The progressive climate of the university poses a paradoxical environment for members of the Greek community. Reconciling the identities of being a sorority sister and a self proclaimed feminist requires shifting personal values on my part. Being a sorority sister and considering myself a feminist is problematic in that they are mutually exclusive identities.
A sorority promotes certain characteristics to form an ideal woman. The clash between my two identities revolves around the fact that these characteristics are not necessarily correct. In a sorority, there is the expectation that sisters embody these characteristics. Pledges must meet the sisters’ expectation of an ideal women in order to gain access to sorority benefits. This may involve changing personal values to conform to their expectations. Only when the sisters approve, can access be granted to their social networking, philanthropy events, and sisterhood..
When I enter the Greek community I automatically assimilate to sexist gender roles. I find this very natural. I grew up in a patriarchal home, so the rules are not new to me. Sorority values of an ideal woman are similar to those that my parents fostered at home, explaining my ability to be so comfortable in that role. This also explains my habitual assimilation to gender roles and lack feminist response when I play into them. In my sorority sister identity I recognize the sexism, but it doesn’t trigger the feminist in me until after the fact.
I play at being a sister because I do not always embody their definition of the ideal women. But it is not until I challenge that definition that I consider myself playing my feminist identity.
5.16.2008
Table Tennis under Both Casual Play and Eco’s Theory of Spectator Sport
In America, people commonly have table tennis (also known as ping pong) tables in their basements for casual fun. This type of play encourages a general misconception that table tennis is just a game and not a true “sport” like basketball or soccer. What separates these two is the sense of competition. When playing table tennis, there is a feeling that winning or losing does not matter because it is simply a game for fun, whereas basketball proves a certain level of skill and ability. Before moving further, some of the word choices must be clarified. The term sport, as I have referred to it, is used under Umberto Eco’s sense of “spectator sport” while casual play of the game is what he describes as the noble “sport” (169). Although Eco adores the spirit of sport itself, spectator sports disgust him due to the emotion and passion they arouse in the audience and how they dehumanize the athletes. Unlike most people who enjoy table tennis solely as a casual game, I play the sport under both of Eco’s definitions.
Any serious spectator sport can be played for fun as a casual sport. According to Eco, sport is when a person “with no financial incentive, and employing his own body directly, performs physical exercises” (169). He describes this act as “very beautiful” (169). When I play table tennis every week, it is under these conditions. The goal of playing is to have fun socializing with friends, exercise the mind and body, and enjoy the intricacies of the game itself. After becoming familiar with table tennis, a sense of touch is developed for how the various shots feel. Topspin, sidespin, and backspin all have unique strokes and a different feeling. When playing the game for fun, there is freedom to explore the various possibilities and try out new strategies or shots that feel good. This innovation and choice of options is one aspect of the game that appeals to most players.
When played as a competitive sport, the goal of table tennis becomes winning just like any other spectator sport. From the transition of casual play to serious competition, much of the “beauty” that Eco admires is lost. As he describes it, “[contest] reduces excess action, but it is really a mechanism to neutralize action” (161). After playing in various competitions, I had realized that the best way to win was to choose my most reliable shots every time. My freedom of choice was sacrificed in exchange for the best chance of winning, and my strategy became whatever would give me the victory in the end. In this way, I became limited in my options. Playing in a major tournament recently, I can understand what Eco means by “professionals [are] subjected to tensions not unlike those of an assembly-line worker” (169). These workers are essentially robotic, working monotonously to become consistent and do their one specific task. In spectator sports, this is what athletes are trained to be, or as Eco puts it, “the raising of human beings dedicated to competition” (161). As a spectator sport, table tennis had become something different from just play to me. Instead of playing to enjoy the game, the priority of limiting myself to consistency for the sake of winning had taken over.
Although there is also winning and losing in casual play, there is nothing at stake. Once spectators are brought into consideration, there is much at line for the athletes. Playing in front of my team mates and the opponent’s parents, while simultaneously representing my school, led to a feeling that I had to prove my worth out there, which inevitably led to much pressure and nervousness. Although in my case, the concept of play cannot be applied to competitive spectator sports, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Many professional athletes, whether for the enjoyment and fun of winning, or for the sake of their audience, must adhere to strict guidelines in order to stay at the top of what they do. They enjoy being put under the spotlight and these are what Eco describes as “monsters,” people who “turn [their] body into the seat and exclusive source of a continuous play” (161). These athletes play specifically to win and can excel under the pressure and stress involved with the sport.
Because of a lack of familiarity with the sport, table tennis is commonly seen as simply a game. However, it must be realized that any game, as long as there is some skill required, can be played as a competitive spectator sport. Even in the case of table tennis being played in a basement, if there is pride at stake then the game changes. Winning prioritizes the other factors in the game and the play mood changes. Fun in this case almost necessarily becomes a by-product of winning. Because skill dictates competitiveness, which is the main deciding factor in what spectator sport is other than physical activity, even video games and card games like poker have fallen under this category. This sense of casual play versus serious sport and the change in mindset of the players are encountered within most games. Perhaps with further exposure, table tennis will someday enjoy the same popularity that a mainstream sport like football does.
Works Cited
Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyperreality. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, 1986
Any serious spectator sport can be played for fun as a casual sport. According to Eco, sport is when a person “with no financial incentive, and employing his own body directly, performs physical exercises” (169). He describes this act as “very beautiful” (169). When I play table tennis every week, it is under these conditions. The goal of playing is to have fun socializing with friends, exercise the mind and body, and enjoy the intricacies of the game itself. After becoming familiar with table tennis, a sense of touch is developed for how the various shots feel. Topspin, sidespin, and backspin all have unique strokes and a different feeling. When playing the game for fun, there is freedom to explore the various possibilities and try out new strategies or shots that feel good. This innovation and choice of options is one aspect of the game that appeals to most players.
When played as a competitive sport, the goal of table tennis becomes winning just like any other spectator sport. From the transition of casual play to serious competition, much of the “beauty” that Eco admires is lost. As he describes it, “[contest] reduces excess action, but it is really a mechanism to neutralize action” (161). After playing in various competitions, I had realized that the best way to win was to choose my most reliable shots every time. My freedom of choice was sacrificed in exchange for the best chance of winning, and my strategy became whatever would give me the victory in the end. In this way, I became limited in my options. Playing in a major tournament recently, I can understand what Eco means by “professionals [are] subjected to tensions not unlike those of an assembly-line worker” (169). These workers are essentially robotic, working monotonously to become consistent and do their one specific task. In spectator sports, this is what athletes are trained to be, or as Eco puts it, “the raising of human beings dedicated to competition” (161). As a spectator sport, table tennis had become something different from just play to me. Instead of playing to enjoy the game, the priority of limiting myself to consistency for the sake of winning had taken over.
Although there is also winning and losing in casual play, there is nothing at stake. Once spectators are brought into consideration, there is much at line for the athletes. Playing in front of my team mates and the opponent’s parents, while simultaneously representing my school, led to a feeling that I had to prove my worth out there, which inevitably led to much pressure and nervousness. Although in my case, the concept of play cannot be applied to competitive spectator sports, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Many professional athletes, whether for the enjoyment and fun of winning, or for the sake of their audience, must adhere to strict guidelines in order to stay at the top of what they do. They enjoy being put under the spotlight and these are what Eco describes as “monsters,” people who “turn [their] body into the seat and exclusive source of a continuous play” (161). These athletes play specifically to win and can excel under the pressure and stress involved with the sport.
Because of a lack of familiarity with the sport, table tennis is commonly seen as simply a game. However, it must be realized that any game, as long as there is some skill required, can be played as a competitive spectator sport. Even in the case of table tennis being played in a basement, if there is pride at stake then the game changes. Winning prioritizes the other factors in the game and the play mood changes. Fun in this case almost necessarily becomes a by-product of winning. Because skill dictates competitiveness, which is the main deciding factor in what spectator sport is other than physical activity, even video games and card games like poker have fallen under this category. This sense of casual play versus serious sport and the change in mindset of the players are encountered within most games. Perhaps with further exposure, table tennis will someday enjoy the same popularity that a mainstream sport like football does.
Works Cited
Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyperreality. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, 1986
Water Polo As “Play and War”: A Theoretical Analysis Through the Lens of Johan Huizinga
The theories of Johan Huizinga in his book, Homo Ludens, regarding play and war relate directly to many sports, specifically water polo. Water polo is a sport requiring physical and mental strength of a different caliber than all other sports. The concept of play in the game can similarly be compared to the international law that Huizinga speaks of on page 208 of Homo Ludens. Huizinga’s description of the supposed etiquette to be followed under international law governs most of our everyday lives. The main principles, for anything to be successful, Huizinga says, lay “outside the strict domain of law,” (pg. 208). Additionally, Huizinga “explicitly recognizes that the integrity of the system rests on a general willingness to keep to the rules,” (p. 208). This system for which international law is maintained is replicated and enforced for the sport of water polo in an all-to-similar fashion and is more formerly know as the NCAA 9-to-5 Drug Testing Policy (UC Berkeley, Department of Sports Medicine). This drug testing policy primarily serves as a guideline for the athletes with hope sustaining eligibility. Breaking any of the rules by using any of the banned substances results in a dismissal from the team and becoming ineligible. The similarities between this athletic policy and international law fall hand in hand as well with war. War in the international sense is the physical violence between two or more States. In the athletic sense, it is the physical competition one team faces with another. During water polo, often, play and war are closely related. The physicality, rules and code of conduct are what link the aspect of play in water polo to play and war.
The relationship between play and war, Huizinga says, “can be cruel and bloody and, in addition, can often be false play,” (p. 208). More importantly, however, his work describing archaic warfare as a noble game is also applicable to the sport of water polo due to the games development of such a prestigious and commendable set of rules and guidelines. The principles Huizinga speaks of (p. 208), when he perceives war as a noble game, are emulated for the foundation on which water polo is made. “Honour, decency, and good form,” are the play-rules that the noble game of war is based on. The expectations that men will fight with honor, fight with high morals, and fight by the rules. Once these play-rules have been broken, society, in this case water polo, “falls into barbarism and chaos,” (p. 210). In the context of a water polo game, when these play-rules have been broken, something called “clearing the bench,” happens. At this point, Huizinga says that, “the code of honour is flouted, the rules of the game are set aside, international law is broken, and all the ancient associations of war with ritual and religion are gone,” (p. 210). The relationship between play and war and the many meanings of the pair serves as an adequate tool for the in-depth analysis of a rigorous sport such as water polo.
Works Cited
• Huizinga, Jonah. Homo Ludens. Beacon Books, 1971.
• NCAA Drug Testing. Berkeley: UC Berkeley, 2007.
The relationship between play and war, Huizinga says, “can be cruel and bloody and, in addition, can often be false play,” (p. 208). More importantly, however, his work describing archaic warfare as a noble game is also applicable to the sport of water polo due to the games development of such a prestigious and commendable set of rules and guidelines. The principles Huizinga speaks of (p. 208), when he perceives war as a noble game, are emulated for the foundation on which water polo is made. “Honour, decency, and good form,” are the play-rules that the noble game of war is based on. The expectations that men will fight with honor, fight with high morals, and fight by the rules. Once these play-rules have been broken, society, in this case water polo, “falls into barbarism and chaos,” (p. 210). In the context of a water polo game, when these play-rules have been broken, something called “clearing the bench,” happens. At this point, Huizinga says that, “the code of honour is flouted, the rules of the game are set aside, international law is broken, and all the ancient associations of war with ritual and religion are gone,” (p. 210). The relationship between play and war and the many meanings of the pair serves as an adequate tool for the in-depth analysis of a rigorous sport such as water polo.
Works Cited
• Huizinga, Jonah. Homo Ludens. Beacon Books, 1971.
• NCAA Drug Testing. Berkeley: UC Berkeley, 2007.
Sport and Competition Involved With Starcraft
Starcraft as a Game and as a Sport in Comparison to Dog Fight
If asked to name a sport, a computer game may not be the first activity mentioned. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that a game is an amusement, delight, and fun. This is what a computer program like Starcraft is – a game. It can also start out as, or over time it may evolve into a sport. In Dog Fight, by Michael Swanwick and William Gibson, Deke decides to pick up the game of flying virtual planes. He steals the pieces to try it out. Over time, he gets more and more competitive. The game that he picks up becomes a sport to him. This essay shows that a computer game, Starcraft, by Blizzard Entertainment, is also a sport. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a sport is a pleasant pastime; entertainment or amusement; recreation, diversion. Although the definition of a sport is similar to game, the difference is the degree of competitive nature instilled with the play. Games lack the amount of competition that sports have.
