Post #1-"Creating Culture" Response

BACKGROUND:

The first concept of the idea of Fight Club was in 1996, when Chuck Palahniuk came out with the book. The idea came to him after a camping trip in which he came back to work with multiple bruises and cuts. His coworkers were reluctant to ask how he had acquired his wounds, and this gave him inspiration to write his book. He first called his book "Invisible Monsters", but it didn't get published because of how gruesome and disturbing it was. Then he changed the name to Fight Club and wrote it as a six to seven page short story. Later on he expanded it and made it into a novel. His whole basis around the book was for a way for men to have a social model. He says, "...bookstores were full of books like The Joy Luck Club and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and How to Make an American Quilt. These were all novels that presented a social model for women to be together. But there was no novel that presented a new social model for men to share their lives."

The movie's two main stars are Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, and it is a movie about how everyday men aren't satisfied with the way their lives are going and look for an escape. The movies main character, who plays as the nameless narrator (Norton), finds a way for them to escape from their everyday white collar lives. It's called Fight Club, and it’s no ordinary club. There are 8 simple rules to the club:

1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.

2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB.

3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the fight is over.

4th RULE: Only two guys to a fight.

5th RULE: One fight at a time.

6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.

7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.

8th RULE: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight.

PLOT:
It started out first as a fight between the nameless character and Tyler Durden (Pitt) after one night of drinking at a bar. The two felt ecstatic and became addicted to the idea of fighting. Witnesses of the two fighting began to form crowds and eventually it got moved to the basement of a bar. As the knuckles became bruised and the faces became bloody, it started to become more than just about fighting. Tyler Durden and his followers decide to escalate the situation and prove to everyone how corrupt they think society is. Its up to the nameless narrator to stop him, because hes the only one who can.

 

Main Casting Roles:

EDWARD NORTON- UNNAMED NARRORATER

BRAD PITT- TYLER DURDEN

HELENA BONHAM CARTER- MARLA SINGER

PRODUCTION/CREATION:

It was released as a film in 1999 and it didntmake the expected hit at the box office, but later became huge when it got released on DVD. The movie had a 63 million dollar budget and it engrossed 101 million dollars worldwide. The director of the film was David Fincher, and he, along with 4 other canidates were interviewed for the position and Fincher was chosen because of his ethusium of the film. The Producers of the film were Art Linsen, Cean Chaffin, and Ross Grayson Bell. The producers were going to pick between the actors Brad Pitt and Russell Crows for the role of Tyler Durden, but because Linsen was the Senior Producer, he decided to go with Brad Pitt because he thought the film would be more popular with a bigger star involved. 

CULTURAL IMPACT:

The movie brought into question about the daily life of someone growing up in America. Tyler Durden in the film says that he is part of the lost generation. He says, “We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off” The movie was saying that people need to stop living of zombies, going to college to get a job they hate, so later on they can buy stuff they don’t need. He’s trying to get people to believe in something greater, to invent a purpose or add meaning to life.

Even after the movie had been published, they decided to create a videogame based upon the movie and film. The game shows in gruesome detail on how fights are conducted which have a similar fighting style to games such as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. The game brought children into thinking that violence was ok as long as it was justified.

The movie brought up a lot of controversy when it first came up. It was a movie that either viewers fell in love with, or hated with a burning passion. Critiques proclaimed such things like, “Fight Club is shaping up to be the most contentious mainstream Hollywood meditation on violence since Stanley Kubricks A Clockwork Orange." The movie actually started a few fight clubs throughout the country. Reports of fight clubs being started by teenagers in cities such as California, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, and Alaska. There were even accounts of a fight club being at Princeton University. A student names Luke Helder also started blowing up Pipe bombs in mail boxes. In 2009,a 17-year old had formed his own fight club in Manhattan and was charged for blowing up a homemade bomb outside of Starbucks. The teen had been influenced by the movie.