Blast from the Past: Revisiting “Fight Club” (1999)
‘Fight Club’ is a Hit With Incels and the Far Right: ‘I Don’t Know How to Help’ People Who Idolize Tyler Durden
The Guardian writer said “Fight Club” has become a touchstone for the far right. “It’s one of many touchstones in their lexicography.”
Is the director bothered by that?
“We didn’t make it for them, but people will see what they’re going to see in a Norman Rockwell painting, or Picasso’s Guernica,” he reasoned, reiterating that he’s not responsible for how people interpret his work.
Fight Club stars Edward Norton as a lowlife, insomniac office worker who befriends a masculine soap salesman (Pitt). The two start a male fight group. Pitt’s Tyler Durden then plans an attack on consumer credit companies as the fight club spirals into a makeshift domestic terrorist group. The film was a box office flop upon release in 1999 but emerged as a cult classic in the years that followed.
The movie made news after it was uploaded to China’s largest video streaming service with its ending edited. Fincher’s finale finds Norton’s character killing off alter ego Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) before watching the city burst into flames in apparent confirmation that his plan to destroy civilization has worked. The censored ending in China cut the film to black before the citywide destruction. A title card then appeared saying authorities stopped the anarchic plan.
Showing Fight Clun with Changed Ending
The director expressed confusion and amusement at why any streaming platform would be interested in showing his “Fight Club” but with a changed ending.
“If you don’t like this story, why would you license this movie?” Fincher asked. “It makes no sense to me when people go, ‘I think it would be good for our service if we had your title on it… we just want it to be a different movie.’ The fucking movie is 20 years old. It’s not like it had a reputation for being super cuddly.”
