Our world has gone through many important stages before coming to its present situation; the Age of Exploration, Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment and French Revolution are just some of these stages. The last major stage was the Industrial Revolution[1] and the introduction and the settlement of the modern capitalist system. Industrialization and capitalism played a crucial role in changing attitudes and characteristics of individuals, societies and countries as well as the societal conflicts over the last two centuries. This paper is an attempt to illuminate the actions of various characters -especially the character of Tyler Durden- in David Fincher’s cult movie “The Fight Club”, by examining the causes and consequences of problems arising with the capitalist system’s consumption oriented individuals. This will be undertaken with regard to the famous philosopher Theodor Adorno’s conceptions of “commodity fetishism” and “standardization” from his book “The Culture Industry: Selected Essays On Mass Culture”. It will be shown that the capitalist system brings many problems to people’s lives and creates a virtual world for many people. Some consequences of this problem are commodity fetishism which directs people to consumption in order to feel happy, standardization which prevent people to do creative acts and anarchistic anger which people have because of their meaningless lives. Moreover, our modern world also forces us to obtain pleasure by satisfying our false needs like consumerism and living in accordance with the popular culture. This paper will conclude by showing that the capitalist system in fact affects individuals in a very negative way and it may even force people to behave violently, a theme that is arguably fundamental to an understanding of the film Fight Club. In order to arrive at that point, I will first make a short summary of the film, and then move on to an evaluation of Adorno’s views. Thirdly, I am going to apply Adornian theory to the film and explain their relations in detail. I will conclude the paper by stating my own views related to the topic.
First of all, I will present a summary of the film to be examined. Fight Club is based on the sensational debut novel of Chuck Palahniuk about a confused young man living in our modern world, in USA
In the movie, our protagonist, the narrator (Edward Norton) has an easy, well-paid desk job but an empty and meaningless life with no family, friends or aims. In addition, he suffers from insomnia and the empty consumer culture that his generation has been doomed to inherit. He frequents cancer and disease groups in order to bond with others and get rid of his insomnia. At the beginning, these support groups help him to get rid of his insomnia and he starts to sleep like a baby. However, when he realises that there is another “faker tourist” called Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), who participates in these groups in order to have fun and drink free coffee, he loses his concentration and insomnia starts to disturb him again. One day, on a plane he meets a charismatic stranger called Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and he becomes an admirer of him. After an explosion in the narrator’s house, the narrator moves to Tyler Tyler Tyler Tyler Tyler
Secondly, I will shortly talk about Theodor Adorno and his conceptions of “commodity fetishism” and “standardization”. Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969) was a German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist and composer[4]. He was a member of the Frankfurt School
Adorno also discussed “use value” and “exchange value”. “Use value” refers to the contingent qualities of a thing that are useful to human beings. Adorno also profits from Marx’s ideas. “Marx defines the fetish character of the commodity as the veneration of the thing made by one self which, as exchange-value, simultaneously alienates itself from producer to consumer human beings” (Adorno, pg 33). Exchange value refers to the popularity, scarcity and the price of a thing. For example, water’s use value is very high because it is a vital drink but its exchange value is very low because it is not scarce. In contrast, a diamond is very low in its use value but its exchange value is enormous because it is very scarce. Adorno asserts that capitalism forces us to be delighted by something because of how much it costs. In other words, people began to attach importance only to the exchange value of a commodity. “The more inexorably the principle of exchange value destroys use values for human beings, the more deeply does exchange value disguise itself as the object of enjoyment” (Adorno, pg 34). According to Theodor Adorno, in the capitalist system people are targets whereas firms are hunters. People mostly buy a commodity not because of their will and necessity; instead they are affected by the popular culture that is spread through the mass media. “The customer is not the king, as the culture industry would have us believe, not its subject but its object” (Adorno, pg 85). This theory is called “commodity fetishism” and according to him it is the biggest gift capitalism gives us. He also makes an analogy between consumers and prisoners. “When the feelings seize on exchange value it is no mystical transubstantiation. It corresponds to the behaviour of the prisoner who loves his cell because he has been left nothing else to love” (Adorno, pg 35). I will better explain his theory while applying it to the film.
