Fight Club: Queer Theory and Capitalist Critique

Toxic masculinity has been satirized and parodied in media and literature since the term's inception in the 1980s. American Psycho and Fight Club are popular examples of these narratives wrought with violence and social commentary. The authors of these novels-turned-films, Brett Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk, respectively, are both queer men and infuse their experiences into their writing. Their unique perspectives on topics of masculinity, gender roles, and heteronormativity add a layer of complexity to these male-centric stories. These nuanced points of view are maintained in the screen adaptations of the novels, though they can be taken at face value for their masculine qualities; a short-sighted viewer could  interpret the films as patriarchal propaganda. However, upon further investigation, these films carry queer themes that enrich their poignant cultural critiques. In particular, David Fincher’s Fight Club and the relationship between its three main characters question conceptions of masculinity amid the failures of capitalism. The queer coded relationship between the narrator, Jack, and Tyler Durden, later revealed to be a projection of Jack’s subconscious, represents issues of identity and expression. Additionally, each of their relationships with Marla Singer, the only main female character, challenges gender roles and portrays a woman surrounded by men with emotion, complexity, and grace. What these characters concern themselves with, such as underground fighting rings, making soap from discarded human fat, and otherwise disrupting corporate proceedings, oppose traditional notions of value and power. This essay will analyze these filmic elements to read Fight Club as powerful anti-establishment critique that confronts the roles of gender, masculinity, and capitalism; its depiction of Jack and Tyler’s relationship, their bond with Marla, and their actions against normative systems complements queer theory and strengthens liberal interpretations of the film. 

The film begins with an introduction to the narrator’s life. Jack works as an automobile recall coordinator, lives in a condo out of a magazine, and travels so often he rarely sleeps. Amid these travels, losing track of time, narrator Jack meets Tyler Durden on a plane. Tyler is handsome, charismatic, and gives Jack his number. When Jack returns home to find his condo in explosive ruin, Jack calls his new friend for a beer and a place to stay. It is on this night that Tyler first asks Jack to hit him, initiating the spiral of masochistic, rebellious violence that develops throughout the film. They continue to bloody each other, night after night, and cohabitate in an abandoned house on the edge of town. The homoerotic undertones of the pair’s physical relationship and their domestic living situation warrant a queer reading of their bond. However, their interactions are complicated by the third act reveal of the narrator as Tyler Durden; Jack, portrayed by Edward Norton, has been imagining Tyler, Brad Pitt, a more outgoing, idealized version of himself. What was once a queer coded relationship between two men is now a queer coded relationship between a man and himself. In “Inscribing the Male: Representations of Masculinity and Male Bodies in Contemporary Literature,” Borja Ibaseta debates the definition of masculinity and how it is ascribed to male bodies. Of Tyler and his physical form, he writes “[Tyler] is the ultimate indexation of masculinity for the narrator.” Fighting, then, becomes a display of this strength and idealized masculine power. Reflecting on the interactions between the two characters, it is important to contextualize them as one man struggling with his identity and conception of masculinity. His projection, Tyler, embodies the thoughts Jack cannot handle or recognize within himself. 

Initially, Jack is fascinated by Tyler’s rejection of expectations and proclivity for rebellion. He is unfamiliar with these qualities as a white-collar worker and Ikea shopper; even his line of work, assessing if brutal car accidents warrant recalls, aids the cogs of capitalist machines. Tyler shakes him from these tendencies and redefines his notions of value. In a massive change from Jack’s picturesque home, the pair live in a ramshackle house filled with the possessions of a hoarder. Tyler’s ability to see value and opportunity in this space is an early indication of a major theme of the film; repurposing items and redefining their uses represents a larger call for change to the oppressive systems of modern society. Especially in the 1990s, at the perceived “end of history,” altering tradition was a necessary school of thought. This cultural question is similar to the notions carried by queer theorists surrounding a system of control that does not serve the individual but rather commodifies all aspects of life. Relationships outside heterosexuality and the pursuit of a nuclear family are not regarded as beneficial to the capitalist system and they are thus rejected by polite society. Much like the underground fighting that Jack and Tyler organize, as well as their living situation, queerness is extradited to the societal basements or edges of town

