Freshman year of college, my homosexual, sandal-and-sock-wearing English course classmate suggested I see Fight Club for an interesting discussion in modern male gender identity. It took eight years, but this morning I finally caught up to the movie.
It started out pretty rockin'. The last half of it was of this weird cult involvement, but I still have it four stars on Netflix.
I especially liked the commentary on how formulaic our lives have become. Go to college. Get a job. Get married. Buy Ikea. Drink Starbucks. None of this has anything to do with hunter gatherer instincts, as the movie points out. Fighting for the disconnected men was a way to reclaim something primal and basic.
Starting a fight club is only one solution; there are others. Much better would be Thoreau's suggestion to simplify our lives. If we no longer believe the advertiser's claim that we need "X", we won't need to work the extra hour required to generate additional wages sufficient to buy "X", and then we have reclaimed that hour's labor time in leisure. With that hour, then, Thoreau would suggest a walk in the woods, but there are other possibilities. Social interaction would be mine (and Epicurius's).
Maybe I was a bit drawn in, though. watching the fighting made me want to knock heads a bit. But my ideal was the safety of a wrestling mat. The movie ultimately made me realize I was a wimp. I'd pull every punch, afraid I'd break my hand. I'd quit as soon as my nose was broken. Could I pull out a tooth and then shrug it off?
I feel like such a momma's boy. But it's the timing: I'm home for holidays and I'm getting a babied-treatment I never had even when I lived here. It's not that I'm feminized: or am I rationalizing?
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