Fight Club (film)



""You met me at a very strange time in my life.""

- ~ The Narrator

The first rule of Fight Club: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club: you do not talk about Fight Club. We intend to break both of those rules right now.

Fight Club, a 1999 movie directed by David Fincher and originally based on a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk, ended up becoming more famous than its literary inspiration (and even the author liked it better). It spawned two notable memes: one involves the first two rules of Fight Club, while the second involves the oft-repeated claim of a mix of gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate making anything but the world's third-worst screwdriver.

The story itself follows the life of a man discontented with his life, which seems only to revolve around his dreary corporate job, support groups for diseases he doesn't have, and endless consumerism. During a business flight, the man meets a charismatic free spirit named Tyler Durden, and they eventually start a "support group" -- the titular "Fight Club" -- where other unhappy, unfulfilled men can get together and beat the ever-loving shit out of each other as a form of "therapy." Fight Club eventually escalates as Tyler turns from the man's best friend into a Sensei for Scoundrels -- and, eventually, into an Evilutionary Biologist.

Spoiler Alert: This film has a famous Twist Ending that you will find out if you read the spoiler text. Be warned.

Fight Club contains examples of the following tropes.
"Narrator: God dammit! Fuck you. Fuck Fight Club, fuck Marla, I am sick of all your shit."
 * And Some Other Stuff: As noted above, frozen orange juice concentrate and gasoline doesn't really make homemade napalm. Several of the recipes were changed so that people wouldn't actually blow things up.
 * Anti Hero: The Narrator is Type I. Tyler is a Type V.
 * Ambiguous Situation: Subverted then played straight towards the end. (When you start to rethink the scenes)
 * Arc Words: Too many to count, this trope being a core part of Palahniuk's writing style (Palahniuk referred to them as "choruses".) "On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero," and "I know this because Tyler knows this" are three of the most well-known examples. There's also mentions of "space monkeys," and the "I am Jack's *insert characteristic here*," a reference to a pamphlet that described internal organs in the first person and "We have just lost cabin pressure."
 * Asskicking Pose: Tyler
 * Bad Guy Bar: Lou's Bar.
 * Battle Strip: No shirt, no shoes while fighting.
 * Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Subverted hard and then Lampshaded.
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension: Marla and the Narrator.
 * Better Living Through Evil: Tyler helping the Narrator.
 * Black Comedy: the ultimate "Should I Be Laughing?" movie!
 * Briar Patching: Subverted; see Wire Dilemma.
 * Broken Ace: Tyler, being
 * Broken Record: "His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson."
 * Bullet Time: The narrator's dream of sleeping with Marla. Director Fincher was apparently embarrassed at the idea of directing a traditional sex scene, so he devised a more abstract way of presenting the material.
 * Call Back: An easy one to miss on your first viewing is the opening scene, when Tyler asks the narrator if he wants to say anything to "mark the occasion". The narrator replies that he "Can't think of anything." The film then goes back and works towards How We Got Here; when the scene plays out again, the line becomes "I still can't think of anything," which Tyler Lampshades with "Ah, flashback humor."
 * Cavalry Betrayal: Once he realises the full extent of Project Mayhem's plans
 * Chekhov's Gag:
 * Cluster F Bomb

"Tyler: He fell down some stairs.
 * Coming of Age Story: One of the weirdest examples of this trope in cinematic history. It helps if you bear in mind that Fincher's biggest influence while making the film was The Graduate.
 * The Commandments: The rules of Fight Club.
 * Cut Himself Shaving

Narrator: I fell down some stairs."

""You don't know where I've been!""
 * Creepy Monotone: The nameless narrator sometimes slips into this, both in his narration and in his dialogue in the film
 * Dark Messiah: Tyler.
 * Department of Redundancy Department: "The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club!" Justified in-universe, since Tyler isn't joking -- you really shouldn't be telling anyone.
 * Dissonant Serenity: When Lou brutally beats up Tyler Durden when they first meet, smashing open his mouth and nose, Tyler is... laughing his ass off.