Intensity of Game Night
Games are approached differently once they become a sport. People take in different aspects of a sport to get that edge above the opponent. At my dorm we have an official Game Night once a week in a set location. Last semester, it started as a bunch of games for most of us. It was once a week, and only a few people came with a really competitive nature, taking it as a sport. This semester the number of people who attend has grown and most of the people who attend approach game night with a more competitive nature. It is an opportunity for doing many things, including taking risks, but now there is more glory that comes with winning. Just as the simulation of planes started out as a game for Deke and then morphed in to an addiction, Game Night has become a key aspect of many students’ week. Games have a larger role in people’s lives. To most of the people at the event, this has become more of a Sport Night. Though there is only one night set out for Game Night, a person could find someone and a game just about any night, now. The Game Nights become game days, sometimes. One night went until twelve o’clock noon the next day. One of the more intense games is played mainly on Game night, though. Starcraft consists of around five to eight people connecting their computers together and competing. The people who play often get so involved their game that some don’t respond to others who talk while the game is going. All of their focus is devoted to the game. The people who play this game have gotten so good at it that some of the moves are not understandable to someone watching. A spectator commented that it was like they were having “a series of epileptic seizures”. Moving faster is better in this game, where as being able to barely move at all was better in Deke’s game. Despite the contrast, both are a status that players strive to achieve. There is another difference between the story of the people at Game Night and Deke’s; when someone wins, the person at Game Night still has friends. Deke pushed everyone away in his quest to become the best at his sport. After a game, we still have each other.
Nimu and Starcraft
Nimu is one person at game night that took the game even further as a sport. After completing his freshman year of college, he took a year off of school for it. He had a sponsor that paid him $6,000 every six months, paid monthly and he would compete about one a week. Nimu spent hours just mastering one move – to the point that he could do it with his eyes closed. Finally, he got to a point that both he and his sponsor decided that he couldn’t get any better and he stopped playing for his sponsor. He says some of it was the love of competition. He says that it was comparable to being able to fight without getting in trouble. He took the game of Starcraft beyond just an activity for fun – he played it competitively as a sport.
Death from playing Starcraft
Competition can be dangerous and even lethal. While talking about Starcraft, Professor Mark Griffiths says, “They are the types of games that completely engross the player. They are not games that you can play for [twenty] minutes and stop” Those people who were unaware of the others around them are one example of being engrossed by the game. People get distracted by these games and they may lose track of time. The desire to get better and the competitive drive get people to spend hours in games like this. A man, referred to as Lee and only twenty-eight years old, died while playing Starcraft. BBC News stated that the South Korean man had died after reportedly playing an online computer game for fifty hours with few breaks. He took short breaks only to go to the toilet and for short spurts of sleep. He collapsed and presumably died from heart failure. The intense need to be the best led to the death of this man. His intense desire to win led to the loss of his life. Deke lost everything in his life; Lee lost his life. Is the need for competition and to win really all that drives these players, or is there more to it? What is it that allows some players to stop sooner then others, that allow them to stop for necessary things like food and rest, and what is missing when people, like Lee, don’t stop at all?
If asked to name a sport, a computer game may not be the first activity mentioned. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that a game is an amusement, delight, and fun. This is what a computer program like Starcraft is – a game. It can also start out as, or over time it may evolve into a sport. In Dog Fight, by Michael Swanwick and William Gibson, Deke decides to pick up the game of flying virtual planes. He steals the pieces to try it out. Over time, he gets more and more competitive. The game that he picks up becomes a sport to him. This essay shows that a computer game, Starcraft, by Blizzard Entertainment, is also a sport. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a sport is a pleasant pastime; entertainment or amusement; recreation, diversion. Although the definition of a sport is similar to game, the difference is the degree of competitive nature instilled with the play. Games lack the amount of competition that sports have.
Intensity of Game Night
Games are approached differently once they become a sport. People take in different aspects of a sport to get that edge above the opponent. At my dorm we have an official Game Night once a week in a set location. Last semester, it started as a bunch of games for most of us. It was once a week, and only a few people came with a really competitive nature, taking it as a sport. This semester the number of people who attend has grown and most of the people who attend approach game night with a more competitive nature. It is an opportunity for doing many things, including taking risks, but now there is more glory that comes with winning. Just as the simulation of planes started out as a game for Deke and then morphed in to an addiction, Game Night has become a key aspect of many students’ week. Games have a larger role in people’s lives. To most of the people at the event, this has become more of a Sport Night. Though there is only one night set out for Game Night, a person could find someone and a game just about any night, now. The Game Nights become game days, sometimes. One night went until twelve o’clock noon the next day. One of the more intense games is played mainly on Game night, though. Starcraft consists of around five to eight people connecting their computers together and competing. The people who play often get so involved their game that some don’t respond to others who talk while the game is going. All of their focus is devoted to the game. The people who play this game have gotten so good at it that some of the moves are not understandable to someone watching. A spectator commented that it was like they were having “a series of epileptic seizures”. Moving faster is better in this game, where as being able to barely move at all was better in Deke’s game. Despite the contrast, both are a status that players strive to achieve. There is another difference between the story of the people at Game Night and Deke’s; when someone wins, the person at Game Night still has friends. Deke pushed everyone away in his quest to become the best at his sport. After a game, we still have each other.
Nimu and Starcraft
Nimu is one person at game night that took the game even further as a sport. After completing his freshman year of college, he took a year off of school for it. He had a sponsor that paid him $6,000 every six months, paid monthly and he would compete about one a week. Nimu spent hours just mastering one move – to the point that he could do it with his eyes closed. Finally, he got to a point that both he and his sponsor decided that he couldn’t get any better and he stopped playing for his sponsor. He says some of it was the love of competition. He says that it was comparable to being able to fight without getting in trouble. He took the game of Starcraft beyond just an activity for fun – he played it competitively as a sport.
Death from playing Starcraft
Competition can be dangerous and even lethal. While talking about Starcraft, Professor Mark Griffiths says, “They are the types of games that completely engross the player. They are not games that you can play for [twenty] minutes and stop” Those people who were unaware of the others around them are one example of being engrossed by the game. People get distracted by these games and they may lose track of time. The desire to get better and the competitive drive get people to spend hours in games like this. A man, referred to as Lee and only twenty-eight years old, died while playing Starcraft. BBC News stated that the South Korean man had died after reportedly playing an online computer game for fifty hours with few breaks. He took short breaks only to go to the toilet and for short spurts of sleep. He collapsed and presumably died from heart failure. The intense need to be the best led to the death of this man. His intense desire to win led to the loss of his life. Deke lost everything in his life; Lee lost his life. Is the need for competition and to win really all that drives these players, or is there more to it? What is it that allows some players to stop sooner then others, that allow them to stop for necessary things like food and rest, and what is missing when people, like Lee, don’t stop at all?
The Pleasure Point Tales
When the last stars are still bright in the sky and the moon hangs above the horizon, pilgrims pull out of their driveways and turn towards Mecca. Then, after the faithful few have performed their rituals, the unrelenting pounding energy is joined by the sound of voices. This devout group meets every morning in the spirit of play. The rapture these surfers experience in moments of pure play is comparable only to that of a religious experience. While this experience and its significance are necessarily unique for every individual, a community is formed from their common passion for the sport.
Unfortunately, as a college student I am unable to make my pilgrimage with these men every morning; however, I am lucky to be able to join this community on the occasional morning when the stress of tests and papers becomes too much and I feel the need to be realigned. When I am able to squeeze into my cold wetsuit, put on my left bootie and then my right, and race the others paddling out to the lineup, I am filled with hope and excitement. This overwhelming optimism stems not only from my anticipation of the waves to come, if they even do come that morning, but also from the hope that seeing this community brings me.
While it is the surf that brings all these men together, the community that is formed adds to the experience in such a way that the physical act of surfing almost becomes subordinate to the interactions of the community. This collective of men, who come from different professions and periods of their lives, is bound together by a passion. There are lawyers, cooks, realtors, computer programmers, professors, husbands, fathers, and bachelors –- and then there is myself, the disillusioned college student who is unsure of what he is doing with his life. Although we are all vastly different and often fiercely compete for a limited number of waves, between sets we share stories, ambitions, jokes and laughs. Every morning this modern day version of The Canterbury Tales creates a narrative in which a select few epic rides are remembered. Still, a majority of what is taken from the session are the lessons and moments that each of the surfers share.
The reason that this community brings me so much hope is that I know that anywhere my life takes me I will be able to drive down to the beach and find a group of people who set their alarms for well before the time the coffee turns on. While my religious trek may not be to the same right point break it is now, I know that the powerful meaning surfing provides for each surfer will unite my peers and me as a Shepard unites stray sheep and a flock. This is the beauty of surfing and the manifestation of the powerful community-forming ability of play.
Unfortunately, as a college student I am unable to make my pilgrimage with these men every morning; however, I am lucky to be able to join this community on the occasional morning when the stress of tests and papers becomes too much and I feel the need to be realigned. When I am able to squeeze into my cold wetsuit, put on my left bootie and then my right, and race the others paddling out to the lineup, I am filled with hope and excitement. This overwhelming optimism stems not only from my anticipation of the waves to come, if they even do come that morning, but also from the hope that seeing this community brings me.
While it is the surf that brings all these men together, the community that is formed adds to the experience in such a way that the physical act of surfing almost becomes subordinate to the interactions of the community. This collective of men, who come from different professions and periods of their lives, is bound together by a passion. There are lawyers, cooks, realtors, computer programmers, professors, husbands, fathers, and bachelors –- and then there is myself, the disillusioned college student who is unsure of what he is doing with his life. Although we are all vastly different and often fiercely compete for a limited number of waves, between sets we share stories, ambitions, jokes and laughs. Every morning this modern day version of The Canterbury Tales creates a narrative in which a select few epic rides are remembered. Still, a majority of what is taken from the session are the lessons and moments that each of the surfers share.
The reason that this community brings me so much hope is that I know that anywhere my life takes me I will be able to drive down to the beach and find a group of people who set their alarms for well before the time the coffee turns on. While my religious trek may not be to the same right point break it is now, I know that the powerful meaning surfing provides for each surfer will unite my peers and me as a Shepard unites stray sheep and a flock. This is the beauty of surfing and the manifestation of the powerful community-forming ability of play.
Rock Band’s Narrative
Adding a microphone and a mock drum set to Guitar Hero’s two guitar peripherals, Rock Band allows players to form a virtual band in the most advanced music game series to date. However, what truly sets Rock Band apart from its predecessors is its engaging story that makes even dreadful musicians feel like rock superstars.
The first step to creating a rock band within the game is to personalize the four band members—the guitarist, the bass player, the singer, and the drummer. Each player can customize their character’s name, appearance, hometown, and attitude, each of which plays a distinct role in the main story of the game. This feature of Rock Band is one of its innovations: previous music games like Guitar Hero force players to choose from a short list of pre-made characters, while Rock Band allows users to design characters modeled after themselves, helping to connect them to the story. The players must then name their band and designate their band’s hometown. Possibilities for hometowns range from Los Angeles or New York, to even foreign cities such as London and Paris. The band’s hometown represents the area where their first concerts will be played.
The main plot of the game simulates the desires of players to start a band and become legendary. Rock Band engages players in the story by starting them off as an inexperienced band that must play at small venues to gain renown. Users can connect with this simulation because they are, in real life, an inexperienced band that has no reputation (unless a real four person rock band played the game). To gain a reputation, the band must choose a set of songs to play for their first hometown concert. The only songs available to play are the easiest songs because the band is inexperienced, both in the game and in real life (again, most likely). However, after completing their first concert by hitting, singing, and strumming enough correct notes, the band in the game begins to deviate from reality. As the band plays more concerts, they are continually offered to play in new venues across the world. Some venues will reward the band with special items needed to play in their final concert—the “Endless Set List.” The band will collect, in this order: a van, a tour bus, “roadies,” a plane, a “sound guy,” bodyguards, a public relations firm, and a “Hall of Fame Induction.” As the band is rewarded with each item, the game plays a cut scene displaying how the item is going to be used and how the band is progressing. The band can then see which item they most need to collect next, which encourages them to play the game more. Noticing that the van allowed them to travel to a different city to play concerts, a band might become curious as to what acquiring the plane will allow them to do, which turns out to unlock concert venues internationally.
