Masculinity and violence in David Fincher’s "Fight Club"

Abstract

In this article we address a hermeneutic approach to David Fincher’s Fight Club. Inspired by some of the methodological principles of Psychoanalysis and Queer Theory the study tries to thresh the details of the representation of Masculinity in the film. Departing from the hypothesis that such representation in the film is closely linked to the masculine castration anxiety, the essay traces the recurrent and more or less parodic, more or less subliminal allusions to emasculation as well as the fetishistic compensatory strategies displayed. The analysis concludes that the overwhelming mise en scène of the masculine Oedipal scenario in the film pursues to underpin an hegemonic discourse of Masculinity threatened by the taboo of Homosexuality. Hence, the prominent erotisization of masculine masochism reveals itself, in all its ambivalence, as a performative strategy to institutionalise a heteronormative sexual regime.