Project Mayhem was an exaggerated version of the very real Cacophony Society, which the author was a member of. The Cacophony Society was formed out of a group known as the Suicide Club (though they did not actually commit suicide) and is more or less the Evil Twin of Improv Everywhere, where they play pranks to make people unhappy rather than happy. "Narrator: And clean food, alright?
 * Does This Remind You of Anything: The Ho Yay between Tyler and the narrator is very much intentional.
 * Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The story is supposed to show how awful and self-destructive Fight Club, Project Mayhem and basically anything at all to do with Tyler Durden is, but some fans instead think it's glorifying violence and Tyler is living the life they all want to live, to the point where some people are setting up Fight Clubs.
 * Alternatively, the story is supposed to mock both ways. It's meant to scorn the normal corporate suburban life and how people need to learn to let go a little more, but also show the dangers of living completely like someone like Tyler. Both the book and the movie show that you can and need to find a balance, and not become a person solely focused on their appearance, money, and job, but not become a self-destructive nihilistic nut like Tyler.
 * Enforced Method Acting: When Tyler asks the narrator he wants to be hit as hard as he could, the narrator winds up and... hits him in the ear. Brad Pitt was told Ed Norton would hit him in the shoulder. "Ow! Motherfucker! Why the ear, man?!" is a legit reaction. Apparently Norton and Pitt also got drunk before shooting the scene in which Tyler and the narrator drunkenly fling golf balls at the paper factory opposite Tyler's house. Pitt's amused giggle certainly sounds quite realistic. It was early in the morning and they were aiming the golf balls at the catering truck.
 * Easter Egg:
 * Escapism: Why the Fight Club's are invented and
 * Empty Fridge Empty Life: "Yeah, I know, I know, a house full of condiments and no real food."
 * Everythings Better With Bob: Robert Paulson
 * Everything's Better with Space Monkeys
 * Everythings Better With Penguins: Slide!
 * Evil Feels Good: Tyler
 * Evilutionary Biologist: Tyler Durden. Sort of. More of an Evilutionary Sociologist, all things considered.
 * Fake American: British Helena Bonham-Carter as Marla
 * Fan Disservice: Lots of half-naked, sweaty, bloodied men. One of whom is Meat Loaf. With Boobs (capitalization justified).
 * Fan Service: Lots of half-naked, sweaty, bloodied men. One of whom is Brad Pitt.
 * Fight Clubbing: The Trope Namer.
 * Foreshadowing: Especially obvious with lines such as, When the Narrator fights himself in his boss' office, he muses,
 * Freudian Threat: The threat to cut off someone's balls happens a few times.
 * Female Gaze: related to the Fan Service in the form of Tyler Durdan.
 * Freeze Frame Bonus: Tyler pops up in the film several times before his introduction proper, sometimes just for one or two frames. In-universe, Tyler amuses himself by splicing single frames of porn into children's films (this happens to the film itself immediately prior to the end credit sequence).
 * Freudian Threat: The threat to cut off someone's balls happens a few times.
 * Funny Background Event: The narrator sighs as he sees his new acquaintance Tyler shimmy up to an expensive convertible and drive away. As the narrator turns towards the camera in a fug of jealousy and self-loathing, the car owner is seen frantically pursuing Tyler down the street.
 * Gag Boobs: Bob is a rare male example.
 * Genre Busting: Looking past the bare-knuckle fights and domestic terrorism, this is probably the best example of a Romantic Black Comedy.
 * Good Cop Bad Cop: The narrator and Tyler do this to the Project Mayhem applicants, which becomes really weird after you get to The Reveal.
 * Groin Attack: "Anyone interferes with Project Mayhem, we gotta get his balls."
 * Happy Place: The icy cave the Narrator imagines. Subverted during the chemical burn scene.
 * He Who Fights Monsters: By the end, Tyler has shaped his group to be just as conformist as the consumerist society he's trying to overthrow, and in some cases, it's even worse.
 * Hit Me Dammit: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can!"
 * Hollywood Nerd: The narrator is a Type 2.
 * Ho Yay: All over the place, and in fact is an important part of the plot, since much of the conflict may stem from the Narrator's sexual confusion. The phallic imagery gets so out of control that at many points it's not even imagery. It should be noted that the Ho Yay was taken down a notch in the movie.
 * How We Got Here: Thrice, actually.
 * Hypocritical Humour: to summerise: "We were shaving our head and cutting our nails for Fight Club, this is entirely different from people who shave their head to be Cool"
 * I Ate What: The movie has several references to people urinating or worse into food, based on stories told to the author by waiters who spoiled the food of bad customers.

