Come along, Terry. Kick him when he’s down…
By Sickboy

You wake up in Venice, Italy.

Let me tell you about Brad Pitt, about Ed Norton…

They’re great actors, smart people.

At the 1999 Venice Film Festival, where Fight Club (the film) was first unveiled to the Euro-critics, there were walk-outs.

People shouted, “Fascists!”

Brad Pitt, Ed Norton. They were there. They watched the walk-outs and they looked at each other and Brad Pitt said, “This is the best movie I’m ever going to be in”. Ed Norton replied, “Yeah. Me, too”.

I am Jack’s insatiable self-loathing.

Here’s what Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club writer) says about this:

“Old Italian men, if they don’t like or understand something, they shout ‘Fascists’!”

You wake up in Harrow, Middlesex.

Let me tell you about Fight Club…

It’s all about individual empowerment. It’s Rough Play. The point is, you join the club, you work something out of yourself, you leave.

And then the club dies a natural death.

Hence the stuff about terminal-illness support groups, which are the opposite of Fight Club because their members die while the club lives on.

As with fascism, where the individual submits to the will of The State. Because The State has already been busy indoctrinating his replacement, the individual’s death doesn’t matter that much.

And that’s similar to consumer-driven, capitalist society. Where…

You are not an individual.

You are a ‘demographic’.

Or a ‘target market’.

Or a ‘Double Income, No Kids’.

Or a ‘Home Category Manager’.

So that’s Fight Club. An almighty rage against the capitalist sausage machine that has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.

Not fascist, then.

I am Jack’s poorly rendered phoney alter ego.

You wake up in GAME, Regent Street.

You see the box. The authentic, film-faithful logo. The pink soap.

You see the Dust Brothers music credit, maybe get a little testosterone tingle at the ‘18’ cert.

The first rule of Fight Club is, Fight Club is not Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Bloodsport.

The second rule of Fight Club is, it is not Ultimate Cunting Fighting Championship, or Dubayoo Dubayoo Eff, Flabby, Shouting American Men Pretending To Jump On Each Other (Shat-Down or Smack-Up or Twat-About EXTREEEEEEME!).

The people who devised and marketed Fight Club (the game), they weren’t thinking, “Let’s stay faithful to the film”.

They were thinking, “Let’s make it look like it’s faithful to the film. That way, the stupid people who think the film is all about having fights will see the pink soap and pounce on it like pigs to a chocolate trough. Oh, and if we throw in plenty of swearing, the ‘18’ cert will give it a sense of danger and pull in the slack-trousered teens who’ll whoop at the brutality.”

You are not a target market.

You are not a ‘Confused Male, Lots Of Disposable Income, No Taste’.

You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. Remember?

Want a scrappy, button-mash beat-‘em-up that’s all gore, no glory?

Knock yourself out. Go and play Pitfighter.

You don’t need this.

March 2005

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