Thirdly, I am going to make a connection between Adorno’s ideas and the film Fight Club. Adorno’s ideas are mostly based on the negative effects of the capitalist system. The source of these negative effects is popular culture and the culture industry. As I mentioned before, Adorno identifies these as reasons for people’s passive satisfaction and lack of interest in overthrowing the capitalist system. The culture industry forces people to be delighted only by certain accepted values; there is no place for different ideas or behaviors. This is called “standardization” and it is caused by culture industry and popular culture. “…The categorical imperative of the culture industry no longer has anything in common with freedom. It proclaims: you should conform, without instruction as to what; conform to that which exists anyway, and to that which everyone thinks anyway as a reflex of its power and omnipresence” (Adorno, pg 90). We all believe in the dominancy of money and try to be wealthy, in other words we do not listen to our instincts but rather we listen to popular culture’s values. An ideal life is portrayed to us via films, news, and books starting from our birth. Everyone tries to reach this ideal life instead of living his or her lives. When we adhere to popular values or reach an ideal life, we may feel happy but the question to be answered is: is this the truth or a virtual happiness? Standardization prevents us from being ourselves. The culture industry is cleverer than any other dictators because it does not exert any physical power over people but people might have serious “invisible” mental problems or they may unconsciously waste their qualities in order to behave according to popular values. In other words, they may sacrifice their individuality. “The sacrifice of individuality, which accommodates itself to the regularity of the successful, the doing of what everybody does, follows from the basic fact that in broad areas the same thing is offered to everybody by the standardized production of consumption goods” (Adorno, pg 35). In other words modern capitalist state “offers a vision of a society that has lost its capacity to nourish true freedom and individuality” (Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, pg 29).
In our film, the narrator has a well-paid, white-collar work but he is not happy about his life. He feels emotionally and spiritually empty. He feels that he is one of the victims of this complex system but he does not know what to do in order to escape from this virtual world. He realizes that he has lived for money and sacrificed his individuality until today. He realizes that he unconsciously conformed to popular ideas and has become a slave of capitalism like Adorno mentioned. So, he is not a typical victim of the capitalism because at least he discovers that there is something wrong going on with his life. After realizing that, he begins to suffer from insomnia and sadness. He goes to a doctor but the doctor could not help him. He participates in disease groups in order to face with realities and gets rid of his virtual life. He talks with dying people and feels relieved. Although capitalism offers us a virtual world, even in this virtual world death is cold and real. He feels alive, like he is out of the game when he speaks to dying people. “Walking home after a support group, I felt more alive than I’d ever felt. I wasn’t host to cancer or blood parasites; I was the little warm centre that the life of the world crowded around”.
Because of Marla’s presence he needs to find another way of escaping from the land of virtualness so, he discovers his own unconscious side - Tyler Durden- a mad but charismatic man that shows him that he can face realities not only through disease groups, but also through fighting, self-destruction, anarchism and everything starts to change. Tyler Tyler Tyler
Another negative aspect of the capitalist system that is shown in the film is Adorno’s “false” needs ideology, which is caused again by popular culture and the culture industry. Adorno claims that the capitalist system brings problems like taking away “true” needs like freedom, full expression of human potential and creativity, genuine creative happiness, imagination and replacing them with false ones like commodity fetishism and popular culture. “Imagination is replaced by a mechanically relentless control mechanism which determines whether the latest imago to be distributed really represents an exact, accurate and reliable reflection of the relevant item of reality” (Adorno, pg 55). The narrator at the beginning of the film buys new Swedish furniture for his house although he does not need any furniture. Consuming ties him to his virtual life, his furniture are like his toys, which add colour to his life. Adorno explains this as being hunted by the culture industry and calls it “commodity fetishism”. He asserts that the reason for most people’s shopping is not their need but rather, their strong belief about the high exchange value of a commodity. “The consumer is really worshipping the money that he himself has paid for the ticket to the Toscanini concert. He has literally made the success he reifies and accepts