How Men lost their Masculinity
And what ‘Fight Club’ has to do with Post-Modernism
It started with… a Crisis of Cultural Authority
Postmodernism, whichever characteristics we choose to best describe this new perception of life, is usually treated by its subjects as well as its critics as a ‘crisis of cultural authority’ (Foster, 1983: 57).
As part of this crisis, one of the more important aspects of our culture’s loss of ‘mastery’ is both the melancholia and eclecticism that pervade our current cultural production.
These aspects can be funded by the strong sense of pluralism that is at the heart of postmodernism. Pluralism, in this sense, means the complete indifference to a fundamental measurement of value.
There is no ‘high culture’, ‘most beautiful’ or even ‘truth’, for that matter.
“Pluralism reduces us to being an other among others” (Foster, 1983: 58).
Without digging too deep into how this pillar of the postmodernist mindset came to be, as it would divert from the subject of this article, it can be stated that this turning of truth to ‘truths’, or maybe even simply ‘things that are’ can be attributed to the continuation of postmodernists rejection of the canonization of art into the culture.
This means that, in accordance with the fall of the Western colonial empire after WWOII, there no longer existed a ‘high’ culture in world history. No longer was there a ‘best’ culture, meaning Western culture.
“What is at stake, then, is not only the hegemony of Western culture, but also (our sense of) our identity as a culture” (Foster, 1983: 58)
By postmodernist thinking, the representational systems of the West admit only one vision, that of the constitutive male subject (Foster, 1983). That vision, in world (Western) history, has been centered, unitary and masculine.
Women were denied the legitimacy of representation. More so, in order to be noticed, they had to become masculine.
Meaning that in order to gain noticeability, to become dominant (restricted as such by the restraints laid upon them by male society), the only way of doing so was by ‘false representation’ to the liking of the dominant male.
Throughout history, it was a man who represented mankind. A woman is only represented.
Post-Modernism is about what it’s Not
In postmodernism, finally, and sparked by what we now refer to as the second feminist wave, sparked the discussion about sexual difference. Women, now, seek the differentiation of history, politics, and culture for the equal celebration of both male and female.
“The emergence of feminist ideas and feminist politics depends on the understanding that, in all societies which divides the sexes into different economic, political and cultural spheres, women are less valued than men” (Maggie Humm, 1992).
With the postmodernist battle cry for the exploration of new values and the rejection of existing norms, these valuations are starting to change. What is of the utmost importance to note now is that, as much as it is necessary to reevaluate our understandings of sexual difference and to seek a new, postmodern, distribution of norms, the norms of old are very much interconnected.
That means that when we try to change the weight on one end of the scale, the other end will tip. This analogy is apparent for male masculinity in a postmodern society.
Since, for the rise of feminism, the rejection of old values (Modernism), and the revolt against the canonization of ‘a truth’, masculinity has plunged into depths unknown.
On a side note, as there is not enough space to treatise every aspect of postmodernism, postmodernism accepts the fact that truth, as it is depicted, depends on the signifier being a holder of the connotation. There is no apparent meaning, all is interconnected. The signifier ‘male’ is only within meaning when used in opposition to ‘female’. So, when Camille Paglia states, “a woman simply is, but a man must become” (Paglia, 1992: 82), what is a man, without a woman?
What does masculinity mean to postmodernist thinking?
In his book “The Anti-Aesthetic”, Foster states that in postmodernist thinking, a clear description of masculine privileges can be given through the example of Marx on the sexual difference and production.
In his reference to Marx, Foster describes that according to Marxism, the masculine activity of production is the definitively human activity. He thereby states that, as women were usually excluded from production and confined to the spheres of non-productive or reproductive labor, they were thus situated in a state of nature, outside the dome of male producers.
Achieving masculinity by the male, however, is difficult and elusive. As much as it leans on the exclusion of women, it is more defined as a revolt from women (and signifies more inclusion than originally apparent) and is confirmed only by other men (Paglia, 1992: 82).
The eruption of postmodernist thinking, combined with the second feminist wave, forced men to reconsider masculinity. As the foundations of growing into a man no longer existed, or were forced to assume a different perspective, so it became apparent in pop culture.
Pop culture in postmodern time can be classified as a time of great confusion for the male and its masculinity. For the sake of this article, as I would like to keep it a little comprehensive in length, it will refer from now on only to television and film. This is not only a choice of apprehension or comprehension but also because television is considered “the quintessence or postmodern culture” (Collins, 1992), even though it doesn’t have a period of modernism to which it can be ‘post’ (Storey, 2012: 198).
Men are confused
On one side, this aforementioned confusion finds representation in the superficially stressing of ‘classic’, Western masculine features in cinema by actors, such as Stallone and Schwarzenegger.
As television can be seen as the prime domain of simulation, an example of a negative view on postmodernism, the male masculinity seems to experience a crisis of superficialness, as important as the reduction of culture in a broader sense presented in current television making.