The primary effects of Rock Band’s story are that it encourages users to play the game more so that they develop their skills and makes them feel like they are becoming legendary rock stars. When these two effects are intertwined, they create a game that is engaging for its players. The story gives players a reason to remain attached to the game, and invites its players to further explore its capabilities by motivating them with more of the story if they play more. Not only do players feel like a real band, but they simultaneously watch a story unfold about a band that has risen from an unknown garage band to a Hall of Fame rock band. The only way that players can see the end of this story is by playing the game more.
Rock Band uses narrative as its main method of motivation for keeping players engaged with the game. Its lofty critical acclaim (Gamerankings) shows that people enjoy engaging in stories within games. The appeal in Rock Band of becoming a star through the simulation of mastering musical instruments plays directly to the fantasies of many people. Through Rock Band, players can experience this on a fantasy level without having to master the skills. This raises many questions to our society about how technology might be discouraging people to learn how to play musical instruments, as well as learn other skills that have detailed simulations.
Works Cited
MTV Games. Rock Band for Xbox 360. New York, NY. 2007.
“Rock Band.” Gamerankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/938870.asp. January 2008. May 11, 2008.
The first step to creating a rock band within the game is to personalize the four band members—the guitarist, the bass player, the singer, and the drummer. Each player can customize their character’s name, appearance, hometown, and attitude, each of which plays a distinct role in the main story of the game. This feature of Rock Band is one of its innovations: previous music games like Guitar Hero force players to choose from a short list of pre-made characters, while Rock Band allows users to design characters modeled after themselves, helping to connect them to the story. The players must then name their band and designate their band’s hometown. Possibilities for hometowns range from Los Angeles or New York, to even foreign cities such as London and Paris. The band’s hometown represents the area where their first concerts will be played.
The main plot of the game simulates the desires of players to start a band and become legendary. Rock Band engages players in the story by starting them off as an inexperienced band that must play at small venues to gain renown. Users can connect with this simulation because they are, in real life, an inexperienced band that has no reputation (unless a real four person rock band played the game). To gain a reputation, the band must choose a set of songs to play for their first hometown concert. The only songs available to play are the easiest songs because the band is inexperienced, both in the game and in real life (again, most likely). However, after completing their first concert by hitting, singing, and strumming enough correct notes, the band in the game begins to deviate from reality. As the band plays more concerts, they are continually offered to play in new venues across the world. Some venues will reward the band with special items needed to play in their final concert—the “Endless Set List.” The band will collect, in this order: a van, a tour bus, “roadies,” a plane, a “sound guy,” bodyguards, a public relations firm, and a “Hall of Fame Induction.” As the band is rewarded with each item, the game plays a cut scene displaying how the item is going to be used and how the band is progressing. The band can then see which item they most need to collect next, which encourages them to play the game more. Noticing that the van allowed them to travel to a different city to play concerts, a band might become curious as to what acquiring the plane will allow them to do, which turns out to unlock concert venues internationally.
The primary effects of Rock Band’s story are that it encourages users to play the game more so that they develop their skills and makes them feel like they are becoming legendary rock stars. When these two effects are intertwined, they create a game that is engaging for its players. The story gives players a reason to remain attached to the game, and invites its players to further explore its capabilities by motivating them with more of the story if they play more. Not only do players feel like a real band, but they simultaneously watch a story unfold about a band that has risen from an unknown garage band to a Hall of Fame rock band. The only way that players can see the end of this story is by playing the game more.
Rock Band uses narrative as its main method of motivation for keeping players engaged with the game. Its lofty critical acclaim (Gamerankings) shows that people enjoy engaging in stories within games. The appeal in Rock Band of becoming a star through the simulation of mastering musical instruments plays directly to the fantasies of many people. Through Rock Band, players can experience this on a fantasy level without having to master the skills. This raises many questions to our society about how technology might be discouraging people to learn how to play musical instruments, as well as learn other skills that have detailed simulations.
Works Cited
MTV Games. Rock Band for Xbox 360. New York, NY. 2007.
“Rock Band.” Gamerankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/938870.asp. January 2008. May 11, 2008.
Officiating as play? A personal reflection
The “formal characteristics of play” are nicely summed up in Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens, with fairly rigid criteria (13). The intramural flag football games that I participate in at night are a prime example of such play. My role in these games, however, despite the usual six hours a week I devote to them, belongs to a grey area of play. I am a paid referee for these games, someone who officiates and interprets the rules of the game to ensure safety and enjoyable play.
My position is loosely analogous to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Host character in The Canterbury Tales, the person who facilitates the game and creates the play environ. My fellow officials and I set up the field before every game, unlock all the doors to the field, and assign equipment and field positions to the teams. The scoring, the timing, and penalties are all enforced and carried out by either my fellow officials or me. My involvement in the game is crucial to the game and the players’ play. As often times when observing the scrimmages that occur after a forfeited game, which I am barred from officiating, the play reality of the football game deteriorates into real life verbal arguments about ball positions and score attempts. Was that a touch down? Didn’t the quarterback fumble the ball on the snap? Both are questions that have been asked of me, players pleading arbitration, despite the fact that I had already stated that I was not required to offer my opinion. A fluid play-space or reality is hard to come by without the proper referees, especially when it comes to flag football. Perspectives and the angle of views necessary to properly enforce the rules are impossible to standardize without a third objective party.
Referees are crucial to the play of players, crucial to the creation of the play environment of the football game. Is the act of officiating itself necessarily play though? It certainly is confined in the same physical space and reality as the players of the game are. The referee’s powers also only function within the play-reality; I have yet to successfully use my yellow flag to eject a student from a lecture hall for snoring near me during a lecture. There is no doubt that the officials must also follow the same rules of the game, despite a certain authority of interpretation, a referee cannot go against the rules written out in the rule book. I also regard officiating to be a free activity. Yes there is a paycheck every month, but with at most six working hours a week, officiating is hardly a source of disposable income to depend on. The money is more of a compensation for spending the time, not participating in the game in a more exciting and exhilarating role. With the issue of material gain partially put to rest, can officiating now be regarded as play? Asking a fellow referee for his opinion, he stated that money definitely was not an issue for him; he was doing it strictly “for fun”, to be able to “throw some flags and call some penalties”. Such an attitude indeed can be identified as play, as it takes my own thoughts to the next level, ignoring monetary compensation completely. However, even if it can be identified as play, can it be regarded as officiating anymore? Indeed, upon asking other referees who had worked with him, they said he was a bit too “flag-happy” and made the games unnecessarily long. This reduces the amount of playtime the players may play, despite completely being within the rules governing officiating. Another instance of such an overbalance of play-attitude is when officials, myself included, opt to officiate games that we know to be more exciting and spectacular. Such actions though, are always preceded by a caveat from the supervisor to not “watch the game” but instead “officiate the game”. Here there is a clear distinction between play as a spectator, watching the game, and watching for rule infractions and ball positions.
Certainly, there can be a play element in officiating, but then again, any activity can be turned to play. It is just a matter of whether or not the activity remains the activity upon adulterating it with a play attitude. In order to achieve the purest form of officiating, I believe all traces of play must be eliminated from the actions of the official. But as it is impossible for the human mind to do so when engaged in an activity with so many lures of play, a pure official is not possible. Thus theoretically officiating should not be play if done properly, but in reality officiating will always have the play elements and will always be to a degree, play for the official. It is now simply a matter of deciding which to set as the definition and answer, the theoretically possible but realistically impossible or the true reality of the matter. Of course, play must be separate from reality, and therein lies the paradox.
My position is loosely analogous to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Host character in The Canterbury Tales, the person who facilitates the game and creates the play environ. My fellow officials and I set up the field before every game, unlock all the doors to the field, and assign equipment and field positions to the teams. The scoring, the timing, and penalties are all enforced and carried out by either my fellow officials or me. My involvement in the game is crucial to the game and the players’ play. As often times when observing the scrimmages that occur after a forfeited game, which I am barred from officiating, the play reality of the football game deteriorates into real life verbal arguments about ball positions and score attempts. Was that a touch down? Didn’t the quarterback fumble the ball on the snap? Both are questions that have been asked of me, players pleading arbitration, despite the fact that I had already stated that I was not required to offer my opinion. A fluid play-space or reality is hard to come by without the proper referees, especially when it comes to flag football. Perspectives and the angle of views necessary to properly enforce the rules are impossible to standardize without a third objective party.
Referees are crucial to the play of players, crucial to the creation of the play environment of the football game. Is the act of officiating itself necessarily play though? It certainly is confined in the same physical space and reality as the players of the game are. The referee’s powers also only function within the play-reality; I have yet to successfully use my yellow flag to eject a student from a lecture hall for snoring near me during a lecture. There is no doubt that the officials must also follow the same rules of the game, despite a certain authority of interpretation, a referee cannot go against the rules written out in the rule book. I also regard officiating to be a free activity. Yes there is a paycheck every month, but with at most six working hours a week, officiating is hardly a source of disposable income to depend on. The money is more of a compensation for spending the time, not participating in the game in a more exciting and exhilarating role. With the issue of material gain partially put to rest, can officiating now be regarded as play? Asking a fellow referee for his opinion, he stated that money definitely was not an issue for him; he was doing it strictly “for fun”, to be able to “throw some flags and call some penalties”. Such an attitude indeed can be identified as play, as it takes my own thoughts to the next level, ignoring monetary compensation completely. However, even if it can be identified as play, can it be regarded as officiating anymore? Indeed, upon asking other referees who had worked with him, they said he was a bit too “flag-happy” and made the games unnecessarily long. This reduces the amount of playtime the players may play, despite completely being within the rules governing officiating. Another instance of such an overbalance of play-attitude is when officials, myself included, opt to officiate games that we know to be more exciting and spectacular. Such actions though, are always preceded by a caveat from the supervisor to not “watch the game” but instead “officiate the game”. Here there is a clear distinction between play as a spectator, watching the game, and watching for rule infractions and ball positions.
Certainly, there can be a play element in officiating, but then again, any activity can be turned to play. It is just a matter of whether or not the activity remains the activity upon adulterating it with a play attitude. In order to achieve the purest form of officiating, I believe all traces of play must be eliminated from the actions of the official. But as it is impossible for the human mind to do so when engaged in an activity with so many lures of play, a pure official is not possible. Thus theoretically officiating should not be play if done properly, but in reality officiating will always have the play elements and will always be to a degree, play for the official. It is now simply a matter of deciding which to set as the definition and answer, the theoretically possible but realistically impossible or the true reality of the matter. Of course, play must be separate from reality, and therein lies the paradox.
Sacrifice in Water Polo: What Stories an Individual Game Tells
To the outside observer the premier league game I participated in two weeks ago was just a standard water polo game and the only story told was that of the actual game. One team won by six goals and the various individual statistics tell the story of what happened in the game, but on a much deeper level they tell the stories of the players lives. For example in the 3rd quarter one player had two goals on consecutive counter attacks, to the outside observer this may be nothing more than an exciting moment in the game but to that player and his teammates, they know that for the entire semester they have been up at 5:45 am every single day and doing brutal swim sets and scrimmages so they can be faster and more conditioned than the other teams, and when that player scored those two goals he knew that all of his sacrifice was paying off and it had been worth it. It is moments like this in a game where all of a player’s doubts of whether or not all the sacrifice was worth it are erased, they may come back after the game but at that one perfect moment of ultimate success it is all worth it and that is what motivates the player to keep conditioning and breaking themselves down year after year, because they want to reach that moment of glory again. It’s almost an addiction, to the player at the collegiate and international level, the game is not played just for fun anymore, in fact for most they don’t consider it fun at all. This raises the question if all these players aren’t having fun then why are they still playing, the answer is that they can’t find the moment of true satisfaction anywhere else and to them there is nothing more sweet than to know you outworked and are more talented than the opposition. It is a sort of validation for the lifestyle of the high level athlete, and it makes everything else bad in that person’s life go away.