In observing the behavior of Tyler Durden, one can easily see the capitalist critique that Fight Club asserts through his character. In his essay “What was Fight Club? Theses on the Value Worlds of Trash Capitalism,” George L. Henderson compares Jack’s and Tyler’s interaction with capitalist society and how they assign value in their lives. Central to this line of questioning is the film’s depiction of trash; Tyler lives in a dilapidated house full of a former tenant’s worthless belongings. Stacks of magazines, ancient furniture, discarded clothes, and general filth are the backdrop to life on Paper Street. He adds pornographic clips to childrens’ films, uses liposuction waste to make soap, eventually explosives, and otherwise repurposes what is rejected by others to fulfill himself. Henderson notes that Tyler demonstrates the “exchange value” of things while Jack finds fulfillment in the more traditional “use value.” To refer once again to Jack’s recall job, it stretches the limits of value and prioritizes capital over consumers. Jack feels completed by his furniture and apartment at the beginning of the film, but “lurking at the margins, and very much creeping its way into Jack’s consciousness is the possibility that the specificities of use value have reached their limit” (Henderson 148). It is this building sense of awareness and dissatisfaction with normative systems that infects Jack’s psyche, draws new members to Fight Club, and makes this film a poignant social critique with passionate fans. In response to those who use Fight Club to support sexist claims, novelist Chuck Palahnuik clarifies that the story is misinterpreted. “It was more about the terror that you were going to live or die without understanding anything important about yourself,” he says, supporting the ideas of Jack escaping capitalist expectations as well as coming to terms with a queer identity (Beamont-Thomas, The Guardian).

When Jack moves in with Tyler, he learns a new, non-normative way of engaging with capitalism. He becomes aware of the trappings of his old life and, through his projection of Tyler, uses the system against itself. For example, Tyler does not reject the service industry entirely. He works as a waiter, but uses his access to elegant spaces for mayhem by urinating in the soup. Henderson, in his writing on trash capitalism, confirms this distinction: “Fight Club less fights against modern capitalism than works its themes through capital’s very spaces. The film offers a non-alternative. It smashes capital in the very ways capital smashes itself” (Henderson 152). Tyler uses the system to his advantage, disseminating his message and product. Additionally, as Tyler teaches Jack about life outside the commodity chain, these alternative practices and objects become valuable. With its ability to connect people through an unmet desire, Tyler’s influence becomes a commodity of its own. The expression unleashed by attending Fight Club, not included in the modern American lifestyle and therefore not accessible, becomes privately treasured, almost sacred. These counter cultural behaviors are in line with the cultural struggle of queer people. In a system where their lifestyles are not valued, they must find alternative communities and outlets. To members of the community, or those who do not have sufficient education about their place within it, high value is assigned to freedom, connection, and acceptance. Jack’s relationship with Tyler mirrors the growing sense of acceptance and community familiar to queer people accepting their identity. By applying this lens to Jack and Tyler’s bond, Fight Club’s themes of social revolution are amplified. 

On fan forums, such as Tumblr and Reddit, countless posts can be found in Fight Club communities that dissect the queer coding of the film and novel. A commonly cited passage from Chuck Palahnuik’s novel with heavy queer subtext is as follows:

When we invented fight club, Tyler and I, neither of us had ever been in a fight before. If you’ve never been in a fight, you wonder. About getting hurt, about what you’re capable of doing against another man. I was the first guy Tyler ever felt safe enough to ask, and we were both drunk in a bar where no one would care so Tyler said, “I want you to do me a favor. I want you to hit me as hard as you can.” I didn’t want to, but Tyler explained it all, about not wanting to die without any scars, about being tired of watching only professionals fight, and wanting to know more about himself. About self-destruction. At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves (Palahniuk 52). 

