This critical gender reading of Fight Club is amazing


Quick, what's the ideology of this film? A hyper-macho celebration of violence for its own sake, right?
Wrong. Or at least, Dan Olson makes a good case that's not the only way to see it. He argues that the movie can equally be seen as a critique of toxic masculinity: "Fight Club, intentionally or not, exposes the crisis of masculine identity as the hetero white male is displaced as the societal default, and the ugly, hazardous reactions to that loss of unquestioned power."
It's fascinating stuff. --Ryan Cooper
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Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
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