In reality every player knows that glory is fleeting and soon he will be standing on the deck again before the sun has risen while the rest of the world comfortably sleeps and he will again wonder if its all worth it and how nice it would be just to be a normal college student. But then they remember the glory and they know that most of those other people will never even know the feeling of having true validation for your life happen in one moment, let alone attain it.
So, two simple counter attack goals in a low key weekend premier league game may mean nothing to anyone but the individual who scored them, and over time those goals will start to run together with other goals in the individuals mind and lose meaning. But until the next moment of glory those are what keep the player going, and keep him from giving up. Everyone knows that they can’t play forever, sooner or later your body will finally give out for good or you just won’t be good enough to reach the next level, but in order to avoid giving up your life and your dreams prematurely, you need hope. Hope for me came in the form of those two goals, they kept me going throughout the next week of awful conditioning, when my body told me to quit during practice, I was able to smile and think of the goals in the third quarter of a game that essentially meant nothing and know that I could never quit, not with more goals left to score.
This leads to the question, does this thinking keep people going just at high level sports or is this what keeps people from giving up in life? Is our desire to be the best inherent in all humans, or is this why some people are more successful than others because they have this desire?
In reality every player knows that glory is fleeting and soon he will be standing on the deck again before the sun has risen while the rest of the world comfortably sleeps and he will again wonder if its all worth it and how nice it would be just to be a normal college student. But then they remember the glory and they know that most of those other people will never even know the feeling of having true validation for your life happen in one moment, let alone attain it.
So, two simple counter attack goals in a low key weekend premier league game may mean nothing to anyone but the individual who scored them, and over time those goals will start to run together with other goals in the individuals mind and lose meaning. But until the next moment of glory those are what keep the player going, and keep him from giving up. Everyone knows that they can’t play forever, sooner or later your body will finally give out for good or you just won’t be good enough to reach the next level, but in order to avoid giving up your life and your dreams prematurely, you need hope. Hope for me came in the form of those two goals, they kept me going throughout the next week of awful conditioning, when my body told me to quit during practice, I was able to smile and think of the goals in the third quarter of a game that essentially meant nothing and know that I could never quit, not with more goals left to score.
This leads to the question, does this thinking keep people going just at high level sports or is this what keeps people from giving up in life? Is our desire to be the best inherent in all humans, or is this why some people are more successful than others because they have this desire?
4.23.2008
Fake Spoilsport
The idea that mayhem can be reached through a systematic process of carefully researched and skillfully designed events, is contradictory. Mayhem is criminal law, violent behavior, physical assault, rowdy confusion, chaos, and disorder; to systematize it would defeat its very purpose (OED). Tyler’s plan for new world order, Project Mayhem, is problematic in that the moment their chaotic events are planned, it is no longer true mayhem. Palahniuk has similar contradictions in Fight Club with Marla: she is the spoilsport, but there are aspects of her personality that are distinctly socially feminine – if she truly followed no rules then that would apply to her not subscribing to feminine characteristics; Fight Club, according to the narrator, is all about Marla, but his actions continually undermine her and she is portrayed as passive in both narratives – more so in the movie, as seen after Marla’s suicide attempt where Tyler is the one taking charge and helping her escape.
Marla’s femininity is confusing. She exhibits very female characteristics like suicide by pills, not shooting her head off like the narrator, but a technique that preserves her beauty; a vain, typically female desire. But uncharacteristically femininely, she wears her hair short, enjoys her boyish body figure, and is cynical towards ideas of love and the rules of sex. When Marla’s in the kitchen showing off a thrift store bridesmaids dress, she mocks the institution of marriage, “It’s a bridesmaids dress and it’s all hand sewn….Somebody did all these tiny stitches just to make this ugly, ugly dress.” Marla scoffs at all the work that went into the dress: the attention to detail, the planning, the execution of it all. Those small, hand sewn stitches were just a small reflection of how much work went into the actual wedding. But it’s ending? A dress worn and forgotten, on sale for a dollar at Goodwill. Marla gets this.
As a spoilsport, Marla goes against social norms and flaunts her sexuality. She is an avid player of “sport fucks” and understands the limits and benefits of just sex, but doesn’t participate in the games that happen before the copulation. Her analogy of the condom as a glass slipper of our generation mirrors how sex is seen today. Her rebellion is doing it for the sake of doing it, for reaching her moment of “now”, for selfish, physical reasons. Without the games of flirting and the foreplay, sex is animalistic. It is basic and raw and exposed. Just how Marla likes it.
Chloe understands this. She wants to get laid for the last time. “No intimacy, sex,” is how the narrator puts it (19). Her lack of participation in playing by the rules, echo Marla’s. However, Chloe isn’t there yet – she must ask people in her support group, bribing them with porn and lubricant and sex toys. Marla just goes for it. Marla’s version is, according to Huizinga, play. It is a state distinct from other states, is absorbing, and safe place. Marla understands what sex entails, it is what she knows, what she is comfortable with. Sex is her safe place. Chloe wants to be there, wants to have the sexual freedom that Marla has. Because to be in that place, the player can experiment, try new roles, do things without the influence and constraints of the world outside of play. It is to experience deep play. This is what Marla does constantly. She has no drama that brings her out of playing because she lives in the now. She doesn’t plan ahead or think about the past, thus she can live a drama free life.
Chloe, like Marla, is dying. This is an out for them because they don’t have to deal with the consequences of their actions. But, unlike Marla, Chloe has not reached the state of being where she is comfortable with that. In the movie when Chloe tentatively asks her support group for a sex partner she is rushed, nervous, and lets herself be interrupted by the facilitator. She was hesitant a fearful of judgment because she understands – and cares – that she is not playing by the rules. Marla, however, gets that she isn’t playing by the rules and doesn’t care. When Marla is walking across a busy intersection she doesn’t even let a speeding car interrupt her. Her ability to not care is a step up from Chloe. Once Chloe can embrace the idea of not caring, then she can do whatever she wants and not have to deal with the drama, then she will reach the ranks of a spoilsport.
The narrator’s grandmother would be flabbergasted at the idea of a spoilsport. She is the picture of modestly, a true rule follower. His grandmother never wore a swimsuit in public and ran the water in the bathroom sink to mask the noise her using the toilet (105). For the narrator, this description of his grandmother, “sums up the whole story,” defining her by how she followed the rules (106). The portrayal of the narrator’s grandmother, and his lack of respect and sense of humor towards her, follows how he treats Marla.
Despite the opening of both Fight Club narrations emphasizing the idea that it is all about Marla, the rest of the text don’t reflect that. The narrator certain of one thing: “the gun, the anarchy, the explosion is really about Marla Singer” (14). But, the threat of “if you don’t cooperate we’ll go after Marla” stress the weakness in her character (203). It is saying that she is vulnerable to attack without the big, strong help from her man, that having a relationship with her is ultimately detrimental since she is seen as his weakness and therefore taken advantage of, and most importantly, perpetuates the idea that the female is the weakest player in the game. This characteristic of being the weakest player is part of Palahniuk’s contradictions about Marla being a spoilsport and fitting into the femininity stereotype. This is seen when the narrator is dealing with the realization of his split personality and Marla wants to take advantage of Tyler and says, “Hey, before we get rid of Tyler, can we go shopping?” (183). It is seen again when Tyler claims responsibility for Marla because he was chivalrous and saved her life or when she tries to kill her and admitting, “This isn't a real suicide-thing. This is probably one of those cry-for-help things” (60). Marla further undermines herself by qualifying her statements with words like “probably,” and her nonchalant attitude toward decision making. Marla as a passive participant throughout the narratives contradict how Fight Club is all about her. Marla can’t be the center of something and not be in the center.
Palahniuk’s attempt for the “now” in Marla is her questioning her sexuality. His desire to stay in the “now” is seen in how Marla maintains her “now” through exploring her sexuality in sex and through support groups. In Fight Club’s afterward, Palahniuk discusses how the making of Fight Club was his “now,” that as long as it was in the process he was in the “now.” Sex and support groups are Marla’s version – questioning her sexuality is her making of the “now.” Marla’s fixation with defining herself by her breasts, or redefining herself once that could be taken away is explored in “Remaining Men Together.” When Marla and the narrator find the second lump, it is sexual in the way that Marla and Tyler having sex never was. The female breasts, unlike Bob’s bitch tits, are life and death. It is a symbol for nurturing, motherhood, female. Marla’s strategy to get over that and redefine what it is to be female, is by exploring the other symbol of femininity, her sex. This, in Huizinga’s guidelines, is how Marla plays. Sex exists in its own space, it has a clear beginning and end, and there are repetitive elements.
Palahniuk’s portrayal of Marla as a spoilsport is inaccurate in that she does follow some rules set by society in what it means to be female. But, these facets add to how she pushes those boundaries to question her sexuality in such a brash and daring way making her the ideal player for living in Tyler’s new world order.
Marla’s femininity is confusing. She exhibits very female characteristics like suicide by pills, not shooting her head off like the narrator, but a technique that preserves her beauty; a vain, typically female desire. But uncharacteristically femininely, she wears her hair short, enjoys her boyish body figure, and is cynical towards ideas of love and the rules of sex. When Marla’s in the kitchen showing off a thrift store bridesmaids dress, she mocks the institution of marriage, “It’s a bridesmaids dress and it’s all hand sewn….Somebody did all these tiny stitches just to make this ugly, ugly dress.” Marla scoffs at all the work that went into the dress: the attention to detail, the planning, the execution of it all. Those small, hand sewn stitches were just a small reflection of how much work went into the actual wedding. But it’s ending? A dress worn and forgotten, on sale for a dollar at Goodwill. Marla gets this.
As a spoilsport, Marla goes against social norms and flaunts her sexuality. She is an avid player of “sport fucks” and understands the limits and benefits of just sex, but doesn’t participate in the games that happen before the copulation. Her analogy of the condom as a glass slipper of our generation mirrors how sex is seen today. Her rebellion is doing it for the sake of doing it, for reaching her moment of “now”, for selfish, physical reasons. Without the games of flirting and the foreplay, sex is animalistic. It is basic and raw and exposed. Just how Marla likes it.
Chloe understands this. She wants to get laid for the last time. “No intimacy, sex,” is how the narrator puts it (19). Her lack of participation in playing by the rules, echo Marla’s. However, Chloe isn’t there yet – she must ask people in her support group, bribing them with porn and lubricant and sex toys. Marla just goes for it. Marla’s version is, according to Huizinga, play. It is a state distinct from other states, is absorbing, and safe place. Marla understands what sex entails, it is what she knows, what she is comfortable with. Sex is her safe place. Chloe wants to be there, wants to have the sexual freedom that Marla has. Because to be in that place, the player can experiment, try new roles, do things without the influence and constraints of the world outside of play. It is to experience deep play. This is what Marla does constantly. She has no drama that brings her out of playing because she lives in the now. She doesn’t plan ahead or think about the past, thus she can live a drama free life.
Chloe, like Marla, is dying. This is an out for them because they don’t have to deal with the consequences of their actions. But, unlike Marla, Chloe has not reached the state of being where she is comfortable with that. In the movie when Chloe tentatively asks her support group for a sex partner she is rushed, nervous, and lets herself be interrupted by the facilitator. She was hesitant a fearful of judgment because she understands – and cares – that she is not playing by the rules. Marla, however, gets that she isn’t playing by the rules and doesn’t care. When Marla is walking across a busy intersection she doesn’t even let a speeding car interrupt her. Her ability to not care is a step up from Chloe. Once Chloe can embrace the idea of not caring, then she can do whatever she wants and not have to deal with the drama, then she will reach the ranks of a spoilsport.
The narrator’s grandmother would be flabbergasted at the idea of a spoilsport. She is the picture of modestly, a true rule follower. His grandmother never wore a swimsuit in public and ran the water in the bathroom sink to mask the noise her using the toilet (105). For the narrator, this description of his grandmother, “sums up the whole story,” defining her by how she followed the rules (106). The portrayal of the narrator’s grandmother, and his lack of respect and sense of humor towards her, follows how he treats Marla.