The similarities between the initiation of the characters’ physical relationship and queer discovery are apparent. On the popular film social network Letterboxd, user Highlife reviewed Fight Club, saying “Fellas, is it gay to be in love with your imaginary friend?” Her comment received 11,000+ likes from like-minded viewers. Additionally, fans create artwork, fanfiction, video compilations, memes, and other inventive additions to the Fight Club universe; it is clear that LGBTQ+ viewers identify with the film’s characters and themes. Under the tag “Soapshipping,” fans identify specifics in the film as being especially homoerotic: the use of a gun as a phallic symbol, the domesticity of Jack and Tyler’s living situation, and the clear link between fighting and sexual passion. At the very least, fight clubs are a place for male vulnerability and expression outside of what is traditionally acceptable. In “One-Dimensional Men: Fight Club and the Poetics of the Body,” Asbjøm Grønstad notes that violence is actively sought out rather than being a narrative consequence. The intentionality of the fighting sequences makes a strong argument for its parallel to homosexual activity. In their essay “At the Unlikely Confluence of Conservative Religion and Popular Culture: Fight Club as Heteronormative Ritual,” Robert Westerfelhaus and Robert Alan Brookey analyze the ways in which this overtly masculine opportunity for expression affirms the heteronormative. However, harkening back to the discussion of Henderson and using the system against itself, these homosocial, heteronormative bonding experiences are precursors for homoeroticism when there is no alternative for community. “Cinematic depictions of homosocial bonding, and of the latent—and, from the perspective of the heterosexist mainstream, socially destabilizing— homoeroticism that accompanies such bonding, has a long history in Hollywood films,” Westerfelhaus and Brookey write (314). The male-dominated world of Fight Club, the film itself, could be seen as a homosocial space; Marla Singer is the only female character and the target audience of the film is largely male. Nevertheless, Marla’s presence is crucial. The bonds Jack and Tyler each have with Marla are further indicative of the narrator’s irresolute sexual identity.

When the audience, and the narrator, are introduced to Marla Singer, she is disrupting Jacks’ safe space. Before Fight Club, he uses fake names and attends support groups to allow for anonymous vulnerability. The act of crying with others allows him to sleep, combatting his insomnia which is later revealed to be caused by the largely nocturnal Tyler. Jack immediately dislikes Marla and they split up the support groups to avoid each other. While they have this conversation, Marla steals a load of clothing from a laundromat and sells it at a thrift store; this scene is analyzed by Henderson in a discussion of exchange value. Marla expresses a similar philosophy to Tyler when she tells Jack about her outfit: “It’s a bridesmaid’s dress. Someone loved it intensely for one day, then tossed it. Like a Christmas tree – so special, then, bam – it’s abandoned on the side of the road, tinsel still clinging to it.” Although she embodies much of the freedom that Jack desires, he finds her presence, and perhaps her ideations, invasive. When she and Tyler begin a sexual relationship, her presence on Paper Street bothers Jack immensely. Some “soapshipping” fans interpret this as jealousy because of the narrator’s feelings for Tyler; he clearly wants nothing to do with Marla. When she attempts to initiate contact with him, he reacts with revulsion. Marla’s character is made out to be unlikeable, an obstacle in the path of Project Mayhem, Tyler’s terrorist group formed from Fight Club recruits. However, once it is revealed that Tyler is a projection of Jack’s subconscious, every interaction that each of the men have had with Marla is recontextualized. 

