Male Gaze In The Male Gaze

David Fincher’s Fight Club, 1999, contains strong themes of masculinity and enforced gender roles. It is subjective, however, whether or not the gender narrative within the film complies with modern feminist values, or serves as nothing more than masculine empowerment. The two critical texts I have chosen to study are Masculinity in Crisis and Private Satisfactions and Public Disorders: Fight Club, Patriarchy, and the Politics of Masculine Violence, both of which analyse Fight Club through a feminist lens. My first critical text views the film as a feminist statement on the toxicity of masculine violence, while my second text finds more faults with the gender roles in the film.

Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is the story of a man struggling to find himself. The main character, a nameless narrator, is clearly unhappy with his life. He obsessively fakes diseases and attends support group sessions as a way to deal with his hopelessness. Obsessive behaviors often lead to unfavorable events if they are interrupted (Lizardo). Just as it seems the support groups have brought him to a form of equilibrium, they are interrupted by a fellow faker. His inability to treat his restlessness by attending these support groups drives the narrator to shocking extremes.

“Later that night when Thomas roller over and lurched into her, she would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers” this proves the point that she cannot even express herself sexually because she does not feel as if she has control in the situation.  Her mind wanders elsewhere, in a place where she is her own master, instead of what is reality. Additionally, the main character’s husband shows some selfish tendencies in the fact that he may not notice his wife’s discontentment with his affection.  However, this may also present the lack of communication between man and wife and therefore may cause a sense of isolation from her husband.

From the very first words of the chapter, the narrator provides a strong glimpse into how he interprets this situation—he’s ridden with intrigue, and disgust. From the start,

The normative understanding of masculinity ceases to change in part due to its impervious representation in films. The entertainment industry conveys normative ideas on masculinity to the public through films in often obvious and sometimes subtle ways that creates a singular mainstream view on what the ideal man is. Films such as Fight Club (1999), directed by David Fincher, portray masculinity in a seemingly unique artistic way, but in the end the cultural philosophies on gender remain the same. Through the constructs of violence, power and apathy toward women the film encourages the conservation of the already established understandings of masculinity. Fight Club being filmed in 1999 demonstrates how long conventional views on masculinity

Any discussion about gender and cinema must begin (though not end) with a thorough understanding of the male gaze. As one of the most pervasive talking points throughout the history of the cinema and film theory, an understanding of the male gaze from classical Hollywood cinema until today is

The narrator later on feels less accepted by her own husband. She “believes John is beginning to notice” that she’s doing better even though she claims she isn’t. She “doesn’t like the look in his eyes”. She felt as if he only “pretended to be loving and kind”.

Almost every person has heard the quote “the first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club”, a line from a film that’s widely known for its mind-bending plot that’s a blend of dark comedy, psychological thriller, and drama (Linson & Fincher, 1999). Despite its entertainment value, many fail to see the films in-depth social commentary on life in post-modern America. I saw that the film subtly skewers many aspects of life today such as consumerism, morality, organized religion, pop culture; and the focus of this essay; the portrayal of masculinity. In Fight Club, masculinity is portrayed as an essential merit of identity, absent in the average postmodern American male due to the consumerist nature of society. Consequently, the

Both the protagonists are prone towards emotional and sexual appeal of the opposite sex. Even in the disguise of women, they simultaneously stared at the buttocks of Sugar at the station. It was not the nature or charisma of Sugar’s personality but the “big butt”

Cinema has a very powerful influence on us, whether we are aware of it or not. Cinema tells us, in a way of reflection, how we are to act and respond as a society. For example, in movies women with body hair are portrayed as shamed, unhygienic, and usually rejects to sexual advances. I’ve started to recognize these consistent stigmas, but this is just one example of what I believe makes the male gaze so successfully prevalent in American cinema.

Media, especially Hollywood Film, has been one of the foremost vehicles for the perpetuation of masculine hegemony, not only in the West, but the world over. Much of our behavioural cues are taken from what we observe on-screen. The question of whether or not life imitates art is central in attempting to understand how our desires come to exist in the first place, and to what degree these desires are natural, or a byproduct of the incessant behavioural suggestions we consume via the screen. The concept of what is masculine is not cut-and-dried, but Hollywood has had a way of portraying a clear hegemonically ideal man -- he is suave, intelligent, usually wealthy (or at least highly agentic by other means such as sheer force of presence) ; he

Each man shares a story of how their wives left them, or they lost their job, or how in some way they all feel inadequate. After hearing such unfortunate stories of innocent men who’s lives have been consumed by this disease, he opens up to the group, tears and all. This release of emotions is the only thing that helps him sleep at night. The scenes at the support group reiterate the films message of weakness. The Narrator proceeds to join several other support groups, each meeting a different day of the week, allowing him to ease his mind each night.

Blow Out and Carrie exhibit the recurring theme of looking and the male gaze present in much of De Palma’s work. The films adhere to Laura Mulvey’s three forms of looking: the camera, the audience, and the

Fight Club is a movie that is based on a Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name. The movie adaptation was written by Jim Uhls, directed by David Fincher and released October 15, 1999. The movie is about the life of the narrator, a depressed insomniac who works as a recall coordinator for an automobile company. The narrator is refused medication by his doctor, he turns to attending a series of support groups for different illnesses and uses these support groups for emotional release and this helps to temporarily cure his insomnia. This newfound cure ceases to help him when a girl, Marla Singer who is not a victim of any illness for which the support groups are offered begins to attend the support groups. The narrator returns from a business

With the success of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, Hollywood decided that a film should adapt to the novel. Since we just finished explaining the messaging of the novel, now let’s examine the film, Fight Club, directed David Fincher. Fight Club the movie came out in 1999 about three years after the novel was released. There were many different meanings viewers got from the movie but one stood out and that was people must go through self-destruction to find their true inner self. Many of us have a hard time with discovering who we truly are just by ourselves. Most of us need help from others to gain this satisfaction. Director Fincher incorporates elements of psychology and captures the different characteristics of cinematography to enhance