Despite the opening of both Fight Club narrations emphasizing the idea that it is all about Marla, the rest of the text don’t reflect that. The narrator certain of one thing: “the gun, the anarchy, the explosion is really about Marla Singer” (14). But, the threat of “if you don’t cooperate we’ll go after Marla” stress the weakness in her character (203). It is saying that she is vulnerable to attack without the big, strong help from her man, that having a relationship with her is ultimately detrimental since she is seen as his weakness and therefore taken advantage of, and most importantly, perpetuates the idea that the female is the weakest player in the game. This characteristic of being the weakest player is part of Palahniuk’s contradictions about Marla being a spoilsport and fitting into the femininity stereotype. This is seen when the narrator is dealing with the realization of his split personality and Marla wants to take advantage of Tyler and says, “Hey, before we get rid of Tyler, can we go shopping?” (183). It is seen again when Tyler claims responsibility for Marla because he was chivalrous and saved her life or when she tries to kill her and admitting, “This isn't a real suicide-thing. This is probably one of those cry-for-help things” (60). Marla further undermines herself by qualifying her statements with words like “probably,” and her nonchalant attitude toward decision making. Marla as a passive participant throughout the narratives contradict how Fight Club is all about her. Marla can’t be the center of something and not be in the center.
Palahniuk’s attempt for the “now” in Marla is her questioning her sexuality. His desire to stay in the “now” is seen in how Marla maintains her “now” through exploring her sexuality in sex and through support groups. In Fight Club’s afterward, Palahniuk discusses how the making of Fight Club was his “now,” that as long as it was in the process he was in the “now.” Sex and support groups are Marla’s version – questioning her sexuality is her making of the “now.” Marla’s fixation with defining herself by her breasts, or redefining herself once that could be taken away is explored in “Remaining Men Together.” When Marla and the narrator find the second lump, it is sexual in the way that Marla and Tyler having sex never was. The female breasts, unlike Bob’s bitch tits, are life and death. It is a symbol for nurturing, motherhood, female. Marla’s strategy to get over that and redefine what it is to be female, is by exploring the other symbol of femininity, her sex. This, in Huizinga’s guidelines, is how Marla plays. Sex exists in its own space, it has a clear beginning and end, and there are repetitive elements.
Palahniuk’s portrayal of Marla as a spoilsport is inaccurate in that she does follow some rules set by society in what it means to be female. But, these facets add to how she pushes those boundaries to question her sexuality in such a brash and daring way making her the ideal player for living in Tyler’s new world order.
Hitting Bottom in Fight Club. Violence is the Key.
The main characters in Fight Club provide evidence that hitting bottom is achieved through different forms of violence and corresponding pain, which, depending on the character, include psychological, physical, or a combination of both. I define the bottom as the place where you cannot emotionally or physically be any worse off, the place where you give up. Hitting bottom does not have to be achieved consciously and it is a relative term. In the case of Joe, for example, Tyler is part of his consciousness and Tyler is the one pushing Joe towards bottom. Joe is purposely and consciously trying to hit bottom. This consciousness and drive to hit bottom is distinctive: the other characters in the book, minus the fighters in Fight Club, achieve bottom accidentally. The variety of ways each character reaches or comes close to hitting bottom requires detailed analysis of each character’s relation with violence, pain, and whether or not they have a desire to hit bottom.
The relationship between Tyler, Joe, and hitting bottom, is mentioned multiple times throughout the book. Tyler claims that unless Joe hits bottom he cannot be saved (70). Joe starts with a psychological fall when he is introduced to the pain and suffering in the support groups. After a night where he cries at “Remaining Men Together,” the testicular cancer support group, Joe says, “I felt more alive than I’d ever felt” (22). The group provokes a physical reaction in Joe, he is now able to sleep better and able to cry. The other group members experience the actual pain from the disease and knowledge of their prognosis, for them the pull towards bottom is both psychological and physical. It is not until after this introduction to the suffering of others, that Joe creates Tyler to physically break him away from his commodities and his work. Because of Joe’s unhappiness, he creates a second persona to achieve the physical aspect of pain required to hit bottom. Tyler begins to expose him to pain and take him closer to death and the bottom.
Tyler has almost hit bottom by the nature of his personality and his existence in Joe’s psyche. Being a creation of Joe’s mind, his form of hitting bottom is psychological. Tyler is confident and “cool,” which clashes with Joe who is an adamant consumer and spends the majority of his time working for a large corporation. The doorman at Joe’s old apartment comments on Joe’s consumer fixation, "A lot of young people try to impress the world and buy too many things" (45). Tyler abhors this consumerism. Unable to stand Joe’s life, during the day when he is not in control, he decides to try to get Joe to reach bottom. If Tyler can get Joe to reach bottom, Joe will be able to fully live in the moment. “Tyler says I'm nowhere near hitting the bottom, yet. And if I don't fall all the way, I can't be saved” (70). For Joe being saved can only happen when he gives up. Tyler brings Joe closer to the bottom through physical violence. From the first punches when Tyler asked Joe to hit him, through destruction of his body at the fights, rejecting Marla (even though he likes her), the physical pain from the lye, and then, finally, with a gun pointed at himself, Tyler leads Joe to utter self-destruction. One of the strongest examples of the role violence has in hitting bottom is when Tyler kisses Joe’s hand and pours lye on it. The pain becomes unbearable. "We can use vinegar," Tyler says, "to neutralize the burning, but first you have to give up" (76). Tyler gives Joe a choice. The choice is to give up and live in the moment, nearing bottom and ending the current pain. By living in the moment, Joe will stop focusing on his Job and past. ‘Congratulations,’ Tyler says. ‘You're a step closer to hitting bottom” (78). Through the intense physical pain, and making the choice, Joe has been brought into the moment and towards the point where nothing matters anymore.
Marla provides a clear example that in order to hit bottom a form of violence is necessary. Her fight with cancer is not going well. Marla is forced to let go of hope as the book progresses. Marla is in many ways one of the most human characters in the book and thus it was easier for me to understand her progression towards bottom. Hitting bottom, as previously described, requires giving up and pain or violence. The pain Marla experiences is cancer. It is also the way in which she hits bottom. The cancer causes a physical and psychological form of pain. The lumps in her chest are physical and the pain that comes from knowing of her cancer and her prognosis remains. I do not know if the lumps were painful for her, as it is not covered in the book and I am not knowledgeable about breast cancer. However, I have lost my grandparents to cancer and the pain they felt was severe and violent. Marla knows she will die because of the cancerous lumps and this creates a reality and a choice. The reality is the closeness to death, which certainly brings her towards bottom. Her choice is whether or not she will live in the moment. Marla decides to give up and live in the moment. Through her relationship with Joe and her experience with the support group, which she starts going to the after she finds the first lump, Marla reaches bottom. “Now that she knows where we’re all going, Marla feels every moment of her life” (38). Feeling every moment requires hitting bottom and hitting bottom happens when Marla gives up, after finding the lump.
A great example of showing that Marla has given up and is at bottom is when she hops into the kitchen after a sad discovery by Joe; there are more lumps within her breasts. “The morning after we found her second lump, Marla hopped into the kitchen with both legs in one leg of her pantyhose and said, ‘Look, I'm a mermaid’” (107). This playfulness seems out of place, as Marla’s prognosis has just worsened, the key is that she already hit bottom knowing she has cancer, so this news does not affect her in the same way as it did when she found the first lump. The first time Marla searched for help and support, this time she played with Joe and made the most of the moment.
Big Bob’s cancer is the final straw that leads him to hit bottom. Unlike Marla’s cancer, his has already been removed. He is not hitting bottom from fear of death but rather from rejection, loss of masculinity and from emotionally violent relationships with his past wives. These relationships existed before his surgery between his body and steroids, his marriage deteriorating, and because of his testicular cancer. His “bitch tits,” as Joe calls them, have led to rejection from his friends and his bitter divorce left him without a partner. Bob’s loss of masculinity causes deep pain, because it is not only important for him as a man, but is also required for his profession. He changes from a body builder to “bitch tits,” and hits bottom when he feels he has nothing left in the world for him. In search of his new identity, Big Bob begins fighting. I see this as a way for him to prove his masculinity and to connect with others who are also trying to get away from their daily lives and come closer to bottom.
When the police commissioner cracks down on fight clubs, Tyler decides to have the “Assault Committee” come up with a way to stop the commissioner’s plan. The committee devises a plan to go after his balls. They stop him in a park and begin preparation needed to cut off his balls. He is in physical pain and psychologically attacked as well. The committee warns him that next time he will not be so lucky. The theme of the loss of masculinity and its ability to generate pain appears again. Tyler whispers to the commissioner, "How far do you think you'll get, your honor?" "How far do you think you'll get in politics if the voters know you have no nuts" (165)? This is an example of a combination of physical and psychological violence that led the commissioner to hit bottom and give up hope. He has nothing to look forward to if he loses his career, wife friends and knows he has everything to lose. Just like Marla and Big Bob, the police commissioner is forced to hit bottom.
After analyzing the characters a pattern emerges. Violence and pain, whether physical or mental, are necessary for reaching bottom. All of the characters hit or come near to bottom from exposure to or feelings of violence. According to the Oxford American Dictionaries, violence is a “Behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage or kill someone or something, “ or, the “strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force.” All the characters experienced pain and violence that was either a natural force, like cancer, or physical force intended to hurt, like the lye or the fight club.
There is also a relationship between the idea of hitting bottom and living in the moment, another central theme in Fight Club. When Joe was asleep on a nude beach he met Tyler who introduced the concept of a minute of perfection. “A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection,” Tyler explained (30). Tyler urges Jack to live in the moment and forget who he has been told he is by society, by his job and capitalism. His tactics and strategy to this end challenge Joe’s lifestyle, and force him to either accept his dull, monotonous life – or live in the moment. "‘Because everything up to now is a story,’ Tyler says, ‘and everything after now is a story.’ This is the greatest moment of our life” (75). Reaching bottom leads to that perfection. Thus living in the moment in Fight Club is contingent upon hitting bottom.
While reflecting on the characters and the experiences that led them to hit bottom and live in the moment, I realized Fight Club made me think about my own role in society, as if I was brought near bottom. Palahniuk’s writing compelled me to look at my own life. How I am also a consumer and I put a lot of importance on finding a job. I thought more about what would allow me to be happiest in my life and I thought about living in the moment and what that means. I am sure I have not reached bottom and I do not want to reach the bottom that is depicted by Palahniuk. However, the book has made me think. Not only is Fight Club one of the most gruesome, graphically scaring novels I have read, it was also one of the most thought provoking. The violence and suffering led me to a place that is nearer to the bottom than my life normally takes me. The book, to some extent, made me reconsider my role in society and gives other readers a chance to do the same.
The relationship between Tyler, Joe, and hitting bottom, is mentioned multiple times throughout the book. Tyler claims that unless Joe hits bottom he cannot be saved (70). Joe starts with a psychological fall when he is introduced to the pain and suffering in the support groups. After a night where he cries at “Remaining Men Together,” the testicular cancer support group, Joe says, “I felt more alive than I’d ever felt” (22). The group provokes a physical reaction in Joe, he is now able to sleep better and able to cry. The other group members experience the actual pain from the disease and knowledge of their prognosis, for them the pull towards bottom is both psychological and physical. It is not until after this introduction to the suffering of others, that Joe creates Tyler to physically break him away from his commodities and his work. Because of Joe’s unhappiness, he creates a second persona to achieve the physical aspect of pain required to hit bottom. Tyler begins to expose him to pain and take him closer to death and the bottom.
Tyler has almost hit bottom by the nature of his personality and his existence in Joe’s psyche. Being a creation of Joe’s mind, his form of hitting bottom is psychological. Tyler is confident and “cool,” which clashes with Joe who is an adamant consumer and spends the majority of his time working for a large corporation. The doorman at Joe’s old apartment comments on Joe’s consumer fixation, "A lot of young people try to impress the world and buy too many things" (45). Tyler abhors this consumerism. Unable to stand Joe’s life, during the day when he is not in control, he decides to try to get Joe to reach bottom. If Tyler can get Joe to reach bottom, Joe will be able to fully live in the moment. “Tyler says I'm nowhere near hitting the bottom, yet. And if I don't fall all the way, I can't be saved” (70). For Joe being saved can only happen when he gives up. Tyler brings Joe closer to the bottom through physical violence. From the first punches when Tyler asked Joe to hit him, through destruction of his body at the fights, rejecting Marla (even though he likes her), the physical pain from the lye, and then, finally, with a gun pointed at himself, Tyler leads Joe to utter self-destruction. One of the strongest examples of the role violence has in hitting bottom is when Tyler kisses Joe’s hand and pours lye on it. The pain becomes unbearable. "We can use vinegar," Tyler says, "to neutralize the burning, but first you have to give up" (76). Tyler gives Joe a choice. The choice is to give up and live in the moment, nearing bottom and ending the current pain. By living in the moment, Joe will stop focusing on his Job and past. ‘Congratulations,’ Tyler says. ‘You're a step closer to hitting bottom” (78). Through the intense physical pain, and making the choice, Joe has been brought into the moment and towards the point where nothing matters anymore.
