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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume 4
Fall 2005
By Frankie Dintino
Deleuze sees the simulacrum as an affirmative source of pure difference. This poses the question of why Jack experiences simulacra negatively, as pathological. The answer is revealed by the manner in which Jack's insomnia is cured. He seeks the help of a physician, who refuses to give him medication, despite his plea that he's in pain. "You want to see pain?" the doctor facetiously inquires, "swing by First Methodist Tuesday night. See the guys with testicular cancer. That's pain." Jack follows his doctor's orders, and inadvertently discovers that the experience cures his insomnia. Crying at his first support-group, Jack narrates: "And then something happened. I let go. Lost in oblivion - dark and silent and complete - I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom" (Fincher). Hope is an attempt to ground experience in a referential, that is, in something real. Since referential value no longer exists in a control society, or exists only as simulacra, hope is problematic. Jack is thus party to an ungrounding . Deleuze writes that "by 'ungrounding' we should understand the freedom of the non-mediated ground" ( Difference and Repetition 67). When Jack loses all hope, he is revived by the freedom allowed within a free-floating space that lacks a foundation for, more than being a surface, the ground represents a certain relationship with the sky. The problem is that Jack, in effect, grounds his experience of ungrounding in a certain context. He thus becomes addicted, and begins regularly attending support-groups for the terminally-ill as a "tourist," vampirically hosting on the catharsis they provide.
In the film, Jack is portrayed as an active participant in consumer culture. While sitting on the toilet, eyeing an Ikea catalog sideways as if it were a pornographic magazine, Jack muses: "I would flip through catalogs and wonder 'what kind of dining set defines me as a person?'" (Fincher). Here, Jack's subjectification, that is, the way he defines himself as a subject, is dependent upon externals - in this case commercialism or capitalism. For Deleuze and Guattari this is always the case, writing that
subjectification as a regime of signs or a form of expression is tied to an assemblage, in other words, an organization of power that is already fully functioning in the economy, rather than superposing itself upon contents or relations between contents determined as real in the last instance. Capital is a point of subjectification par excellence. ( A Thousand Plateaus 130)
Despite the fact that subjectification is always defined in relation to some external "assemblage," the film presents Jack's furniture fetish in a mocking tone, populating his apartment with textual blurbs of descriptions and Swedish names as though it were itself an Ikea catalog. This is the first example of Fight Club's critique of subjectification in a capitalist society.
While on a business flight, Jack encounters Tyler Durden, a "single-serving friend." The two men engage in relatively meaningless conversation, and business cards are exchanged. After landing, Jack travels back to his apartment via taxi only to find that flaming remnants of what used to be his furniture and belongings have been scattered across the street and sidewalk, the result of a mysterious explosion. After being turned away by the doorman - "police orders" - Jack goes to the payphone. First he calls Marla, a woman he encountered at his support-groups with whom he has a love-hate relationship. However, he thinks twice and hangs up the phone. On a whim he pulls out Tyler 's business card and telephones him. The two men meet for beers at a local bar, and Jack eventually gets around to asking if he can stay at Tyler 's. Tyler consents, but he asks one favor of Jack: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can" (Fincher). Jack does so and Tyler of course returns the favor. The two men exchange blows, caught up in the exhilaration of a violence which allows them to return to a pre-capitalist notion of masculinity.