Sex with Brad Pitt
By: Tasha • Essay • 451 Words • April 2, 2010 • 963 Views
Sex with Brad Pitt
It's like your having sex with Brad Pitt
Using masculinity, madness, and sexuality; Fincher creates a "Freudian flick" that lures audiences in and elicits their unconscious sources of pleasure.
Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club's plot revolves around the nameless narrator who works for an automotive company. Through his narration, we discover that he manages his deep melancholy and depression through consumerist habits, more specifically, shopping at Ikea. Along with this, we watch as he attends group meetings for illnesses he does not have; were he meets Marla. From there, we unknowingly watch the narrator then "create" his alter ego; which further complicates his relationship with Marla.
Marla and Tyler create the classic struggle of the Freudian Oedipal Theory. Figuratively speaking, sex with the symbolic mother and killing his "personal" father. The narrator introduces both a father figure as well as becoming that father when he "splits" himself in two. The Freudian theme also exemplified in the scene where Tyler shakes lye powder on the narrator's hand and forces him to endue the chemical burn. While doing this, Tyler screams; "Our fathers were our models for God, if our fathers failed, what does this tell you about God? Have you considered the possibility that god does not like you? Never wanted you?" Fincher uses montage editing in this scene to portray the intensity and hectic nature of this moment. Reiterating the Oedipal Theory and the comparison of father to God, the narrator is trying to literally inscribe this paternal metaphor onto his