Watching Fight Club with knowledge of the truth about the two main characters, Marla becomes a far more sympathetic character. Once a provocative, overbearing parasite, she is now a victim of the antics of a deeply unwell man. When Tyler reveals his true identity to Jack, he describes his purpose: “All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck. I am smart, capable and, most importantly, I'm free in all the ways that you are not.” This quote clarifies that, without Tyler’s presence, the narrator and Marla would not have been together. Whether it is due to his queerness or not, Jack sees this heterosexual relationship as inaccessible. Marla’s boisterousness, inventiveness, and independence could be a threat to his idea of the relationship that fits into his picturesque life. Additionally, regardless of their sexual relationship, Tyler seems to reject the idea of normative relationship with Marla, or any woman for that matter. In a discussion of his childhood and parents, Tyler muses to Jack from the bathtub: “We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.” The queer implications of this line, especially with the knowledge that Tyler is a manifestation of all Jack wishes he could be, are clear. Though Tyler’s relationship with Marla is an expression of masculinity that Jack idolizes, his real desire is freedom from societal expectations. 

A quote from Jack’s narration reveals further complication in his relationship with Marla, specifically regarding her connection with Tyler: “Except for their humping, Tyler and Marla were never in the same room. My parents pulled this exact same act for years… I am six years old again, passing messages between parents.” Jack feels that Marla has invaded his space and, in doing so, she has stirred familial associations regarding gender. In “Fight Club as Heteronormative Ritual,” Westerfelhaus and Brookey analyze the Oedipal undertones of the film and how they affect Jack’s conceptions of gender expression. “The object of Jack and Tyler's anger, and their eventual target, is masculine: the always absent yet ever powerful primal father” (Westerfelhaus, Brookey 312). The traditional conceptions of masculinity that are enforced by patriarchal society are both the source and the target of Tyler’s rebellion. The resentment Jack feels for these roles, amplified by Marla's presence, fuels Tyler’s divergence and masculine antics. 

With the awareness that it is the narrator bringing Marla to his home, then resenting her presence, one can draw a comparison between this situation and the larger cycle of the capitalist and patriarchal systems. Normative gender roles and social standards perpetrate the systems that oppress alternative lifestyles. Jack sees Tyler’s compliance with this standard, being with Marla, as a violation of their domesticity, a reversal of the freedom Tyler has been preaching. No matter how overwhelmingly masculine the film’s narrative leans, attraction to and seduction of women is not a concern. “This contemptuous, and contemptible, treatment of Maria brings into sharp relief the gendered separation of the world that Jack and Tyler have fashioned for themselves. There is no room for women in Fight Club. This gendered separation provides the setting, and the license, for the homosocial bonding that occurs first in Fight Club and then later in Project Mayhem” (Westerfelhaus, Brookey 313). Marla appears, on the surface, to be a disruption to the hypermasculine narrative. Upon further examination, her supposed intrusions are the result of a manipulative man and the system that contextualizes her actions. This positions her not as the femme fatale or romantic lead, but as Tyler’s corporeal foil; Jack must reckon with himself before he can accept connection with others. 

In the film’s final scene, Jack shoots himself through the cheek, effectively killing Tyler. He is reunited with Marla and they hold hands as Tyler’s bombs go off all over the city. “You met me at a very strange time in my life,” Jack says. Popular commentary on this scene identifies it as Jack’s acceptance of Marla as a partner; he will take the fall for the explosion of multiple credit headquarters and for his mistakes with Marla. Jack must now deal with the aftermath of Tyler’s actions. However, with the film making it clear that Tyler’s indulgence has had disastrous results, it is unlikely that this ending scene indicates a relationship between Jack and Marla. Instead, through the lens of queer theory, this scene can be interpreted as Jack’s acceptance of himself; the elements of his personality personified by Tyler must be accepted to prevent the dangerous spiral that the film depicts. Additionally, the visual similarity between Jack and Marla’s outfits in the film’s final image remove indicators of gender and sexuality that would accompany the traditional happy ending regarding a relationship. The collapsing of skyscrapers visible through the window can represent the crumbing of a phallic symbol, the end of Jack’s strained relationship with masculinity. He has learned, from Tyler, the danger of the radicalization of his desires. Now, in the film’s final moments, he is ready to face his identity with a clearer understanding and acceptance of himself. In comparison to the film’s highly gendered narrative, this shot promotes the breakdown of traditional gender roles under capitalism. 