Waiter in the Tyler-staffed restaurant: In that case, may I advise against the lady eating the clam chowder?"

"Tyler: "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.""
 * Ironic Echo: Related to Arc Words.
 * If You Can Read This: The newspapers all have the same nonsense text, whether the headline is "Fountain Befouled" or "Feces Catapault Seized" or "Stolen Lab Monkey Found Shaved".
 * I'm Not Afraid of You: Jack to Tyler
 * : Wait for the ending
 * The Immodest Orgasm: Courtesy of Marla.
 * Important Haircut: The members are all shaved when they get recruited. Also, Tyler himself gets one before launching Project Mayhem.
 * Impossibly Cool Clothes: Tyler's ability to pull off increasingly flamboyant, off-the-wall outfits attests to his "I'm everything you ever wanted to be" charisma.
 * Interface Screw: Fincher gets in another meta-gag with the Blu-Ray release.  The DVD has Tyler vandalizing the opening FBI warning. You can see it here.
 * I Surrender Suckers: Tyler's fight with Lou.
 * I Just Want to Be Free: The catalyst which starts the whole thing off.
 * Jekyll and Hyde: Marla seems to feel this way about the Narrator: "You're Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Jackass."
 * Journey to The Center of The Mind: Inverted in the opening credits. Fincher said he wanted to show the reaction of fear as it, all the way from one neuron in the brain firing off to sweat rolling down the Narrator's forehead.
 * Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: One interpretation of the third act of both film and book.
 * Leaning On the Fourth Wall: Done enough times to make the camera a supporting character. In at least one montage the narrator directly addresses the camera to tell us about Tyler.
 * Life Will Kill You

"Tyler Durden: Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else."
 * Looks Like Cesare: Marla Singer.
 * Made of Iron: Lots of characters, but particularly Tyler.
 * Maniacal Laugh: Tyler Durden's, several times but especially, and most disturbingly, during his fight with Lou. This laughter is also used at the beginning of the DVD menu.
 * Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Darkly subverted with Marla. Tyler is sort of a Manic Pixie Dream Guy.
 * Manipulative Bastard: Tyler.
 * Masquerade: If you're not allowed to talk about Fight Club, you might never know who is in on it and who isn't. This is especially true for the book, in which the narrator mentions that nobody knows whether a prank pulled in public was pulled by Project Mayhem or not because the first rule is you do not ask questions. This is lampshaded in both the book and movie when
 * Male Gaze: in regards to the Ho Yay.
 * Marshmallow Hell: Bob had bitch tits.
 * Meaningful Echo: A lot of them, too many to cite. Possibly as much as ten percent of the script.
 * Medium Awareness: Lots of deliberate film artifacts, including "cigarette burns" and sprocket holes. And, of course, a nice fat cock.
 * Memetic Mutation: Played darkly with in the In Universe example, "His name is Robert Paulsen", when the Narrator first realizes that no matter how much he tries, any members of Project Mayhem not present at the birth of a rule will just become the Misaimed Fandom of the mutated meaning.
 * Mental Story: In large part, but a lot of interesting stuff happens in reality, too.
 * Mind Screw: The movie is weird from the start, but after a certain point, everything gets thrown out the window.
 * Missing Time: The plane sequences.
 * Mr. Fanservice: Most conversations about how attractive Brad Pitt is will mention this film.
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: Tyler sounds like one at first glance, but it soon becomes apparent that he's anything but a true nihilist.

