well building of my novel because my old sister of massive words documents became far too chaotic not only does the ability to create timelines with hyperlinks branching off to specific characters or articles or a billion other things not only does that make it so much easier to quickly find the information I need it also makes it so much easier to plan things out and kind of keep going sometimes a blank Word document for World building is very daunting so having all sorts of tools to help with visualization to help you figure out what needs planning next to keep your brain fizzing and unimpeded because all of the tools are very straightforward and easy to use that's really important to me it's like the sharper an artist's pencils the Freer they are to focus on the art World Anvil is a very sharp pencil you can create mind maps you can rearrange elements of your story do all sorts of campaign related things for that sloof of games I mentioned um yes Link in the description and as a pinned comment should you desire a 51% discount on all their subscriptions or if you're not yet sure then try out the free version for as long as you like that's what I did at first and now look where I am shouting their name at you through a screen World Anvil let's briefly track back to the beginning of this film the unnamed narrator feels lost and alone emotionally repressed kind of impotent lacking self-confidence hates himself for his consumerism and most importantly can't sleep why he can't sleep is not truly a question he considers and neither does his doctor who is pretty coldly dismissive of the narrator's struggles I'm in pain you want to see pain swing by First Methodist Tuesday nights see the guys with testicular cancer and you know what he takes from this experience is that unless you're dying your problems do not matter you don't matter enough if you're sad or troubled by problems that amount to anything less than facing your mortality than you're weak and insignificant and pathetic maybe it's a leaping logic to say a narrator concludes all of that from one interaction it's it's no doubt feelings he already had but it's mostly what we do see in him yeah so he goes to the group meeting with a fake name and he ends up pretending he has ttic cancer too a because people will actually listen when they think you're dying when people think you're dying man they really really listen to you instead of just instead of just waiting for their turn to speak and B because it's now an acceptable reason to cry crying because sometimes people do just cry no that's weak that's pathetic crying because you have testicular cancer yes you are given a free pass because you're now not seen as a man you have lost your testicles that's all the narrator's UNS subtle Viewpoint he doesn't view it that they're exactly free to express their sadness it's that they've already failed as men and therefore it no longer matters if they do that's his opinion so he does sneer and look down on all of these men but he also dips into their world of vulnerability once a week so that he can have an emotional release an outlet that feels good before then stepping away knowing he doesn't actually have cancer knowing he gave them a fake name they don't know who he is he is not one of them I'm still a man really I got my free P to cry simply by pretending I'll still project down on to them while still getting to walk free with a weight off my chest for a little bit it's a really interesting mental gymnastic at work simply to allow himself to cry it's such a good idea in this film and we could just focus on that and discuss that a lot more um but it's not really being free to cry it's not the narator facing up to the social pressures or his own incredibly rigid and unattainable view of masculinity and challenging that no it's an impulsive simple outlet for some of his pain for a little bit just enough of an outlet to enable him to sleep babies don't sleep as well and therefore he becomes addicted and he goes to all sorts of different group meetings every day of the week because that emotional release gets enough pressure off his chest to temporarily Grant him sleep without all of the difficulties of really facing up to what troubles him or having to actually connect to any of these people they hug and they cry and that definitely means something something but there's no way in hell the narrator's going to take it any further until Mara appears Mara is a woman who does the exact same thing as the narrator starts attending group meetings for illnesses or problems she doesn't actually have the narrator sees her as a faker with all sorts of vicious judgments that could just as easily be describing himself and so this bursts the narrator's bubble now he can't sleep again now he feels kind of guilty and pathetic about what he's doing this whole plan can only work if the narrator puts on a fake name and pretends to be someone completely different for a bit and doesn't actually have to fully connect but Mara's presence there is both a visible reminder of who he is and what he's doing as well as her presence meaning that she knows what he's doing he isn't just someone Anonymous with a fake name now she has a sense of who he really is the idea of anyone knowing what he's up to knowing who he might be that makes him feel too exposed and a bit judged and I think prophetic is the right word I'm not saying he's prophetic in any of this don't misunderstands that but I think that's definitely how he feels about himself here Mara breaks this set up now he can't cry and can't sleep so what does he do um well he has an image of himself confronting her I'm going to grab that little bit Marlo singer and scream Mara you liar you big tourist I need e this now get out grabbing Mara by the arm and telling her how very bad she is pouring all of his own feelings of Shame and humiliation onto her but I think crucially this shows us a side of the narrator that wants to appear dominant with women aggressive and controlling he's got his back up a bit you know Marlon knowing what he's up to makes him feel exposed and weak and so he wants to reassert his strength by having a go at her he rehearses it and then he tries and then it doesn't go to plan Mara won't take his judgment because she's her own person she's not just an object to help the narrator feel more powerful I saw you practicing this practicing what telling me off is it going as well as you hoped he wanted to come across here as this idea of what powerful looks like to him but it didn't work he feels he was too weak or too lacking in confidence to manage it what happens next Tyler Duran appears if the narrator himself can't do this stuff feels he was too weak to do this stuff weak is an interesting word we're going to come back to later on put a pin in that um he imagines someone who can do those things someone