Using the Instututional Critical Approach to study Fight Club

1. Fight Club
Institution Critical Approach

2. News Corp
• News Corporation or News Corp was an American
multinational mass media corporation headquartered
in New York City. It was the world's second-largest
media group as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the
world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. In
2013 the company was split into two branches – News
Corp (publishing) and 20th Century Fox (broadcasting
media)
• Assets
Founder Rupert Murdoch
Revenue US$ 33.706 billion (2012)
Operating income US$ 2.212 billion
(2012)
Net income US$ 1.179 billion (2012)
Total assets US$ 56.663 billion (2012)
Total equity US$ 24.684 billion (2012)

6. Production Context
• “Those idiots just green lit a $75m
experimental movie”
– David Fincher
• “This is a seditious movie about blowing up
people like Rupert Murdoch”
– Twentieth Century Fox Executive
• This was a very controversial film

7. Production Context - Paradox
• The funding by a global conglomerate of a film
which attacks the capitalist, consumer culture
which they are a part of
• The style and structure is unconventional, it is an
‘experimental movie’. Conglomerates don’t ‘do’
unconventional.
• Do you think that FC is an experimental film in its
use of visual style and narrative structure?
• Does it conform to the conventions of Hollywood
cinema in any way?
• Does it remind you of any other films you have
seen?

9. It was cited as one of the most controversial and
talked about movies of 1999/2000
The censor, Robin Duval, said he was forced to make
the cuts because of the "indulgence in the excitement
of beating a defenseless man's face into a pulp". One
scene involves Pitt's character being battered by a
Mafia boss and in the other the camera lingers as
Norton's character pummels a man's face.
‘Fight Club is shaping up to be the most contentious
mainstream Hollywood meditation on violence since
Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange’ (Times)

10. Rating

11. Release date
Fight Club was original slated to be released in July
1999 but was put back to August. Studios further
delayed the film, this time to the autumn of 99 due
to “a crowded summer schedule”.
However may critics believed it was more to do
with the Columbine massacre that happened in
April. The incident was widely publisied as a
copycat crime due to too much violence on TV
What implication does this action have?
What effect might it have on marketing?

12. Box Office Information
• Budget: $63,000,000 (estimated)
• Opening Weekend:
– $11,035,485 (USA) (17 October 1999) (1,963
Screens)
- £1,177,219 (UK) (14 November 1999) (322
Screens)
• Gross
– $37,030,102 (USA) (5 March 2000)

13. DVD Sales???

14. Themes and Style
• Key themes are controversial
– US society ( and by extension the West) is
represented as fake, superficial, consumerist and
dehumanising.
– People no longer have authentic emotions but
ersatz/fake ones created through buying things

15. Themes and Style
• This desensitised state is symbolised through the
representation of life and death
– Serious illness is packaged into support groups which
can’t deal with real, difficult emotions
– Narrator’s job as a risk assessor has reduced life/death
to a formula
• The lack of authenticity in contemporary society
(life is referred to as a ‘copy of a copy –PoMo) is
also explored in the representation of masculinity
– Men have been feminised (no longer have traditional
roles)
– Meaning ins life can be found through the close bond
(homoerotic) with other men (not women) and pain

16. Misogyny
• Hatred of women as a sexually defined group
(not individual women) but in this film it is
targeted at one female character
• According to Fincher Helena Bonham Carter
initially turned down the role of Marla
because the film was ‘so misogynist. It’s just
awful’
• Is this normal for a Hollywood film in the
2000’s?

17. Gender and Ideology
• What are the different attributes and
characteristics are associated with masculinity
and femininity in Fight Club? Give specific
examples/ scenes where we see this attributes.
• What does this suggest about the ideology of the
film?
• Is this normal for a Hollywood film in the 2000’s?
• Have things changed in recent years?

18. Key Source
• Film studies A2: The Essential Introduction
• Sarah Casey Benyahia, Freddie Gaffner and
John White