Disclaimer

Like any ambiguous movie, Fight Club has many interpretations, and everyone is free to interpret it in their own way. That is the beauty of films, or any kind of art. The point of this essay is not to say your reading is wrong or that mine is right. The point is to write down my interpretation … and that is all.

Introduction

Due to its very nature, Fight Club has repeatedly been misunderstood by its fans and haters alike. Some thought it was an anti-feminist movie. Some viewed it as a call to arms to incite anarchy. They did not even entertain the idea that the movie might be a satire, criticizing the very behavior they are indulging in. Whether the filmmaker is responsible for miscommunicating his idea or the viewer is responsible for misunderstanding it is debatable.

A Coming-of-Age Film for Thirty-Year-Olds

Fight Club was adapted from the 1996 satirical novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. It deals with a man alienated by a consumerist society coming to terms with his identity. Director David Fincher said Fight Club is a coming-of-age movie for people in their thirties.

The protagonist, the unnamed Narrator, is an everyman feeling trapped in a life he does not want to live and cannot see a way to break out of. He has done everything he was taught to do, but the life he got was not the life he was promised. He is angry. He is angry at the society for not providing him with what he wants, at his father for leaving him when he was a child, at God for not giving a flying fuck. He is angry and he wants to act out. So, he creates Tyler Durden, the ultimate Ubermench, to guide him across the path of rebellion which Narrator is too afraid to tread upon alone.

There is another player in the field: Marla, a chain-smoking, death-obsessed, destitute woman. At the start of the movie, Narrator says, “Somehow, I realize all of this … is really about Marla Singer.” And so it is.

Fight Club is about Narrator learning to see the complexities of modern society, to compromise the idealist and the realist in him, and to accept a human connection. It is about him killing Tyler and accepting Marla.

Tyler vs Marla

Many characteristics of Tyler is already in Narrator even before Tyler materializes, which is understandable since Tyler is a fragment of Narrator’s imagination. Narrator is resentful of the consumerist society he lives in, yet he decorates his apartment with IKEA furnitures. He hates the life he leads but is afraid to reject it because he does not deem himself worthy. So he creates a persona who is the embodiment of what Narrator thinks worthy enough to rebel. “All the ways you wish you could be,” Tyler says to Narrator, “that’s me.”

So, Narrator projects his hyper-masculine self onto a imaginary persona. But why at that point of the movie? What changed in his life? The answer is … Marla.

We see Tyler popping up on screen here and there before Narrator meets Marla, but he does not interact with Narrator. The first time Tyler comes in contact with Narrator is after Narrator and Marla have met. The insinuation here is that Tyler was already there in Narrator’s psyche, but Marla is the reason he brings Tyler out.

Narrator feels a connection to Marla (he sees Marla as his power animal in the cave when he is in assisted meditation), and is afraid of it. Instead of forming a meaningful connection, he pushes her away and clutches onto his shallow, idealistic side, personified by Tyler. This act of rejecting Marla and accepting Tyler is shown in the scene where Narrator ponders calling Marla for a place to stay but instead calls Tyler. After that, the whole movie is about Narrator learning the negative effects of Tyler. Although Tyler’s initial criticism on society lands, the fixes he suggests are, Narrator gradually realizes, deplorable.

The movie kicks into gear when Narrator calls Tyler instead of Marla, and the movie ends when Narrator lets go of Tyler and holds onto Marla.

Conclusion

Fight Club is a satire that uses viewer engagement to show how wrong certain things might be no matter how right they might seem. Tyler Durden is not a leader to follow. He is a villain, a shallow idealist charismatic enough to lull us into believing anything. That does not mean he is right. So, when he says, “I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need,” do not think the film is saying that men are supposed to exclude women from their lives. When Tyler says, “We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world,” do not believe we are worthless. Yes, we are not special, but we are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens.

Afterthoughts: Is Marla Real?

There is a website that explores in great detail a rather spectacular fan theory which suggests that Marla is not real, that she is a fragment of Narrator’s imagination, just like Tyler. But the theory, although is interesting, does not hold water. Anyway, you might find it scintillating. So, check it out, if you want.