Marla provides a clear example that in order to hit bottom a form of violence is necessary. Her fight with cancer is not going well. Marla is forced to let go of hope as the book progresses. Marla is in many ways one of the most human characters in the book and thus it was easier for me to understand her progression towards bottom. Hitting bottom, as previously described, requires giving up and pain or violence. The pain Marla experiences is cancer. It is also the way in which she hits bottom. The cancer causes a physical and psychological form of pain. The lumps in her chest are physical and the pain that comes from knowing of her cancer and her prognosis remains. I do not know if the lumps were painful for her, as it is not covered in the book and I am not knowledgeable about breast cancer. However, I have lost my grandparents to cancer and the pain they felt was severe and violent. Marla knows she will die because of the cancerous lumps and this creates a reality and a choice. The reality is the closeness to death, which certainly brings her towards bottom. Her choice is whether or not she will live in the moment. Marla decides to give up and live in the moment. Through her relationship with Joe and her experience with the support group, which she starts going to the after she finds the first lump, Marla reaches bottom. “Now that she knows where we’re all going, Marla feels every moment of her life” (38). Feeling every moment requires hitting bottom and hitting bottom happens when Marla gives up, after finding the lump.
A great example of showing that Marla has given up and is at bottom is when she hops into the kitchen after a sad discovery by Joe; there are more lumps within her breasts. “The morning after we found her second lump, Marla hopped into the kitchen with both legs in one leg of her pantyhose and said, ‘Look, I'm a mermaid’” (107). This playfulness seems out of place, as Marla’s prognosis has just worsened, the key is that she already hit bottom knowing she has cancer, so this news does not affect her in the same way as it did when she found the first lump. The first time Marla searched for help and support, this time she played with Joe and made the most of the moment.
Big Bob’s cancer is the final straw that leads him to hit bottom. Unlike Marla’s cancer, his has already been removed. He is not hitting bottom from fear of death but rather from rejection, loss of masculinity and from emotionally violent relationships with his past wives. These relationships existed before his surgery between his body and steroids, his marriage deteriorating, and because of his testicular cancer. His “bitch tits,” as Joe calls them, have led to rejection from his friends and his bitter divorce left him without a partner. Bob’s loss of masculinity causes deep pain, because it is not only important for him as a man, but is also required for his profession. He changes from a body builder to “bitch tits,” and hits bottom when he feels he has nothing left in the world for him. In search of his new identity, Big Bob begins fighting. I see this as a way for him to prove his masculinity and to connect with others who are also trying to get away from their daily lives and come closer to bottom.
When the police commissioner cracks down on fight clubs, Tyler decides to have the “Assault Committee” come up with a way to stop the commissioner’s plan. The committee devises a plan to go after his balls. They stop him in a park and begin preparation needed to cut off his balls. He is in physical pain and psychologically attacked as well. The committee warns him that next time he will not be so lucky. The theme of the loss of masculinity and its ability to generate pain appears again. Tyler whispers to the commissioner, "How far do you think you'll get, your honor?" "How far do you think you'll get in politics if the voters know you have no nuts" (165)? This is an example of a combination of physical and psychological violence that led the commissioner to hit bottom and give up hope. He has nothing to look forward to if he loses his career, wife friends and knows he has everything to lose. Just like Marla and Big Bob, the police commissioner is forced to hit bottom.
After analyzing the characters a pattern emerges. Violence and pain, whether physical or mental, are necessary for reaching bottom. All of the characters hit or come near to bottom from exposure to or feelings of violence. According to the Oxford American Dictionaries, violence is a “Behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage or kill someone or something, “ or, the “strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force.” All the characters experienced pain and violence that was either a natural force, like cancer, or physical force intended to hurt, like the lye or the fight club.
There is also a relationship between the idea of hitting bottom and living in the moment, another central theme in Fight Club. When Joe was asleep on a nude beach he met Tyler who introduced the concept of a minute of perfection. “A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection,” Tyler explained (30). Tyler urges Jack to live in the moment and forget who he has been told he is by society, by his job and capitalism. His tactics and strategy to this end challenge Joe’s lifestyle, and force him to either accept his dull, monotonous life – or live in the moment. "‘Because everything up to now is a story,’ Tyler says, ‘and everything after now is a story.’ This is the greatest moment of our life” (75). Reaching bottom leads to that perfection. Thus living in the moment in Fight Club is contingent upon hitting bottom.
While reflecting on the characters and the experiences that led them to hit bottom and live in the moment, I realized Fight Club made me think about my own role in society, as if I was brought near bottom. Palahniuk’s writing compelled me to look at my own life. How I am also a consumer and I put a lot of importance on finding a job. I thought more about what would allow me to be happiest in my life and I thought about living in the moment and what that means. I am sure I have not reached bottom and I do not want to reach the bottom that is depicted by Palahniuk. However, the book has made me think. Not only is Fight Club one of the most gruesome, graphically scaring novels I have read, it was also one of the most thought provoking. The violence and suffering led me to a place that is nearer to the bottom than my life normally takes me. The book, to some extent, made me reconsider my role in society and gives other readers a chance to do the same.
Tyler Durden is Homo Ludens: or, Johan Huizinga is the Narrator
Johan Huizinga wrote Homo Ludens nearly sixty years before Chuck Palahniuk published Fight Club. However I would not be surprised if early twentieth century Dutch culture featured its own form of the secretive bare-knuckle boxing community. Huizinga’s description of play and its importance within the individual and public human being is epitomized by the focus of Palahniuk’s novel. Not only does the Fight Club follow the organization of Huizinga’s definition of play, it has the same functions. This discovery either implies that one inspired the other somehow or that both authors describe a truth about human beings in their respective texts.
Firstly the arrangement of the Fight Club endeavor is identical to that described by Huizinga. “Rules. . . are a very important factor in the play-concept. All play has its rules. They determine what ‘holds’ in the temporary world circumscribed by play. The rules of a game are absolutely binding and allow no doubt.” (11) Huizinga states the necessity of stern rules that control the bounds of the play and the players themselves. Fight Club, too, has its rules. On pages 48-50, the narrator describes the community’s rules to the audience, us, while explaining it to his audience, the new members in the story. The rules are crucial to the maintenance and development of the Club. “Play demands order absolute and supreme.” (10)
The rules, in fact, address some of Huizinga’s other criteria for play. Rules one and two, “you don’t talk about fight club,” (48) are cornerstones of the secrecy of the play-concept. “The charm of play is enhanced by making a ‘secret’ out of it. This is for us, not for the ‘others.’” (12) The third rule, “when someone says stop, or goes limp, even if he’s just faking it, the fight is over,” is essentially Palahniuk’s response to Huizinga’s fear of a “disenchantment” (21) of play or even the concept of a “spoil-sport.” (23).
The nature of the fighting in Fight Club always offers the risk of permanent damage with its brutal violence, and this risks an interruption of the game. “At any moment, ‘ordinary life’ may reassert its rights either by an impact from without, which interrupts the game, or by an offence against the rules, or else from within, by a collapse of the play spirit, a sobering, a disenchantment.” (21) Injury serves as the possible reassertion of “ordinary life,” while faking it serves as the collapse of the play spirit. (We see an interruption of the play of Project Mayhem, to be addressed later, when Big Bob dies on page 177. “Ordinary life” reasserts its rights.) The rule is even followed by directions, “every time you see this kid, you can’t tell him what a great fight he had” (49) to help discourage the “collapse of the play-spirit.”
Rules four, five, six, and seven are basically maintenance rules. Their function is primarily to facilitate the consistent upkeep of the play atmosphere. However, there is something to be said for the primal environment created by shirtless, shoeless men fighting mano-a-mano until one can go no further. This helps the assertion that play is at the core of human nature. It swims among our basic needs along with survival and procreation.
Rule eight (though Tyler calls is the seventh rule in his speech), “if this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight” (50) has two primary effects. First, it helps to replenish the ranks and spread the gospel (though it is against the rules) of Fight Club. Secondly, it demands the play spirit from all of its participants. It eliminates Huizinga’s spoil-sports. This is another way to keep Fight Club insular and apart from the “real world,” as Huizinga refers to it.
The “secludedness” and “limitedness” that Huizinga notes as imperative is also successfully captured by Palahniuk. “It is ‘played out’ within certain limits of time and place.” (9) Palahniuk addresses this within the same pages he sets up the rules of fight club, as though he were checking off Huizinga’s criteria for the play-concept. “Fight club only exists in the hours between when fight club starts and fight club ends.” (48) Palahniuk uses repetition to stress the importance of time-limited existence. “Except for five hours from two until seven on Sunday morning, fight club doesn’t exist.” (52)
Huizinga later stresses the importance of physical separation. “One of the most important characteristics of play [is] its spatial separation from ordinary life. A closed space is marked out for it. . . hedged off from everyday surroundings. Inside this space, the play proceeds, inside it the rules obtain.” (19) Palahniuk responds directly again. Fight club is held in “the basement of a bar. . . after the bar closes on Saturday night.” (50) Few places are emptier than a closed bar after a Saturday night.
This separation from society enables Palahniuk to create Huizinga’s play-community. “The feeling of being ‘apart together. . .’ of mutually withdrawing from the rest of the world and rejecting the usual norms, retains its magic beyond the duration of the individual game.” (12) This tight brotherhood created by fight club does not exist once its members crawl out of the bar basement steps, but the experience lasts with the individuals permanently.
The experience of play, described by Huizinga, and the experience of fight club, described by Palahniuk, hardens the uncanny similarity between the two depictions. First, the outcome is irrelevant. “The whole point is the playing.” (17) The results are yielded to the participants through playing, not through winning. “The action begins and ends in itself, and the outcome does not contribute to the necessary life-processes of the group.” (49) As he has consistently before, Palahniuk parallels Huizinga’s statements with his story’s. “You aren’t alive anywhere like you’re alive at fight club. . . Fight club isn’t about winning or losing fights. Fight club isn’t about words.” (51)
What is gained through these experiences is illustrated by Huizinga through reference to the works of Leo Frobenius. Frobenius refutes that it is purely an innate “play instinct.” (16) Instead, “the experience of life and nature. . . takes the form of a seizure.” (16) Frobenius says, “Man is seized by the revelation of fate.” It is a “necessary mental process of transformation.” (17) The Huizinga-Frobenius philosophy of seizure and fate-revelation is paralleled by Tyler and the lye-kiss in the story. Though this scene occurs outside the framework of the actual fight club, it reflects the same ideologies. Tyler urges the narrator to accept the pain. “Come back to the pain.” (75) Tyler explains, “Someday. . .you will die, and until you know that you’re useless to me.” (76) Tyler steers the narrator towards a “revelation of fate.” (I admit the “useless to me comment” corrupts the purity of the moment, but it does so in the same fashion that Project Mayhem corrupts the play of fight club for a “real world” purpose.)
Lastly, Homo Ludens and Fight Club discuss the differing appearances of the playing participants in the real world and in the play-world. Huizinga refers to it as “dressing up.” “The disguised or masked individual ‘plays’ another part, another being. He is another being.” (13) The narrator in Fight Club reflects this as he comments on the same topic within the club. “Who guys are in the fight club is not who they are in the real world. Even if you told the kid in the copy center that he had a good fight, you wouldn’t be talking to the same man. Who I am in the fight club is not someone my boss knows.” Huizinga finds this third type of separation, the personal, as the most significant. “Here the ‘extra-ordinary’ nature of play reaches perfection.” (13) The narrator in Fight Club agrees. He finds pride in his distinctively different personalities in one realm compared to another (and distinctively different are his personalities ever!).