""Fucker's setting up franchises.""
 * No Communities Were Harmed: The Narrator's hometown is never given, but clues suggest that it is Wilmington, Delaware. Other cities are mentioned by name as locations of satellite Fight Clubs.
 * Mr. Exposition: The "Narrator"
 * Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer focused on the fighting elements instead of the psychological elements.
 * Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The Reveal throws everything that you thought was going on out the window, both for the audience and the Narrator.
 * No Holds Barred Beatdown:
 * The "fights" in the film are usually sloppy brawls or lopsided beat-downs, particularly "Jack" vs Angel Face, and Tyler vs "Jack".
 * Lou beating the shit out of Tyler, who refuses to defend himself until Lou turns his back.
 * No Name Given: Ed Norton's character is known in the script only as the Narrator, and is never given a name in the film.
 * Once More With Clarity: Towards the end of the film,
 * Only a Flesh Wound: Near the end of the movie,
 * Only Known By Their Nickname: Jaret Leto's character is credited as "Angel Face". And of course the nameless Narrator has become known as "Jack" to fans, after one of the movie's most memorable running gags.
 * Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Helena Bonham Carter's English accent comes through at times, most obviously in the scene in which the narrator explains that he actually quite likes her.
 * Painting the Fourth Wall: Many scenes, especially the "Let me tell you about Tyler Durden" scene. Also: "Ah, flashback humor."
 * Pay Phone: The Narrator calls Tyler on a payphone after his apartment is blown up. Tyler doesn't answer, but calls the payphone back to talk to him. A few years later, this scene would probably never have happened.
 * Percussive Therapy: A big part of the movie's premise.
 * Pimped Out Dress: Marla compares a bridesmaid's dress to a rape victim. Since other dialogue indicates Marla's had other abusive partners in the past, she probably knows what she's talking about here...
 * Product Placement:
 * Fight Club subverts this by showing numerous name-brand products and companies -- while holding them up as examples of the failure of modern society. One notable scene involves Ed Norton's apartment morphing into the not-IKEA "Fürni" catalog page he ordered his furniture from. In the DVD Commentary, the filmmakers wondered what 7-UP thought about their glowing logo providing a silhouette for Tyler's gun. Hell, the Narrator himself says it outright: "When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything. The IBM stellar sphere, the Microsoft galaxy. Planet Starbucks."
 * To shoot a scene where Project Mayhem destroy a Starbucks shop with a dislodged street sculpture, the producers needed permission to use the Starbucks logo. According to the DVD Commentary, they tried to use it anywhere they could manage when they received permission.
 * Rated M for Manly: Fight Club's story imparts the idea of society neutering male nature and discouraging traditionally male impulses and activities by labelling them shameful. The Fight Clubs (before Project Mayhem) exist as a way for the characters to subvert society's expectations by allowing them to release their impulses in secret (the dialogue makes sure to emphasize the Club's male-exclusive status). This theme makes Fight Club one of the most notable masculist works in recent pop culture history.
 * Red Oni Blue Oni: Tyler is impulsive and rash, whereas the Narrator is a calm and cool corporate executive. Their different personalities are, of course, all mixed-up in the heat of the fight, and then we find out that
 * Revised Ending: In the book, In the movie,  Chuck Palahniuk liked the movie's ending more than his.
 * Rule Number One: There are eight rules, though people only remember the first two (which are the same rule) due to Memetic Mutation.
 * Rule of Cool: Tyler's clothes
 * Rule of Sexy: Tyler.
 * Refuge in Audacity: Tyler
 * The Reveal:
 * Screw Yourself:
 * Second Person Narration: The "You wake up at SeaTac" scene.
 * Secret Other Family: The narrator's father, repeatedly.