who is his version of a masculine ideal down to the six-pack the fighting the narrator's imagination of what great sex looks like which seems to be super aggressive we watched this film in the cinema last Sunday for its 25th anniversary and I think the sound effects on the sex were the loudest most intense in the film that is a clear point in itself it's really interesting to look at this film and seen the narrator taking a level of inspiration both from Mara and from all the group sessions he attended and then trying to rework that into something that conforms to his ideal of masculinity and chases after that fight club you can see a lot of similarities one of them being that it's again an emotional release this time it's an ER because anger is more manly and acceptable it's not a working through of the anger or doing anything with it it's just a release before again moving on like a stranger who's Anonymous pretending you don't actually know any of the people you see in those meetings there's two points here essentially one yes just a simple emotional release isn't really enough on its own to help resolve all of the narrator difficulties and any of the other people's the other men in the sessions for testicular cancer knew each other's names and talks openly and gots to know each other and make a deeper connection but not the narrator even when he starts Project Mayhem and invites people into his home he never cares about any of them or learns anyone's names besides of course Bob the one guy who did sometimes cry point two though that doesn't mean an emotional Outlet is a bad thing again it's not exactly good for a kid to be punching holes in the wall no but there was a reason it felt necessary sometimes the these things do explode out of us in not the most healthy ways but that doesn't mean you should bottle them all up and repress it you know there is a reason Fight Club can look so appealing people do need a release I've talked many times about the importance of anger in videos and in that context Tyler isn't technically a villain he is something the narrator imagined he's not some evil demon that happens to possess the narrator you know he is him he exists for a reason for something in the narrator as an outlet for that and to an extent this is kind of positive in the movie The narrator does find more confidence as a result of Tyler he is to some loose extent feeling Freer he literally becomes a leader there is a reason the narrator is telling Tyler right at the end that he is grateful to him I'm grateful to you for everything that you've done for me the problem here is a getting lost in that release itself and be idealizing it it's not getting out a bit of anger so you can feel more free to get back to your life or so you can better reflect on the anger it's getting angry because that's how men are apparently supposed to be that anger in itself is a really good thing to cultivate therefore the anger builds the violence Things become more and more extreme and then you get Project Mayhem but initially yeah Tyler expresses all the things the narrator wishes he could do but just feels too afraid afid or shy or weak or whatever to actually do them I am smart capable and most importantly I'm free in all the ways that you are not again there's that word weak we're coming back to that he'd love to smash up cars destroy art and vandalize coffee shops as a big middle finger to Starbucks and all of the trappings of the consumerism lifestyle that he already hated himself for God that would feel good to just put it all there as a clear Target and stick up your middle finger to do that to your world of the condo Apartments to instead live in a grubby broken house write weird Haus to all your co-workers why I don't know just freak them out a bit that will be so fun can you imagine their faces when reading these in your head you can kind of see the appeal to a lot of that stuff there's just one big problem here well apart from all the moral implications but one other big problem and I think this is where we finally return to the point of this video and to Raymond are you ready so I said rather tenuously that Tyler represents all of the things the narrator wishes he could do but feels too afraid or too weak or too restrained to actually do that's what he thinks he's so passive throughout most of Tyler's Shenanigans often he raises a protest yeah he doesn't like a lot of what Tyler wants to do however Tyler pushes with total confidence the narrator then gives way and he decides actually yeah this was a good thing it did make sense in a Tyler sort of way I was just too afraid or too restrained to see it have I ever let us down as always I will carry you kicking and screaming and in the end you will thank me the thing is obviously the narrator is technically doing all of these things and maybe how you interpret these characters could come in here you know is this Union is this dissociative identity disorder I quite like an ifs viewpoint but I've been stubbornly refusing to commit to a clear py logical interpretation this video technically it's the narator doing this stuff because he is Tyler but also he's not protesting because he's too afraid or too weak or whatever other similar words he might feel about it that's not why he's holding back it's because actually deep down he doesn't want to do those things they feel fun they're an outlet they're a power fantasy but beyond that he still doesn't actually want to do them he's been so called up in feeling weak and shaming himself that he didn't realize that so lost in the idea that a real man would do these things if I don't want to it's because I'm pathetic so let's invent Tyler who can push me into this all so caught up in that that he struggled to realize what he wants this is kind of about responsibility take some responsibility I do I am responsible for all of it and I accept that something he's avoided I think partly out of moral guilt but also the sense of Shame the feeling he's too weak to have possibly done any of these things and therefore depended on Tyler but no it was him the more he sees just how capable he is of all of this how unwe how unafraid in terms of like the way he views all of this that's what frees him to question if he actually wanted to do any of this in the first place in taking responsibility he finds his agency and finds the awareness to question these feelings of shame that have been driving him like a defense Tyler has been a reaction let's think about that for a second the narrator wanted the emotional release of getting to be vulnerable in a safe space only he felt so much inner Shame about his vulnerability that it took all of this Anonymous approach with the justification of a near-death experience and he couldn't let himself open up too much either it took all of that to be able to cry at all but then Mara shows up