Through all of Huizinga’s pseudo-scientific, uncited, psychological analyses, he does summarize his description of play cleanly in one paragraph on page 13. Palahniuk fulfills each of the various components of Huizinga’s definition of play. “Summing up the formal characteristics of play we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside the ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious’, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly.” The members of fight club pursue it out of their true freedom as individuals. It is consciously perverse to societal expectations for it exists in direct opposition to society. It completely enraptures its player; it is why they keep their hair short and trim their nails. “It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it.” The winners of fights garner no more respect than the losers. All members seek the fight, hitting and being hit, not the knockout. “It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner.” From two to seven on Sunday mornings in the basement of the bar, the club meets, and at no other time and in no other place does it even exist. Rules are the foundation of the club, and the particular rules create an order that facilitates the desired play. “It promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means.” The club’s first and second rules shroud it in secrecy. It is openly and aggressively counter-culture, and it relies on its members becoming different human beings at the set hour and location.
The key-and-lock match of the Huizinga theories and the Palahniuk story offers two possible explanations. Somehow one drew inspiration from the other, or something like it. Or they have both found a truth in the human spirit. They both have seen similar patterns in the human behavior of and need to play, albeit Palahniuk describes a much more violent, scandalous method. Nonetheless, I think the film credits may have well as rolled “Edward Norton – Johan Huizinga, narrator.”
Firstly the arrangement of the Fight Club endeavor is identical to that described by Huizinga. “Rules. . . are a very important factor in the play-concept. All play has its rules. They determine what ‘holds’ in the temporary world circumscribed by play. The rules of a game are absolutely binding and allow no doubt.” (11) Huizinga states the necessity of stern rules that control the bounds of the play and the players themselves. Fight Club, too, has its rules. On pages 48-50, the narrator describes the community’s rules to the audience, us, while explaining it to his audience, the new members in the story. The rules are crucial to the maintenance and development of the Club. “Play demands order absolute and supreme.” (10)
The rules, in fact, address some of Huizinga’s other criteria for play. Rules one and two, “you don’t talk about fight club,” (48) are cornerstones of the secrecy of the play-concept. “The charm of play is enhanced by making a ‘secret’ out of it. This is for us, not for the ‘others.’” (12) The third rule, “when someone says stop, or goes limp, even if he’s just faking it, the fight is over,” is essentially Palahniuk’s response to Huizinga’s fear of a “disenchantment” (21) of play or even the concept of a “spoil-sport.” (23).
The nature of the fighting in Fight Club always offers the risk of permanent damage with its brutal violence, and this risks an interruption of the game. “At any moment, ‘ordinary life’ may reassert its rights either by an impact from without, which interrupts the game, or by an offence against the rules, or else from within, by a collapse of the play spirit, a sobering, a disenchantment.” (21) Injury serves as the possible reassertion of “ordinary life,” while faking it serves as the collapse of the play spirit. (We see an interruption of the play of Project Mayhem, to be addressed later, when Big Bob dies on page 177. “Ordinary life” reasserts its rights.) The rule is even followed by directions, “every time you see this kid, you can’t tell him what a great fight he had” (49) to help discourage the “collapse of the play-spirit.”
Rules four, five, six, and seven are basically maintenance rules. Their function is primarily to facilitate the consistent upkeep of the play atmosphere. However, there is something to be said for the primal environment created by shirtless, shoeless men fighting mano-a-mano until one can go no further. This helps the assertion that play is at the core of human nature. It swims among our basic needs along with survival and procreation.
Rule eight (though Tyler calls is the seventh rule in his speech), “if this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight” (50) has two primary effects. First, it helps to replenish the ranks and spread the gospel (though it is against the rules) of Fight Club. Secondly, it demands the play spirit from all of its participants. It eliminates Huizinga’s spoil-sports. This is another way to keep Fight Club insular and apart from the “real world,” as Huizinga refers to it.
The “secludedness” and “limitedness” that Huizinga notes as imperative is also successfully captured by Palahniuk. “It is ‘played out’ within certain limits of time and place.” (9) Palahniuk addresses this within the same pages he sets up the rules of fight club, as though he were checking off Huizinga’s criteria for the play-concept. “Fight club only exists in the hours between when fight club starts and fight club ends.” (48) Palahniuk uses repetition to stress the importance of time-limited existence. “Except for five hours from two until seven on Sunday morning, fight club doesn’t exist.” (52)
Huizinga later stresses the importance of physical separation. “One of the most important characteristics of play [is] its spatial separation from ordinary life. A closed space is marked out for it. . . hedged off from everyday surroundings. Inside this space, the play proceeds, inside it the rules obtain.” (19) Palahniuk responds directly again. Fight club is held in “the basement of a bar. . . after the bar closes on Saturday night.” (50) Few places are emptier than a closed bar after a Saturday night.
This separation from society enables Palahniuk to create Huizinga’s play-community. “The feeling of being ‘apart together. . .’ of mutually withdrawing from the rest of the world and rejecting the usual norms, retains its magic beyond the duration of the individual game.” (12) This tight brotherhood created by fight club does not exist once its members crawl out of the bar basement steps, but the experience lasts with the individuals permanently.
The experience of play, described by Huizinga, and the experience of fight club, described by Palahniuk, hardens the uncanny similarity between the two depictions. First, the outcome is irrelevant. “The whole point is the playing.” (17) The results are yielded to the participants through playing, not through winning. “The action begins and ends in itself, and the outcome does not contribute to the necessary life-processes of the group.” (49) As he has consistently before, Palahniuk parallels Huizinga’s statements with his story’s. “You aren’t alive anywhere like you’re alive at fight club. . . Fight club isn’t about winning or losing fights. Fight club isn’t about words.” (51)
What is gained through these experiences is illustrated by Huizinga through reference to the works of Leo Frobenius. Frobenius refutes that it is purely an innate “play instinct.” (16) Instead, “the experience of life and nature. . . takes the form of a seizure.” (16) Frobenius says, “Man is seized by the revelation of fate.” It is a “necessary mental process of transformation.” (17) The Huizinga-Frobenius philosophy of seizure and fate-revelation is paralleled by Tyler and the lye-kiss in the story. Though this scene occurs outside the framework of the actual fight club, it reflects the same ideologies. Tyler urges the narrator to accept the pain. “Come back to the pain.” (75) Tyler explains, “Someday. . .you will die, and until you know that you’re useless to me.” (76) Tyler steers the narrator towards a “revelation of fate.” (I admit the “useless to me comment” corrupts the purity of the moment, but it does so in the same fashion that Project Mayhem corrupts the play of fight club for a “real world” purpose.)
Lastly, Homo Ludens and Fight Club discuss the differing appearances of the playing participants in the real world and in the play-world. Huizinga refers to it as “dressing up.” “The disguised or masked individual ‘plays’ another part, another being. He is another being.” (13) The narrator in Fight Club reflects this as he comments on the same topic within the club. “Who guys are in the fight club is not who they are in the real world. Even if you told the kid in the copy center that he had a good fight, you wouldn’t be talking to the same man. Who I am in the fight club is not someone my boss knows.” Huizinga finds this third type of separation, the personal, as the most significant. “Here the ‘extra-ordinary’ nature of play reaches perfection.” (13) The narrator in Fight Club agrees. He finds pride in his distinctively different personalities in one realm compared to another (and distinctively different are his personalities ever!).
Through all of Huizinga’s pseudo-scientific, uncited, psychological analyses, he does summarize his description of play cleanly in one paragraph on page 13. Palahniuk fulfills each of the various components of Huizinga’s definition of play. “Summing up the formal characteristics of play we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside the ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious’, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly.” The members of fight club pursue it out of their true freedom as individuals. It is consciously perverse to societal expectations for it exists in direct opposition to society. It completely enraptures its player; it is why they keep their hair short and trim their nails. “It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it.” The winners of fights garner no more respect than the losers. All members seek the fight, hitting and being hit, not the knockout. “It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner.” From two to seven on Sunday mornings in the basement of the bar, the club meets, and at no other time and in no other place does it even exist. Rules are the foundation of the club, and the particular rules create an order that facilitates the desired play. “It promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means.” The club’s first and second rules shroud it in secrecy. It is openly and aggressively counter-culture, and it relies on its members becoming different human beings at the set hour and location.
The key-and-lock match of the Huizinga theories and the Palahniuk story offers two possible explanations. Somehow one drew inspiration from the other, or something like it. Or they have both found a truth in the human spirit. They both have seen similar patterns in the human behavior of and need to play, albeit Palahniuk describes a much more violent, scandalous method. Nonetheless, I think the film credits may have well as rolled “Edward Norton – Johan Huizinga, narrator.”
Corporate Driven Destruction: Fight Club’s Hope For Survival?
The movie Fight Club, filmed in 1999, is the story of a mentally instable, middle-class, working man who finds himself partaking in an overwhelmingly hard to grasp scheme full of violent and cultish characteristics. The main character in the movie suffers terribly from insomnia and the effects have tragic results, some of which he himself is not even aware of. The multiple identities used in the various support groups that he attends eludes to an underlying cry for help to escape from the oppressive forces of the corporate lifestyle, which ultimately results in the causing of destruction as a means of releasing frustration and anger. The advocacy of destruction and violence by others serves as a solution to the many problems that are within Fight Club.
At first glance, the movie seems to be overly packed with insignificant violence and blood, but when further analyzed, there are multiple prominent themes in the movie, all of which go hand-in-hand with one centralized main idea: the oppression from the corporate world and the effects that result from it. The many themes in this movie, arguably, can all be directly linked to this main idea.
In the movie, the main character, who is first introduced as Cornelius and later referred to as Jack, unknowingly leads a dual lifestyle. On one side of him, everything about him is just average. His lack of enthusiasm and tone of voice when he describes his “condo on the fifteenth floor filing cabinet for widows and young professionals” demonstrates very well the resentment he feels towards his corporation. As Jack says on page fourteen of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, “This isn’t about love as in caring, this is about property as in ownership.” He hates his job and his unexciting life and finds a way to help cope with this. Jack’s involvement in his support groups such as “Remaining Men Together”, “Seize the Day”, “Melanoma” and “Parasites” are seen by Jack as uplifting and help treat his insomnia. Jack says, “When people think you’re dying, man they really care”. At this point in the movie Jack begins to grasp the concept of hitting “rock-bottom” which his alter ego, a man who calls himself Tyler Durden, further explains. Tyler comes into the movie when Jack is daydreaming while he’s on the plane. Tyler’s introduction to the movie is a salient turning point in the film because his introduction comes at the opportune moment – the point in time where Jack is most vulnerable and needs someone or something to straighten him out and help fix his insufficient lifestyle. Tyler’s well-kept composure, his confident personality, and his independent nature is what Jack wishes he was – a polar opposite of his own lifestyle. Tyler is Jack’s way out of entrapment from the corporate system and his falsification of identity at his support groups. Tyler impresses Jack with his theory as to why the passengers in the emergency situation card on the plane are so calm. He says that the oxygen masks are provided in the event of an emergency because, “oxygen gets you high” and “in a catastrophic emergency, you are taking giant panic breaths and you become docile, calm -- you accept your fate”. Hitting “rock-bottom”, Tyler says, is important to human survival because, “it is only when we’ve lost everything that we are free to do anything”. Introducing himself to the movie, Jack is still living his routine, “single-serving” life going to work, sitting in his cubical and then returning to his “condo on the fifteenth floor”.
Jack has a mediocre job and an inadequate lifestyle. He tries to compensate for this lifestyle by purchasing expensive furniture out of magazines in hopes of fulfilling the standards that the media forces upon society. As if life could not get any worse, he returns to his apartment only to find it literally been blown away. Someone had set homemade explosives his apartment, destroying every possession he had, and yet still he was not at “rock-bottom”. When he returns to the scene of the crime, the only thing he notices is how his house was “full of condiments and no food”. The importance of this quote is that despite Jack’s knowledge of how inadequate his life is he still does not feel like he has accepted his fate as a “byproduct of a lifestyle obsession”. Tyler stresses the consumer-based culture that people get sucked into and how people will not survive if they fall victim to it. As men tend to do, they discuss this idea more over a couple pitchers of beer. Tyler says, “never be complete, stop being perfect – let’s evolve and let the chips fall where they may”. Tyler and Jack’s night out at the bar leads to the founding of their fight club. Tyler addresses Jack by saying, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can”. As any normal person would say, Jack responds with, “why, that’s crazy” and Tyler’s main point in his request was that he says, “how much can a man know about himself if he’s never been in a fight”. They start fighting one-on- one in the parking lot outside of the bar and then the next scene is them sitting on the curb of a street reflecting on what a great thing they had just done and that they should do it every night. The next night, a few more guys show up and want to fight too. Even more people show up the next night, and the next and the next. The following workday, Jack is in his office and his boss approaches him and asks him a question. In the meantime, the narrator says, “after fighting, the volume of everything else in your life gets turned down – you can do anything”. This is the start to the forward motion he is making in ridding himself from the oppression felt in the workspace.