""I look like you want to look, I fuck like you want to fuck, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.""
 * Sensei for Scoundrels: The trope was originally titled The Tyler Durden, which still exists as a redirect.
 * Shirtless Scene: The sixth rule of Fight Club says "no shirts, no shoes". Bob averts this rule without comment. (It also saved money on makeup effects.)
 * Shoo Out the Clowns: Bob, the testicular cancer survivor. Look, our comical friend Bob joins Fight Club, and he's awesome! Look,.
 * The Snark Knight: The narrator and Tyler, Tyler moreso, since he is
 * Subliminal Seduction:
 * Tyler inserts single frames of pornography into children's films -- and later threatens to reveal this to the public unless the boss of the projectionists' union pays him off.
 * Tyler shows up this way in a few scenes before his first proper scene, generally as a way to trip out the audience.
 * Sure Let's Go With That: One of the potential recruits for Project Mayhem has bright yellow hair. When the Drill Sergeant Nasty-equivalent starts cutting the recruits down, he rips into the blonde's hair color, as he can't find anything else to riff on.
 * Tagline:
 * How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?
 * When you wake up in a different place at a different time, can you wake up as a different person?
 * Losing all hope is freedom
 * Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.
 * Works great even on blood stains.
 * Übermut. Chaos. Seife. (Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.)
 * Through the Eyes of Madness:
 * Technology Marches On:
 * None of the characters appear to use or own mobile phones. The Narrator calls Tyler on a payphone and Tyler *69s him to see who called.
 * Tyler asks the Narrator to photocopy the rules of Fight Club on the copier in his office, rather than simply asking him to type them out and print them.
 * One of Project Mayhem's pranks involves pouring petrol into the tube of a CRT monitor so that it explodes when turned on. Another prank involves using electromagnets to wipe the VHS tapes in a video rental shop. (Amusingly related to the second prank: David Fincher gave interviews around the time of the film's release in which he specifically mentioned DVDs.)
 * The film averted one instance: in the novel, the narrator writes haikus and faxes them to everyone in his office, but the film changed the delivery method to e-mail.
 * Throw It In:
 * Pitt and Norton mostly ad-libbed the scene in Lou's Bar. Fincher cut together the final version of the scene from thirty-eight separate takes.
 * When the Narrator punches Tyler in the ear, Pitt's reaction was genuine; Norton actually punched him straight in the ear.
 * : A classic example.
 * Trailers Always Lie: Most of the trailers made the film look like a straight-up fighting movie, which didn't help it at the box office.
 * Trickster: Tyler.
 * Troll: Tyler
 * Ubermensch: Tyler. Charismatic? Check. Atheistic? Check. Has agenda intended to tear down the existing establishment (mindless consumerism coupled with a society where masculinity cannot be expressed openly) with a new paradigm after rejecting all previous moral codes and overcoming the inherent nihilism? Check. Has a Last Man equivalent (and in the protagonist, no less)? Check.
 * The Unfettered: Tyler Durden

"Tyler Durden: Hi. You're going to call off your rigorous investigation. You're going to publicly state that there is no underground group, or we are going to take your balls. […] The people you are after are the people you depend on; we cook your meals, we connect your calls, we guard you while you sleep. Do not fuck with us.''"
 * Up to Eleven: Both Marla and Tyler.
 * We Are Everywhere: Tyler Durden delivers one to the man who planned to investigate Fight Club:
 * We Are Everywhere: Tyler Durden delivers one to the man who planned to investigate Fight Club:


 * Western Terrorists: Project Mayhem
 * Wham Line:
 * Wire Dilemma: "Oh, heavens, no, not the green one -- anything but the green one!"
 * Writer Revolt:
 * Executives felt Marla's line after she has sex with Tyler ("I want to have your abortion") would prove too offensive, so they asked David Fincher to change it -- which he did, to "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school". He refused to change it back.
 * The movie contains a great deal of product placement, nearly all of which ends up criticized, smashed, blown up, or otherwise vandalized over the course of the movie.
 * You Are Too Late:
 * Your Mind Makes It Real: Outright stated a couple of times.
 * You Cannot Kill an Idea:
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: All but said in relation to Tyler and