and suddenly he isn't Anonymous anymore he is seen for his vulnerability and and that feels so incredibly exposing and shameful and makes him feel pathetic so he steers a hard U-turn into delusion and power fantasy and everything he can to make himself feel less weak again lost in a sense of validation that can never fulfill him but the narrator just wanted to connect with someone even when he realizes he wants to stop projects Mayhem he is still begging for Tyler to stop it at first when no he has to realize the gun is in his hand and not Tyler's that's when he shoots himself in the cheek and consequently kills Tyler which is an odd moment that this specific interpretation doesn't quite align with because again there are many other ways we could see the film but the crucial moment for me is the narrator telling Tyler that his eyes are Open My Eyes Are Open he sees now the consequences of his actions and the reasons after Tyler's gone he watches the explosions without turning away that was him so what does the narrator wants yeah it's Mara not simply for sex or for projecting down onto he doesn't aggressively grab her arm and shake her in this moment he doesn't kiss her or do anything other than just hold her hand that's what he's wanted it's only right at the very end of this film that he finally gets it what's this got to do with Raymond Tyler asks him what he wanted to be a vet only somehow that dream slipped by and he ended up working in a shop therefore or if you use the fear of death to force him back into studying so he does become a vet that's a good thing apparently well it's that Tyler never really asks why that dream slipped away from Raymond or even what Raymond wants to be now only what he wanted to be at the time when he first went to college you know just like the narrator maybe he didn't achieve these things not because he was too weak or too afraid or too lazy or a failure maybe he just didn't want that any more maybe he's happy working in a shop maybe it's a hell of a lot less stressful than putting animals down or worrying about surgeries maybe he found something he cares about more like maybe a family and maybe he's just happy doing whatever job to pay the bills and support his kids while getting time to be with them or maybe he doesn't like his job but it's a stop Gap while he figures out what he does want to do with his life which again might not be a vet anymore maybe that maybe another a thousand possibilities but Tyler's Viewpoint doesn't allow for any of those if there's something that a little part of you wants to do and you don't do it it's because you failed and because you're not enough of a man in his eyes you know when you look at it like this with the example of Raymond it's pretty clear how simplistic all of this has been sometimes Freedom means deciding what not to do rather than just whatever the hell your impulses scream for it doesn't mean becoming repressed or feeling lost and without Direction no but sometimes Freedom means choosing to take take on responsibilities or to hold yourself back or to focus on doing the things that feel most important to you thinking on a wider scale about what that is and how you do it hell doing the things that you think are right that's empowerment Raymond is so interesting in this film because it's in Tyler's judgment that Raymond must obviously be weak and a failure for not achieving his old career aspiration rather than actually engaging with who Raymond could be that you realize just how tra Tyler and the narrator really are in their own sense of Shame and the social judgments they were supposedly rebelling against people talk a lot about toxic masculinity nowadays so much so it's become a bit of a buzzword that puts me off the phrase and also I think it's a word people misunderstand to mean that being masculine is bad I think it's so easy to be made to feel weak or humiliated or worthless or like your feelings do not matter the group sessions at the beginning of the film are positive for the narrator but they're also not right and I think the film is deliberately taking the mick out of them as well they do kind of help the narrator they definitely help him sleep but they also leave him feeling emasculated and so exposed that when someone he feels sexually attracted to sees what he's doing it spirals him into toxicity so many men are afraid that masculinity is under attack that they're supposed to become feminine and weak or whatever the words you see them use all over the internet that fear makes them react against that right or wrong that does seem to be what a lot of men think and feel but healthy masculinity has always been about finding deeper empowerments and agency that doesn't sabotage our connections I don't know I've denied myself I succinct conclusion by rambling away at the end here however it does make me think of therapy and how afraid any of us not just men can be that we're meant to sit down and cry and be super vulnerable and obviously that's an uncomfortable thought sometimes that's great yeah sometimes that's exactly what you want to do but no wonder people feel uneasy about the idea and see it like a threat and feel like doing that would make them weaker I don't think that's true but no wonder they feel it and I know in my own work I generally just let them take the lead on when they want to talk when they want to play or Draw or do whatever and then finding ways to do the work through all of that yes I'm working with kids so you know I can have sword fights with them or go outside and kick a ball around if sitting down feels too much that is a very kid example but I think sometimes you can't help a person find their vulnerability and find the positive within that by forcing them to do something that feels like a weakness to them and that's what's interesting about Fight Club to the narrator it feels like there's only a choice between Polar Opposites doing something that does kind of help him but also to his mind feels incredibly emasculating or losing yourself to Project Mayhem surely part of the problem here is when people don't feel like there's a middle ground I don't know I adore this film I could easily make 10 different other videos on it with different interpretations and meanings and this video is probably a little Wayward because I feel tempted to pull in other views all the time but this is what you're getting today comment your thoughts like the video if you liked it subscribe support me on patreon but otherwise hopefully see you next time and as ever a special thank you goes to Grace luk treat youber Michael Gallagher flying spider kellyanne Davidson Samara salce Joshua C foler and Chad Bramwell thank you

Channel: My Little Thought Tree

Views: 23,184

Keywords: fight club

Id: auwE_ROCpKA

Length: 32min 19sec (1939 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 23 2024