Talk:Interpretations of Fight Club

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This article was nominated for deletion on 23 August 2009 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

References to use in this article. (see also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Resources)

essaylike[edit]

This is not a Wikipedia article. This reads like an essay written by someone studying critical theory. It needs to be cleaned up to meet Wikipedia's standards. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 23:19, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTESSAY is an extension of WP:NOR, and the article is not original research. The sections are based on academic articles and provide critical analysis of the film. There is not really a precedent on a stand-alone article presenting critical analysis for a given film, though. What would be the best way to present it? There are still references as listed above to include. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is written in essaylike form. Bald assertions from critical theory articles are not to be presented in the form of "Fight Club is defined as a slumming trauma"; such a sentence should be rewritten as "Keith Gandal asserts that Fight Club is a slumming trauma". Broadly speaking, this article is a collection of bald assertions made by 4 authors, not a collection of facts; it should therefore present the authors' assertions as assertions only, and identify in all cases who is making the assertion. Also, any synthesis not explicit in the cited authors' works should be avoided. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 23:47, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any guidelines for using critical theory articles in Wikipedia articles? Erik (talk | contribs) 00:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dunno, but what's above is the best way to present it. If there is established objective fact reported in an article, you don't need to couch it in a sentence like "X asserts that...". But if all this article is going to be is a description of the various opinions of various authors, then it should be made explicit that these are only opinions being reported, and it should be made clear to what extent any opinion is shared among anyone.

This might make it difficult to structure the article in the way it is now; then again, if you can establish that there is agreement among many (not all) scholars on one specific topic, maybe that topic can then get its own section within the article. Is there such a thing as a meta-analysis of interpretations of Fight Club out there? That might help.

I'd still be concerned that these sorts of journal articles are going to be difficult to string together into a coherent article: just because Giroux and another author have both written articles on one particular theme doesn't mean they're even speaking the same language. I can bet $$$ that if one of them logs on here and reads the finished product, they'll start editing like crazy, arguing "I never said such a thing" and "X's rebuttal of my interpretation was poorly substantiated."

I'm not against the article, it might be a great idea, and if it's a dream of yours to get the article done then that's great. I just think this verges out on the edge of what Wikipedia's style and content rules can easily address. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 22:06, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I know this discussion is very old, but I am thinking about it in terms of an active series of discussions about the utility of Themes and analysis of No Country for Old Men (film). I'm always a bit uneasy about literary analysis in an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are supposed to be sources for facts, and literary analysis is by its very nature opinion. Sure, it's published opinion, but it is opinion nonetheless, and I always have to wonder, when I see it included in an article "why this opinion, why not other published opinions that are out there?" When Wikipedia editors add literary analysis into an article, it's likely they are going to add the analysis that they agree with, that resonates with them, and really the only people who are going to take the time to write sections or articles like this one are going to be the hardcore fans of a particular film. Even knowing these are good faith edits, there is an unavoidable POV issue. I think these kinds of articles/sections are best avoided in the interests of building an encyclopedia with a fundamental principle of Neutral Point of View, though I recognize this may not be a majority opinion here. As a policy issue, I don't think WP:NOTESSAY is the most salient policy, I think the policy that is most applicable is What Wikipedia is not: Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal, points 6 and 7. Point 6 reads: "Textbooks and annotated texts. Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not a textbook. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter," and these kinds of articles always sound like they are trying to teach us how to interpret the film. Point 7 says Wikipedia is not a scientific journal or research paper, and the Themes and Analysis section reads like a literary criticism journal article. As I said previously, literary analysis is opinion, albeit published opinion, not facts. Mmyers1976 (talk) 16:53, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't find that WP:NOTTEXTBOOK applies here. It continues, "It is not appropriate to create or edit articles that read as textbooks, with leading questions and systematic problem solutions as examples." The current condition of this article is not ideal since it is very incomplete, but I don't think it means literary analysis has no place in an encyclopedia. WP:NPOV is a policy about balancing points of view. Ideally, there should be due weight of the interpretations per WP:DUE, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." This kind of article is uncommon, in my opinion, because academic sources are difficult to retrieve and to summarize. I was able to retrieve a lot of sources, but summarizing them is much more challenging, which is why this article is very incomplete. I'm not sure what a good rule of thumb to apply for determining the most significant viewpoints across academic sources. Google Scholar does mention how many times a source has been cited, so that number could be one such approach. "Fact" is being defined too literally here, since there are many opinions expressed on Wikipedia. WP:WEASEL is an example of how to make sure collective opinions are appropriately conveyed. Erik II (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 17:13, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What, in your opinion, is an example of a literary analysis article of this typethat is complete and ideal? Mmyers1976 (talk) 17:56, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

