Fight Club

[Mnemolth]

This is NOT a movie thread. That's why its not in that forum.

This is NOT a thread people under 15 should participate in. You may have an idea of what we are talking about but that is highly unlikely.

This is NOT a thread that 'sensitive' people should participate in. It deals with subject matter that can be very confronting.

This is NOT about the movie, so please don't start in about how much you like or hate it.

This IS about some of the social issues the movie touched upon.

I will now make two quotes. Read them carefully. Here are a few movie reviews that might help you understand the quotes better.

[url]http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review/0,4267,102483,00.html[/url]

[url]http://www.sbs.com.au/movieshow/reviews.php3?id=183[/url]

[url]http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1999/10/101502.html[/url]

Once again, I need to reiterate, this is NOT about the movie. The movie reviews are only a guide to give you some understanding of the the issues involved.

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.
We are all a part of the same compost heap,
we are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
You are not your bank account,
you are not the clothes you wear.
You are not the contents of your wallet.
You are not your bowel cancer.
You are not your Grande Latte.
You are not the car you drive.
You are not your f*cking khakis.

You have to give up, you have to give up.
You have to realize that someday you will die,
until you know that you are useless.

I say let me never be complete.
I say may I never be content.
I say deliver me from Swedish furniture!
I say deliver me from clever art.
I say deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth.
I say you have to give up.
I say evolve, and let the chips fall where they may.

This is your life.
It doesn't get any better than this.
This is your life and its ending one minute at a time."


"I see in fight club the strongest and
smartest men who have ever lived --
I see all this potential ...and I see it squandered.
God damn it an entire generation pumping gas and waiting tables;
slaves with white collars.

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes,
working jobs we hate so we can buy **** we don't need.
We are the middle children of history man,
with no purpose or place.
We have no great war, no great depression.

Our great war is a spiritual war.
Our great depression is our lives.
We've all been raised on television to believe
that one day we'd be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars
-- but we won't.
We're slowly learning that fact.
And we're very, very p*ssed-off."

Questions you might consider (but are not limited to).

Have the above comments lost their potency after 9/11?

Are they still valid?

Do you subscribe to such a philosophy?

If so, why, and if not, why not?

Your replies should probably start off with a definition of what you take the two above posts to mean. This way everyone knows what you're talking about because the meaning can vary from person to person.

[Kent]

Well, Im not sure I take the qoutes for exactly what they were meant for, but I would say they relate directly to the "meaninglessness" of this more "civilized" life.

I mean that in the sense that people have come to live their lives around the clothes, money, cars and occupations they have gotten for themselves.

These arent what we should live for... what we should live for, I still dont know, but concerning ourselves with those things alone is not a life at all.

As for its validity after 9/11, I couldnt really say. I personally would say it could have many different effects on a person.

I would say that these qoutes are good for looking at yourself. Looking deeper and seeing what you are living for. Are you one of the mindless minions, Or are you living for something more important.

It could also help to let us see the "real world." With the events of 9/11, people who are still only concerned with the pants and cars are missing out, or oblivious, to the actual world they live in.

These qoutes should serve as a wake up to those who are asleep.

But, these qoutes also sound arrogant to those who were already "living and awake."

[Phantom]

Have the above comments lost their potency after 9/11?
---> I dont know, nor care...it has nothing to do with September 11th, nor in my eyes did the quote's appear to have any potency..to me at least.


Are they still valid?
---> Where they ever? Where they ever more than someone's blatant opinion? Hmm?

Do you subscribe to such a philosophy?
---> Not really...But in a sense yea, I'd have to agree with a couple points:

'You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.'

If so, why, and if not, why not?
---> Why? Because its true, does it get any simpler than that?

And I will end with what I take the above quotes to take (this is your fault Mnemolth, I am just doing it in chronological order in which you stated to have responces, maybe you should have put this part first so wiseasses like myself dont do this #_#!^.^;

The first one is just reinforcing the common sence practical application that usually arrives as one loses their right for innocence. You know, when you are a kid, you feel nothing, care about nothing but your fruit loops, and your bath toys, and than you lose that innocence..one way or another.

I think the first quote is merely emphasizing the loss of innocence.

The second one, I find is roughtly the same message, just portrayed differently. Not like the first, where it simply came out and told you what is what....this second one chose a much more casual, yet still verbally impacting effect.

Edit: Im not sure if this should be meant for the Poetry forum..or movie forum..hell there IS NO place for this type of post...OBL should suffice :).

[wrist cutter]

The two quotes seem just like more of this "let's all be deep and ignore material things" type stuff I see happening more and more these days. It's like the hippie generation is returning.

So I give them both a big thumbs down.

[Foredaddy]

Yeah Im definately down with the material objects. Mainly cause I dont have anything else to worry about.

[James]

[color=royalblue]I'm inclined to agree with wrist cutter. The people in Fight Club, who lived in this way, were essentially "neo hippies".

I don't necessarily believe that it is acceptable to be a more materialistic society...but by the same token, I think the message sent by that quote from the movie is still pretty depressing and negative.

The only message it seems to send is that once you've lost everything, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I suppose that's a true statement, but I don't think it's a philosophy that we should all live by necessarily. We might all be very depressed if we felt that our lives were truly so worthless.[/color]

[Mitch]

[color=red] Hmm, yes, these are all rather negative. Actually, very.

From the first, I got that we are only humans, nothing greater, nothing more better, nothing more than but cells. And Also that we need to accept that we are extinct as we speak, dieing as we speak.

The second, I got that the person which is speaking believes our generation lives in a day and age of nothing. Nothing. Nothing but spirit and that alone.

And no, I do not stand by these quotes. They are the complete opposites of my beliefs.[/color]