Making television means reducing culture to a comprehensive but banal formula so to present the content in consumable ‘chunks’ of information. To make it interesting, it is necessary to catch the ever so wandering focus of the viewer by concentrating on superficial extremities as muscles, action, and aesthetics.
Man, as it is depicted in a postmodern time, is reduced, or elevated (depending on the perspective of the viewer) to a god-like, surreal status. He is in no way real, nor is it an attainable character. This surreal character however has been called into existence in desperate response to the crumbling foundation of his identity.
In an attempt to save his former status, it tries by literally making a persiflage of ‘real’ men to reinstate its position. Therefore, every aspect of masculinity is enhanced and magnified to an overpowering level.
To consolidate this desperate position, male characters in movies often overpower and abuse the female co-star. Even though they are seemingly depicted as having equal position, the status of the male star is consolidated by ‘getting away’ with not just being ‘better’, but ‘abusive’ of the female counterpart.
This example will be explained later on when treating the movie ‘Fight Club’.
A state of personal confusion
On the other side, we experience a state of confusion in adjustment. Whenever we encounter an attempt of making something profound, on-screen, there is a sense of not-knowing.
Already in 1969 with the film ‘Midnight cowboy’ hitting the big screen, becomes a search for what is a real man in relation to a woman visible. In this film, Jon Voight stars next to Dustin Hoffman as a wannabe gigolo who is going to make it in the big city, New York.
Apparently completely unaware of modern life and very naive, his vision of a successful life is that of earning money by sleeping with women, confident as he is that every woman would want to take part in this endeavor.
This line of thinking is not only degrading to women, as it assumes a simple mind and a meek personality, but also an inherent sign of the loss of a strong sense of masculinity.
Director John Schlesinger perfectly paints the confusion of modern man in this film by showing the mind of a classic man, dominant and overpowering, and putting it in a ‘modern scene’, New York, to emphasize how truly lost this classic man really is.
No longer are women subject to the masculine presentation, or do they have no control over their lives and destinies. Jon Voight ends up alone, disillusioned, and grieving over his dead friend.
It is clear that such a man is no longer fitting for this new and emancipated society. To survive, it is necessary for him to adjust to the new demands of society and let go of the outdated idea of a dominant male who submits the female to his mercy.
A man is because of what he isn’t
So who are we as men according to subjects of post-modernist thinking?
Postmodernism as a philosophy acknowledges the fact that the meaning of our cultures rests on the language that we use.
Language, however, is not inherently with meaning. Instead, meaning comes solely from connotation and the contrast with an opposite, and within the context, it is used.
We are not men because we possess the male sex organs, rather we are men because we are not women.
There is no sacred truth to who or what a man is. There is just what a man is not according to its opposites as determined by the signifiers in his culture. Masculinity thus is not something you can determine as a definition.
You can only say what it is not and determine its rights and duties based on the position of the entity in the context (the context of culture for example).
Masculinity, in accordance with post-modernism, is also highlighted by a focus on a past that never existed. This is explained as postmodernism on one side is a trend in pop culture which, by then, existed of a melting pot of many smaller cultures, including the Bohemians, on the other side as a consequence of the rejection of past conceptions of truth.
Therefore, it alienated all other dogmas as well. Subjects to postmodernist thinking had to ‘imagine’ their own past, their own roots of which they could be proud, resulting in a fake nostalgia for a past that never existed.
Movies about the Vietnam war that ended victoriously for the U.S., for example, can be interpreted as a longing for a past, that never was.
How can we illustrate this by using the film ‘Fight Club’ as an example
‘Fight Club’ can be seen as a prime example of mocking and illustrating postmodernist philosophy in our current society. The film focuses on “the ‘structural feminization’ of the traditional (working class) figures of men” (Lizardo, 2007).
Lizardo supports the assumption that men in a postmodern, late-capitalist society try to re-conquer and reclaim their masculinity by the homosocial act of violence and through the exclusion of women.
Drawing on the works of Daniel Bell, Lizardo situates ‘Fight Club’ as an allegory of the contemporary crisis of subjectivity in postmodernity. In the film, the men fight against each other to recover an identity that will give them their masculinity.
A primitive yet necessary feat since their rejection of masculine identity, handed over by their generation’s predecessors, requires them to figuratively go back to the Dark Ages and find masculinity the old-fashioned way (through violence).
They have renounced their role models and their own intellectual fathers and thus really don’t have anybody to look up to anymore. Therefore, they have to create it themselves and find their masculinity in the homosocial act of violence against their own brothers.
Not only do they have to find their masculinity among each other, but the fighting also serves a second function: the figurative expression of pessimism and literally ‘smacking’ some sense into one another.
Masculine Schizophrenia
Craig Owens, in Foster's ‘the Anti-Aesthetic’, refers to postmodernism, among others, as ‘schizophrenic’. Man is torn between two different, evenly confusing, urges.
On the one hand the rejection of existing norms and disavowing his predecessors, on the other the search and longing for traditions.
