Zeitgeist

I watched Fight Club a couple nights ago. The last time I watched the movie I must have still been a freshman in college, so it was interesting to revisit the film.

In one scene, Tyler Durden pulls Raymond K. Hessel, some poor Asian dude, out of a convenient store and puts a gun to the back of his head. Durden--upon learning through interrogation by gunpoint that Raymond had studied biology in community college in hopes of becoming a veterinarian--issues an ultimatum: either Raymond puts himself on the path towards being a veterinarian in six weeks time or he will be hunted down and killed.

A heartening lesson from Tyler Durden with typical Brad Pitt, will-to-power, Randian undertones. The film, and its message, struck a chord in 1999 and ensuing years. It tapped into a deep strain of male anxiety about the meaninglessness of everyday work, of being a cog in corporate bureaucratic machinery, of being trapped in the value system of consumer culture. Forge the life that you want to live, mold your circumstances according to your wishes, be the chief architect of your own life. The film beats this mantra into your head with very little room for subtlety.

In 2009, though, I think the film strikes a false chord. In this great recession of ours, when rugged individuals aren't feeling so rugged, when fatalism is running high, there is a lot of respect to be had for the Raymond K. Hessels of this world, people who are making an honest living and who've adjusted rather admirably to changing circumstances. Tyler Durden, on the other hand, comes off as adolescent in his narcissism, irresponsible. Mischief? Mayhem? I'll pass.

Our zeitgeist is, in my mind, aptly captured in the 2008 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Slumdog Millionaire. D) It's written. How nice would that be?