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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Two
Spring 2003
"I Want You to Hit Me as Hard
as You Can!":
Screen Violence as a Reflection of Mass Reality - Page 5
by James Nelson
Violence has become such a necessary tool because it grabs the attention of the mass audience before the film moves on to the implications of that violence. Fight Club is the perfect example of this. If it were just about fighting with absolutely no deeper levels then critics might have a legitimate reason to attack it. However, we understand that violence serves a purpose and then look for the meaning behind it. Brown states, " Fight Club is about submission, but not the bloody submission many men pummel each other into through the course of the film. It is, however, about a different type of submission-that of unique human identity to the homogenization of consumer-driven culture" (Mr. Brown). I believe that the mass audience has the unconscious, analytical ability of Brown and is able to see that the violence in the film, among the other functions I have discussed, serves as a beacon, drawing the audience along to the film's deeper meanings.
What has changed is reality. It has changed by our own vices, our own behaviors, and our own tendencies. Films cannot be blamed for tossing back a product with elements that we have pitched. We connect with the violence that is shown or are entertained by it because it is an accurate representation of the hostile world in which we live. Attacking popular culture and its films makes critics and politicians feel better about the current state of society because it gives them something and someone to attack, someone to blame other than ourselves. In his film review of Fight Club , reviewer James Berardinelli writes, "By blaming movies like Fight Club for real-life horrors, politicians want us to look through rose-colored glasses that they have tinted. Instead, Fincher offers a clear, uncompromising portrait that disturbs because it is perceptive and defies the facile answers proffered by elected officials. Movies are not to blame. Guns are not to blame. People and the society that has spawned and stifled them are"(Berardinelli). Bork is correct in that all the images he describes are presented in popular culture in an open and unbiased fashion, but how can they be "selling" something when we are the ones who have sold it to them. Audiences expect violence, it adds to this idea of required realism that it takes to get anyone to tune in to anything. It connects with us psychologically, we understand its relevance in the world, and we are calmed by these violent expressions. This is Fight Club 's place in popular culture; we connect with the characters because they are doing what we pretend we never dream of. Society is violent, so is the media that follows it, not the other way around.
Works Cited
Berardinelli, James. Rev. of Fight Club , dir. David Fincher. "Fight Club." 1999 <http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/f/fight_club.html>.
Bork, Robert H. "The Collapse of Popular Culture." Slouching Towards Gomorrah . New York: HarperCollins, 1996. 123-39.
Brown, Mr. Rev. of Fight Club , dir. David Fincher. "Fight Club." All-Reviews.com . 21 Apr. 2002 <http://www.all-reviews.com/videos/fight-club-4.htm>.
Cartmell, Deborah. Interpreting Shakespeare on Screen . Hong Kong: St. Martin's, 2000.
Fight Club . Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Twentieth Century Fox, 1999.
"Fight Club and the Search for Self." Brandeis University. 10 Mar. 2002 <http://www.unet.brandeis.edu/~ariiah/freud/fight2.htm>.
Palahniuk, Chuck. "Monkey Think, Monkey Do." Gear (Dec. 2001): 110.
Storey, John. "What is Popular Culture?" An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture . Athens: U of Georgia P, 1993. 1-19.
Zillman, Dolf. "The Psychology of the Appeal of Portrayals of Violence." Why We Watch: The Attractions of Violent Entertainment . Ed. Jeffrey H. Goldstein. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. 179-211.
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