American Beauty (1999 film) is a Featured Article with a "Themes and analysis" section. In literature, To Kill a Mockingbird has a "Themes" section. I believe I originally preemptively split off this article because based on the numerous sources available, I expected the final product to overwhelm the main film article. Erik II (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:01, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What I like about the American Beauty article's Themes and Analysis section is the first two subsections really focus on director Sam Mendes' opinions about the film; the actual artist's views on the interpretation of his own work seem a lot more authoritative and in the realm of fact than the interpretations of third party academics, and tie in nicely to production information. When the article gets beyond that in the third subsection and beyond, it starts to fall victim to the pitfalls of most sections like this. Sentences like "Like other American films of 1999—such as Fight Club, Bringing Out the Dead and Magnolia—American Beauty instructs its audience to '[lead] more meaningful lives'" make me cringe. They present third-party opinion as fact. Sentences such as "The film presents Ricky as its 'visionary, [...] spiritual and mystical center'." have that problem, and compounds it with the suggestion that the film, an inanimate object, has some agency and that someone knows exactly what "its" intent was. To Kill A Mockingbird, also is good because it incorporates the actual artist's description of her actual motives when writing it, though sometimes it verges into confusing critical reception with literary analysis. I think it does a better job of making clear that it is presenting others' literary analysis, not "facts" about the work, than American Beauty's article does. I think Interpretations of Fight Club does a pretty good job of this too. I like your ideas about Google Scholar citation count to indicate that due weight was taken into consideration in deciding which literary analyses should be chosen. What would be a good way to make it transparent in the article that this was done? Mmyers1976 (talk) 18:35, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding American Beauty, I think it depends on how one wants to approach constant in-text attributions. I assume it seems fair that we can attribute the start of new commentary to the specific scholar, then imply that the commentary that follows is from that scholar. For a sentence like "The film presents Ricky..." that begins a new paragraph, would it help to reiterate the scholar's name at this point? You can start a discussion at the talk page and ping the primary contributor with the suggested changes. As for this article, I worked on it in 2011 and have not made real progress on it, but I do know there continue to be more analyses. Routledge published a Philosophers on Film book about Fight Club, and that would probably be authoritative considering the publisher and being part of that series, as opposed to an article in a lesser-known journal. I have a lot of articles saved up to 2011, and there have been more since. I just have not had much free time to do further expansion, as just tackling these four sources was a pretty challenging task. I don't know if such an article would actually make explicit in the running text why a given viewpoint is considered significant. It seems like it happens more in both the editing and consensus-building processes. Erik II (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:19, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

fascism[edit]

the fascist interpretation section appears to be based solely on the opinion of one film critic (who's attempts to link the film to an analogy of the rise of nazi Germany are pretty weak) there is a much larger more wide spread and accepted interpretation of the film being of an anarchist stand point in its philosophy (which is debatable) but at the very least a nihilist work which it most certainly is more than a fascist work which as I said only one critic came out of the film thinking according to this wikipedia article, why are the other two view points not represented in there own sections. (92.23.136.206 (talk) 15:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC))[reply]

The article is incomplete, so there is more work to do. See the references above that you can use to add the other kinds of viewpoints. Erik (talk | contribs) 15:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Any GOOD interpretations?[edit]