Especially these traditions appear confusing since it is impossible to draw on the teaching of his father(s) as they are modernist (or anything but postmodernist) and therefore often result in the false longing for a past that never existed.
The protagonist, Jack, embodies this confused and lost character as he looks for a sense of sharing among his brothers and tries to reclaim his masculinity for himself and the men in his group.
In true schizophrenic fashion, he imagines a leader and example, personified by Brad Pitt.
“Jack is split into two incompatible personalities” (Lizardo, 2007).
Before he does so, Lizardo argues that Jack has portrayed to us as a numb zombie, for whom everything is already a copy, of a copy, of a copy.
Lizardo refers to the ‘Simulacra and Simulation’ of Beadrillard, 1995. Everything he does is done to show the copy-copy life that he lives: his cubicle, his Ikea home, his ‘single-serving’ experiences.
Lizardo argues that it is not, as is commonly thought, the key role of the movie to communicate the role of gender (in)difference in a new, consumer-based society, but actually, the crisis that men undergo in our current society as it relates to our new search for masculinity.
Young men vs. Old men
But the film has more to communicate.
‘Project Mayhem’, the important ‘master plan’ (a mockery to ‘master’ narrative?) is in itself a rebellion against the generation that produced them and is now in power. Because their fathers and teachers failed to educate and teach them proper values.
At the same time, however, Tyler Durden is portrayed as the pinnacle of stereotypical masculinity. His behavior, his appearance, and even his body cannot get more classically male and dominant.
His behavior towards women oozes an attitude of respectlessness. Tyler Durden’s emotional abuse of Marla Singer and his negligence to build an adult relationship with her is elevated to an absurd status when we learn, at the end of the film, that Tyler never even existed.
Is Jack so scared of her that he can only communicate through Tyler, as he communicates through Tyler every time he needs to display ‘masculinity’?
A man vs./with a Woman
Even so, he is the man all these lost men should strive to be.
Tyler is however inherently fake. He is the metaphysical embodiment of the nostalgic longing for a past, a role model in this occasion, that never existed.
We are led to believe that he is real. We gasp at his masculinity, but the veil is lifted when we realize he is not real at all.
But he is more than unreal, the character of Tyler Durden is fake in the sense that he is not a role model at all.
The unnamed protagonist realized that he made Tyler Durden up the moment he sees that Tyler does not make his life better, but worse.
He kills Tyler to save himself and the woman. Who would also have certainly died if he hadn’t?
With this act he binds himself to her, deriving his new identity from his relationship with the female. Finally, he comes full circle.
To conclude
Masculinity in postmodernism is, as said, problematic at least.
Due to overwhelming factors as the second feminist wave and a catalytic progression into a consumer society, it has combined with a conscious renunciation of modernism, developed from a schizophrenic dilemma into a general case of Alzheimer's (to use another analogy).
This Alzheimer's represents the ‘forgotten’ nature of man’s masculinity and the desperate attempts to reclaim it. There is nothing to draw from because of the refusal of the older generation.
Also, man has been pampered, neutered, and put to sleep by society’s overwhelming emphasis on consumption and the feminist ascent.
Everything has either already been done, been automated, or outdated. The classic man, in a postmodern society, is redundant. What remains is a scared child, searching desperately for masculine adulthood and a future where he can play a deserving and more necessary role.
As Tyler Durden says:
“I’m thinking, maybe another woman is not the answer we’re looking for”.
The future of man seems pretty bleak. At least, by the logic of Fight Club.
Men today are lost, not because they don’t know who they are.
It is because they don’t what they’re not.
In contrary to a man being an independent entity, a signifier with intrinsic meaning, he only exists in an association.
Sources:
Storey, John (2012) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. An Introduction., London: Routledge
Paglia, Camille (1992) Sex, Art, and American Culture, New York: Vintage Books, a Division or Random House, Inc.
Foster, Hal (ed.) (1993) The Anti-Aesthetic, Seattle: Bay Press
Sontag, Susan (1966) Against Interpretation, New York: Deli
Fiedler, Leslie (1971) The Collected Essays of Leslie Fiedler, Volume 2, New York: Stein and Day.
Huyssen, Andreas (1986) After the Great Divide. Modernism, Pop Culture, Postmodernism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Humm, Maggie (1992) Feminisms: A Reader, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester
Sim, Stuart (ed.) (1998) The Routhledge Companion to Postmodernism, London: Routhledge
Collins, Jim (1989) Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Postmodernism, London: Routledge
Lizardo, Omar (2007) Fightclub, or the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism. Journal for Cultural Research, Vol. 11, Issue 3 (July)
Owens, Craig (1993) ‘The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism’, in Foster (e.d) The Anti-Aesthetic, Seattle: Bay Press
Bell, Daniel (1996) The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, New York: Harper Collins
Jerome Hellman (producer), John Schlesinger (director). (1969). Midnight Cowboy. United States: Jerome Hellman Production & United Artists
Ross Grayson Bell (producer), David Fincher (director). (1999). Fight Club. United States: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