as an objective criterion, without recognizing himself in it. But he has not made it by liking the concert, but rather by buying the ticket” (Adorno, pg 34). Like in Adorno’s example, although the narrator does not need any furniture, he buys new Swedish furniture because he was raised like all other sleeping people to believe that Swedish furniture is very valuable and a “must be” in his house. In this case, he is not happy because of having Swedish furniture, but because he is consuming, spending his money to gain popular commodities in other words satisfying his false needs. However, the narrator’s revolutionary sub personality, Tyler Durden, strongly rails against commodity fetishism. He says, “The things you own end up owning you” and burns the narrator’s house down because he knows that these commodities are things that could pull the narrator back to his virtual life again. Tyler Tyler Tyler
Adorno is very hopeless about our chances to overthrow this system. However, Tyler Durden has a revolutionary character and he thinks that violence and disruption can be a solution for this problem. He first starts to manifest his violence by fighting with other people and he forms Fight Club. Day by day, Fight Club becomes a stronger obsession, because people slowly open their eyes and understand that they were distanced from reality. Tyler Tyler Tyler Tyler Germany Tyler
Another important point about the film is that although the movie seems to be anti-systemic and makes us think that it criticizes the modern capitalist society harshly, we may easily notice that it is a production made by Hollywood for the sake of profit and its publications are made from television, newspapers etc. This reminds us Adorno’s ideas on jazz music. Adorno thought that while jazz music, which is mostly based on improvisation and syncopation[5], seems to provide liberty to the artist, it in fact spreads barbarism and the profit interest of the culture industry with subterfuge. For Adorno, jazz music unlike its marginal position, is strongly tied to the culture industry. Similar to jazz, we can say that the movie “Fight Club” was presented to audience in the form of a cultural commodity in different formats and shapes. Souvenirs, post-cards, posters of the film were put on sale and many companies made profit from the sales of these products made by the film’s admirers who claim to be against the system. This paradox makes the stance of the movie much more complex since we can say that Fight Club, as a part of the popular culture, just performs the role of being against the system. It does not offer any alternative choices and at the end, it offers an imaginary nihilist vigilantism which makes the audience perhaps even more desperate about changing their conditions and the system. From this perspective we can assert that Fight Club fights with other movies made for commercial purposes instead of the system. However, considering Theodor Adorno’s negative position against the revolutionary 1968 generation and violent anti-system movements, we can claim that Fight Club and Adorno stand together within the system not against it and they both show some weaknesses of the system for creating the antidote.
Finally, in my opinion, in addition to its artistic, commercial and cinematographic success, Fight Club is an important novel and movie that directs people to question the system by staying within the system. The movie -from an Adornian perspective- is very rich of ideas and has clever points. However, similar to Adorno’s position maybe, it does not have a revolutionary character and it just acts as revolutionary. In my opinion, Fight Club is still significant in showing problems of individuals living in the modern society. Our modern anti-hero “Tyler Durden” shouts: “The first rule of the Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of the Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club. Third rule of the Fight Club, when someone says "stop" or goes limp, the fight is over. Fourth rule of the Fight Club is, only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule of the Fight Club is, one fight at a time. Sixth rule of the Fight Club is, no shirt, no shoes. Seventh rule of the Fight Club is, fights go on as long as they have to. Eighth and final rule of Fight Club, if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight!”…
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Adorno, T., 1991, “The Culture Industry: Selected Essays On Mass Culture”, London
- T.W. Adorno & M. Horkheimer, 1992, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, The Dialectic of Enlightenment, The Seabury Press
- Wikipedia.org, http://www.wikipedia.org/
- “Fight Club” the movie
- Imdb.com (Internet Movie Database website), http://www.imdb.com
- Dictionary.com, http://www.dictionary.com/
[1] “The Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in late 18th and early 19th century Britain
[2] Imdb.com, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/
[4] Reference from Wikipedia.org
[5] “A shift of accent in a passage or composition that occurs when a normally weak beat is stressed”, (Dictionary.com).
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