Stupid, evil movie
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nihilist_alter-ego — 9 years ago(January 30, 2017 10:55 PM)
Still, check out my "quotes" post I would like to hear how those "hate everything" and "Life sucks" and the ultimate "class envy" and the "hate commercialism" protestations (while using it to spout anti-commercialism via commercialism, i.e., the movie)" can not be taken not only literally but even promoted, as I have seen in some of these other posts
Bear in mind that the many pseudo-intellectual BS quotes found in the movie are all being uttered by a clinically insane, dangerous psychopath who spends the majority of the film talking to his imaginary friend. I'm not sure what else there is to be said about them. Of course none of it is rational or applicable to the real world; you're listening to a madman (literally). Is it really 'promoting' a philosophy if the person saying it is a batshyte crazy lunatic who listens to voices in his head, makes soap out of human fat and actually tries to blow his own brains out at the end of the film? This is not someone you should be taking life advice from, is the message.
And I don't accept the so-called "dumb" audience argument I'm not the most brilliant mind in the world and I guess I'm one of the dumb ones in this respect because these kinds of mental gymnastics explanations make me wheezy.
It's not the the audience is dumb, it's that the film is inherently dishonest. I do love this movie, but it is a very deceitful little flick. (That's okay though, it fully intends to be.) We don't meet the Narrator knowing he's already dangerously insane (although he is) and we don't meet Tyler Durden knowing he's not real (although he isn't). The Narrator is presented as sane, so we listen to him. Tyler is presented as real, so we believe in him. Likewise, Tyler isn't 'presented' as a villain; he's just a lovable sort of scamp who has some interesting anarchist philosophies, engages in petty crime, beats the crap out of people for fun, advocates the downfall of societymakes soap out of peoplerecruits young men into his cult and turns them into mindless soldiersblows up buildings using homemade explosives
Well then.
Stepping outside of the film, Durden is a classic movie villain trope; he checks every box on the Villain Bingo Card. Crazy? Check. Dangerous? Check. Violent? Check. Charismatic? Check. He wants to destroy society, which admittedly is the goal of most anarchist villains in most movies. He has an army of slavish followers who would quite literally drink the Kool-Aid if told to (don't they all). He speaks in long rambling soliloquy about his vision and what drives him, and he's charismatic enough to sell the bullshyte (aren't they always). He presents himself as an enlightened leader, a rebel with a noble cause of freeing people from the trappings of society, attempting to lead everyone into a brave new world. He just has to destroy the old world first.
Isn't that the gist of what most evil cult leaders aspire to in the movies? Of course it is. The difference is there's no hero here to compare him to. The only morality the movie gives us is his. And trapped in Tyler's perspective, it almost looks reasonable. And then you remember, "Oh yeah, he makes
soap
out of
people
."
When there's no more room on the internet, the dumb will walk the earth. -
oliverspjuth — 9 years ago(February 01, 2017 09:41 AM)
Hey!
I was quite intrigued by your discussion, and wanted to add in some of my thought of the movie. (I'm not a native english speaker so apologies for any spelling mistakes or misuse of words).
I don't believe that the philosophy of the movie should be characterized as evil or bad but probably more as a far away dreamy and unthinkable/undoable philosophy. It's quite contradictory, i must admit, for a movie or a novell to be anti consumerism and still be in that same universe. But still I believe that the movie draws up a lot of valid points about society today, just in a very extreme way. A lot of the quotes that you listed as contradictory i wouldn't say are att all, they fit quite perfectly in with the whole philosophy of the movie. I'm not the best at debating, and certainly worse at expressing myself in a different language, but i will try. Capitalism and all that it entails is not that good or perfect if you look at the whole scheme of things, and here we will certainly differ because of different beliefs. The start/trigger of capitalism as we know it today starts at the beginning of when humans first got together and organized themselves to expand their power, a necessary step was different classes, working and ruling. Since then societies has evolved and different eras emerged. One thing in common is that we have developed more and more but at the same time created a belief that expansion and new technologies is something good for us. The only thing about society, except evolving constantly towards more power and technology is the fact that human happiness will always be limited and can't increase by any means such as technology revolutions and so on, we are as happy as we were when we were hunters and gatherers. The other thing that also is connected to capitalism is the constant increase in class division, suffering and so on, all for the greater future of more advanced technology and expansion. It is necessary that a lot of people have it worse off, for others to have it better, there's no mystery why billions of people are starving. Therefore the movie paints a beautiful picture of something that we once had, which they want to achieve in the movie with a lot of questionable techniques, but that doesn't make their goal stupid.
The whole viewpoint of this movie is largely based on your own philosophy about life, the universe and the future.
I'm 18 years old, and wrote this without much consideration of how to argument about my point, I might just be stupid, to young to understand or simply bad at putting my thoughts forward. It's quite hard, and probably makes me look stupid to bring up such a big mass of history, mankind and the mechanisms behind it, but i felt that it was necessary to make my point a bit valid even though it's most likely lacking 90% of what's needed to back the information and connect it to how i think. It's just a movie, but my understanding of it needed some explanation.
Thanks,
(I'm most likely going to get roasted for this) -
johnwink — 9 years ago(February 01, 2017 11:53 AM)
You are, my young friend, quite talented and intelligent, don't sell yourself short I would love to respond more effectively but time and work right now will not allow
let me suggest a couple things to read: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, plus any of her non-fiction articles on capitalism, esp. "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal" and "Human Action" by Australian economist Ludwig von Mises
We have never had pure, laissez-faire capitalism in America, but the last vestiges of just our mixed economy are our only hope, IMHO the power and corruption in today's corporations are made possible and only made possible by an infinitely more powerful, corrupt and socialist government
Just don't believe everything you hear about capitalism despite all our struggles and atrocities, esp. during the Industrial Revolution, economic free trade (even in a semi-free society) is still the greatest gift America has given the rest of the world.
To understand the "philosophy" behind most of the quotes I earlier drew from Fight Club, read Immanuel Kant
But you and a couple other gentlemen here have caused me to revise my opinion of the movie to the point where I realize that it might mostly be a simple matter of taste that separates us
(I still cannot get over the fact that so-called fight clubs are still starting up in an entirely new generation of easily influenced teens who do not have your more observant take on the film, and that can not be a good thing.)
Will check back this weekend