The ones listed feel like some one-note morons wrote them while shot on cocaine. — Kallikanzarid^talk 05:48, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Interpretations of Fight Club/references. And the "one-note morons" are indisputably reliable sources. Erik (talk | contribs) 10:58, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's Slavoj Žižek's comments on the scene where the narrator fights himself in his Boss's office, which Žižek has made in his lectures and which are also included in The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. --89.0.233.135 (talk) 04:38, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why do my comments not show? Jagter80 (talk) 18:34, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The interpretation posted on thefincheranalyst.com late last year is the most evidence-based, and original interpretation yet. Any article on the interpretation of Fight Club that does not incorporate this information is missing the purpose of the entire film. Jagter80 (talk) 18:38, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To access this article, Google "LGATs and Fight Club" and follow the link on thefincheranalyst.com. Jagter80 (talk) 19:36, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Zen Buddhism[edit]

I am not a good writer (english is not my mother tongue) but I guess this interpretation is at least noteworthy: http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol11no2/ReedFightClub.htm What do you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.220.203.139 (talk) 15:57, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thomas More's Utopia[edit]

Seems to me that Fight Club draws also on the intentions of More in his Utopia which also include the dialectic intellectual heritage of the ancients like Plato and Aristotle. Tyler Durden as Utopos, the philosopher-king, with perhaps a teeny bit of emphasis on king? 77.175.64.145 (talk) 22:18, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Consumerist culture section[edit]

I think the "Consumerist culture" section may not be up to WP's standards. It's basically a summary of one source that has a clear political viewpoint, and some sentences just express the ideas in that source directly, instead of referring to them as the ideas of those authors. For example, "The extortion is flawed because...", "Fight Club is a reminder to have discourse about ethics and politics but its failed critique...", etc. This is clearly not NPOV. I don't think I can rewrite the section myself, but is there a template for this situation (i.e. "the neutrality of this section is disputed" or "this section may rely overly on one source", etc.)? GranChi (talk) 19:40, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The source is academic in nature and highly reliable as a result. It is inappropriate to dismiss it as "a clear political viewpoint" as if it were written by laypersons like ourselves. The section does need more sourcing, so expansion is warranted. For example, this topic is also covered in the following potential source:

Windrum, Ken (2004). "Fight Club and the political (im)potence of consumer revolt". In Schneider, Steven Jay (ed.). New Hollywood Violence. Manchester University Press. pp. 304–317. ISBN 978-0-7190-6723-5.

Furthermore, Google Scholar shows here numerous sources that at least touch upon the film's relation to consumerism. Furthermore, it looks like some of these sources also reference Giroux and Szeman here, reinforcing this source, as more directly evident here. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:53, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to revive this discussion. The article from Giroux and Szeman is a perfectly valid source, but the section's reliance on it makes it seem as if no other opinions exist (particularly when it comes to the success or failing of the film's capitalist criticisms). Other authors do take the perspective of the film's critiques being applicable and relevant, such as "Cults, Consumerism, and the Construction of Self" by Renee D. Lockwood or "The Culture of Disease and The Dis-ease of Culture" by Bennett Kravitz. At the very least as a counterargument, shouldn't they be included in this section? Reversinator (talk) 18:25, 18 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The section can certainly be expanded with additional academic commentary about this topic. We should not assume that there is a counterargument out there, though. There is not always going to be equal arguments and counterarguments. There could easily be a set of arguments that tackle this topic to varying but similar degrees. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:28, 18 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely misspoke when I said there could be a "counterargument", so that's my bad, and I do agree that the section should be expanded with other sources. Reversinator (talk)

I found this and this to be used. Also, see Talk:Interpretations of Fight Club/references, which I compiled years ago. There is so much that could be included in this kind of article. It's hard to get these, go through them, and summarize on a layperson level. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:28, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Homoerotic interpretation[edit]

The section discussing homoerotic interpretation of the film has only two sources, neither of which go into the level of detail as the wiki article. What appears on the wiki page look largely like the views of the contributor. Suggest that if no further sources are available (preferably something more academic than listicles) the section is removed or at least substantially reworked. Archimedes von Snuggleboots (talk) 07:42, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I removed this section at the time, and the contributing editor restored it. It was removed again this month as seen here. I agree with these two editors that this section is unencyclopedic in referencing listicles. There is no doubt that there is reliably-sourced coverage about homoeroticism in the film, but these sources are not reliable. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 20:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here are proper reliable sources about the topic (as found through Google Scholar):

Thanks, Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 21:04, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Juansquirrel, please see the above. The sources you are trying to use are not reliable. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 17:08, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]