Fight Club’s portrayal and criticism of capitalism is undeniably entangled with queer theory. Much like the physical violence and illegal activity that Jack and Tyler partake in, queer relationships are not seen as valuable or commodifiable under capitalism. Therefore, they are condemned to underground communities and rendered taboo topics in polite society. The failures of capitalism are the focus of the film’s narrative as well as its visual style. Omar Lizardo, in his essay “Fight Club, or the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism,” notes that a reading of Fight Club focused only on gender overlooks critical moments related to its capitalist critique. He notes the clear feminization of men throughout the film, but aims to expand the discussion as “such a reading shrouds the extent to which other social forces that cross-cut gender — especially those related to class position and work in the postmodern service society — serve as the primary referent and organizing coordinates of the film’s symbolic world” (Lizardo 222). This complex social landscape, and the protagonists’ frustration with it, is a largely visual element of the film; Jack’s world of copy-past condos, furniture, fast food, and cubicles has a staunch aesthetic difference from Tyler’s grunge, recycled, dilapidated life. This transition is made by Jack and the other Project Mayhem recruits. Jack, Tyler, and the others work jobs that “fall under the new McDonaldized logic of boring, repetitive labor and scripted interaction with customers.” Note the difference in entitlement between Jack and his arrogant boss; both operate within the same system, but Jack is still belittled. “He is the symbol of a collectivity, a collective that can only be defined in class terms: Jack is the “everyman” of the service society” (Lizardo 233). Lizardo ties this idea back to the common gendered reading of the film, noting that the service industry is historically feminine and both men and women have to grapple with the changes in the gender roles associated with care-taking. Additionally, because of the commodification of care and sociability, places like Fight Club allow for connection outside these expectations. The narrator has no friends from his various jobs, finding connection only with the people in his support groups or fellow fighters. Even once these connections are established, they must remain hidden. “The film is peppered with dialogue that contains double entendres and jargon reflective of a queer sexual sensibility,” Westerfelhaus and Brookey acknowledge in their essay. “Indicative of such are the intense and knowing glances and occasional winks exchanged by members of Fight Club when they encounter one another in public places,” (Westerfelhaus, Brookey 314). These private signs between Fight Club members are clearly reminiscent of the codes adopted by the LGBTQ+ community to signal identity before it was acceptable. Similarly to the LGBTQ+ community, members of fight clubs cannot publicly discuss the communities and activities where they find solace. Yet they risk it all to acknowledge their fellow fighters, strengthening their connection and blending their secret lives with the real world. The film’s message is majorly about capitalism, but the influence of a queer lens not only regarding gender and sexuality, but value and compliance, is clear.

Although the majority of scholarship surrounding Fight Club hinges on its anti-capitalist themes and social critique, the influence of queer theory on these messages cannot be overlooked. Queer theory calls out the commodification of life under capitalism as it rejects biological inclinations that are not profitable, such as queer relationships and behavior. Fight Club’s titular community is analogous to the LGBTQ+ community, stealthily meeting for non-normative, physical connection and expression against the cries of polite society. The relationship between the film’s two main characters, Jack and Tyler, is heavily queer-coded; the domesticity and self-discovery they share, in addition to the passionate release that their fighting offers, form homoerotic subtext that has been eagerly adopted by queer fans. The presence of Marla, a conflicting element for short-sighted male viewers, is an outlet for the narrator’s frustrations with gender roles. When these rejections and reversals come to an explosive head, Jack struggles to stop what Tyler has put into motion. However, as he stands hand-in-hand with Marla, watching the collapse of the American credit system, there is a strange sense of peace. By performing a queer reading of Fight Club, one can interpret the ambiguous ending as ultimate self acceptance; with the entire city reduced to status of the collapsed edge of town, there is room for new norms to be established. A queer reading of Fight Club reveals even more effective social critique and a hopeful ending.