An important aspect of the movie is the fact that Jack and Tyler start living together. They stay up late and have talks with each other about random topics. For example, Tyler asks Jack who he would fight if he could, and he said his boss. When the question comes back to Tyler, his answer and the reason why link to an important subtheme of the movie. He says that he would fight his dad of all people maybe because of the bad advice he gave him such as going to college, getting a job, and getting married. The getting married part was the main reason why he wants to fight his dad. The reason Tyler says that is because since we are a “generation raised by women”, he is “wondering if another woman is really what [he] needs”. The next morning, which is the following scene, there is a change in pace of the movie and this specific scene adds a small and simple comical aspect to the movie. In the scene, Tyler is coming into the kitchen and is on his way out. He grabs a cup of coffee and before he goes, Jack straightens his bowtie. The narrator says, “most of the week we were Hazy and Harriet but every Saturday night we were finding out more and more that we were not alone”. “It was right in everyone’s face, we just made it invisible. It was on the tip of everyone’s tongue, we just gave it a name”. The creation of Fight Club by Jack and Tyler was the answer – it was the medicine to the sickness that all the men had come ill with. The rules of fight club such as not talking about it, calling the fight if one says stop of goes limp, and no shirt no shoes is an example of the relationship of play and war. Here, the men fighting is and example of how play can be tied with war. As said by Jonah Huizinga in his Homo Ludens, the relationship between “play” and “war” is one of many characteristics and multiplicities. Although it is entirely opinion, Huizinga says that “young dogs and small boys fight ‘for fun’, with rules limiting the degree of violence; nevertheless the limits of licit violence do not necessarily stop at the spilling of blood or even killing”. This new fight club joined men together and helped release there anger and frustration. As can be seen in the movie, most of the men end up smiling during and after their fights. “Who you were in fight club is not who you were in the rest of the world”. This statement backs up the claim that the men who join Fight Club are not satisfied with their current lifestyle and want to express who they really are; Fight Club allows them to do this. They are able to escape their dull lives and become another person. The attracting features about Fight Club are that it operates every night of the week and is open to any man who thinks he is ready for it. The organization grows larger and larger and soon thereafter, tightly knit branches of Fight Club start sprouting up in all the major cities all composed with the same secrecy and devotion as the original club that Jack and Tyler started. Despite the notably large expansion of the club, the progress of the members is also seen. The narrator says “a guy came to Fight Club for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough – after a few weeks, he was carved out of wood”. The men who come to the club for the first time are mentally unstable employees of the corporate working machine and after a few fights are born-again men free to do as they please. They are finally able to live the live they have always wanted.
Huizinga speaks of play and war as a “cultural function so long as it is waged within a sphere whose members regard each other as equals or antagonists with equal rights”. In other words, once the idea of play and war leaves its sphere of confinement, in this case the basement of the bar, the integrity of the organization and its possibility for expansion becomes questionable. Tyler and Jack both share a similar opinion to Huizinga. For example, the first rule of Fight Club established by Jack and Tyler, “do not talk about fight club”, creates the so-called “sphere” which Huizinga speaks of. Moreover, the club’s growth can be directly tied to Tyler. Tyler says that, “without pain and without sacrifice, we have nothing”. In addition, the relationship between the members of the club and its two leaders is one of extraordinary unison. The key to why Fight Club becomes as large and powerful as it does is because of the inexistence of ranking. All members of the club are equal to each other as well as the founding fathers, Jack and Tyler. On multiple occasions in the movie, Tyler exclaims to Jack, “we are not special!” and then when they are in the car speaking about Project Mayhem, which Jack was not informed of, Tyler yells, “You decide your own level of involvement”. Tyler’s exclamations back up the claims of Huizinga himself and serve as a basis for which Project Mayhem is to operate under.
With the organization growing immensely, the ultimate goal was not just a goal that could be strived for and temporarily slaved by starting a fight club, it was now a national goal viewed and desired by the eyes of thousands. Tyler’s ultimate order was the execution of Project Mayhem, a project designed to liberate Americans from the brutally painful oppression the economy has thrust upon them. In Palahniuk’s book, when Tyler and Jack are at the top of the building waiting for the bombs to detonate, Tyler says, “This is our world, now, our world.” This statement, in the context that it was said, is an implication for one of the major reasons behind Project Mayhem. The goal was to blow up the major credit card companies with the intent of destroying all credit history so that people could start new and be free. Without this credit history, there would be no credit scores and everybody would be equal in this sense. This equality is similar to the equality of the members of the Fight Club.
The movie fight club is one that at first glance may seem to be just another action drama with a weak plot, but after multiple viewings and more in-depth analysis, actually is a multifaceted and inspiring movie. This inspiration is seen through the theme of how one man’s insanity is shared by thousands and yet still, the economic and social structures have not changed. Although every member of the club is viewed as equal, they actually do all share one thing in common – their dissatisfaction with their lives, especially in reference to their occupation. This opposition to the current economic system has yet to change the standard.
The references seen in Fight Club having to do with play and war as interlinking ideas, all have significant meaning. Huizinga conveys the true meaning in detail in his book Homo Ludens and his ideas serve as justification for much of the scenes and actions that take place in the movie.
At first glance, the movie seems to be overly packed with insignificant violence and blood, but when further analyzed, there are multiple prominent themes in the movie, all of which go hand-in-hand with one centralized main idea: the oppression from the corporate world and the effects that result from it. The many themes in this movie, arguably, can all be directly linked to this main idea.
In the movie, the main character, who is first introduced as Cornelius and later referred to as Jack, unknowingly leads a dual lifestyle. On one side of him, everything about him is just average. His lack of enthusiasm and tone of voice when he describes his “condo on the fifteenth floor filing cabinet for widows and young professionals” demonstrates very well the resentment he feels towards his corporation. As Jack says on page fourteen of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, “This isn’t about love as in caring, this is about property as in ownership.” He hates his job and his unexciting life and finds a way to help cope with this. Jack’s involvement in his support groups such as “Remaining Men Together”, “Seize the Day”, “Melanoma” and “Parasites” are seen by Jack as uplifting and help treat his insomnia. Jack says, “When people think you’re dying, man they really care”. At this point in the movie Jack begins to grasp the concept of hitting “rock-bottom” which his alter ego, a man who calls himself Tyler Durden, further explains. Tyler comes into the movie when Jack is daydreaming while he’s on the plane. Tyler’s introduction to the movie is a salient turning point in the film because his introduction comes at the opportune moment – the point in time where Jack is most vulnerable and needs someone or something to straighten him out and help fix his insufficient lifestyle. Tyler’s well-kept composure, his confident personality, and his independent nature is what Jack wishes he was – a polar opposite of his own lifestyle. Tyler is Jack’s way out of entrapment from the corporate system and his falsification of identity at his support groups. Tyler impresses Jack with his theory as to why the passengers in the emergency situation card on the plane are so calm. He says that the oxygen masks are provided in the event of an emergency because, “oxygen gets you high” and “in a catastrophic emergency, you are taking giant panic breaths and you become docile, calm -- you accept your fate”. Hitting “rock-bottom”, Tyler says, is important to human survival because, “it is only when we’ve lost everything that we are free to do anything”. Introducing himself to the movie, Jack is still living his routine, “single-serving” life going to work, sitting in his cubical and then returning to his “condo on the fifteenth floor”.
Jack has a mediocre job and an inadequate lifestyle. He tries to compensate for this lifestyle by purchasing expensive furniture out of magazines in hopes of fulfilling the standards that the media forces upon society. As if life could not get any worse, he returns to his apartment only to find it literally been blown away. Someone had set homemade explosives his apartment, destroying every possession he had, and yet still he was not at “rock-bottom”. When he returns to the scene of the crime, the only thing he notices is how his house was “full of condiments and no food”. The importance of this quote is that despite Jack’s knowledge of how inadequate his life is he still does not feel like he has accepted his fate as a “byproduct of a lifestyle obsession”. Tyler stresses the consumer-based culture that people get sucked into and how people will not survive if they fall victim to it. As men tend to do, they discuss this idea more over a couple pitchers of beer. Tyler says, “never be complete, stop being perfect – let’s evolve and let the chips fall where they may”. Tyler and Jack’s night out at the bar leads to the founding of their fight club. Tyler addresses Jack by saying, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can”. As any normal person would say, Jack responds with, “why, that’s crazy” and Tyler’s main point in his request was that he says, “how much can a man know about himself if he’s never been in a fight”. They start fighting one-on- one in the parking lot outside of the bar and then the next scene is them sitting on the curb of a street reflecting on what a great thing they had just done and that they should do it every night. The next night, a few more guys show up and want to fight too. Even more people show up the next night, and the next and the next. The following workday, Jack is in his office and his boss approaches him and asks him a question. In the meantime, the narrator says, “after fighting, the volume of everything else in your life gets turned down – you can do anything”. This is the start to the forward motion he is making in ridding himself from the oppression felt in the workspace.
An important aspect of the movie is the fact that Jack and Tyler start living together. They stay up late and have talks with each other about random topics. For example, Tyler asks Jack who he would fight if he could, and he said his boss. When the question comes back to Tyler, his answer and the reason why link to an important subtheme of the movie. He says that he would fight his dad of all people maybe because of the bad advice he gave him such as going to college, getting a job, and getting married. The getting married part was the main reason why he wants to fight his dad. The reason Tyler says that is because since we are a “generation raised by women”, he is “wondering if another woman is really what [he] needs”. The next morning, which is the following scene, there is a change in pace of the movie and this specific scene adds a small and simple comical aspect to the movie. In the scene, Tyler is coming into the kitchen and is on his way out. He grabs a cup of coffee and before he goes, Jack straightens his bowtie. The narrator says, “most of the week we were Hazy and Harriet but every Saturday night we were finding out more and more that we were not alone”. “It was right in everyone’s face, we just made it invisible. It was on the tip of everyone’s tongue, we just gave it a name”. The creation of Fight Club by Jack and Tyler was the answer – it was the medicine to the sickness that all the men had come ill with. The rules of fight club such as not talking about it, calling the fight if one says stop of goes limp, and no shirt no shoes is an example of the relationship of play and war. Here, the men fighting is and example of how play can be tied with war. As said by Jonah Huizinga in his Homo Ludens, the relationship between “play” and “war” is one of many characteristics and multiplicities. Although it is entirely opinion, Huizinga says that “young dogs and small boys fight ‘for fun’, with rules limiting the degree of violence; nevertheless the limits of licit violence do not necessarily stop at the spilling of blood or even killing”. This new fight club joined men together and helped release there anger and frustration. As can be seen in the movie, most of the men end up smiling during and after their fights. “Who you were in fight club is not who you were in the rest of the world”. This statement backs up the claim that the men who join Fight Club are not satisfied with their current lifestyle and want to express who they really are; Fight Club allows them to do this. They are able to escape their dull lives and become another person. The attracting features about Fight Club are that it operates every night of the week and is open to any man who thinks he is ready for it. The organization grows larger and larger and soon thereafter, tightly knit branches of Fight Club start sprouting up in all the major cities all composed with the same secrecy and devotion as the original club that Jack and Tyler started. Despite the notably large expansion of the club, the progress of the members is also seen. The narrator says “a guy came to Fight Club for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough – after a few weeks, he was carved out of wood”. The men who come to the club for the first time are mentally unstable employees of the corporate working machine and after a few fights are born-again men free to do as they please. They are finally able to live the live they have always wanted.
Huizinga speaks of play and war as a “cultural function so long as it is waged within a sphere whose members regard each other as equals or antagonists with equal rights”. In other words, once the idea of play and war leaves its sphere of confinement, in this case the basement of the bar, the integrity of the organization and its possibility for expansion becomes questionable. Tyler and Jack both share a similar opinion to Huizinga. For example, the first rule of Fight Club established by Jack and Tyler, “do not talk about fight club”, creates the so-called “sphere” which Huizinga speaks of. Moreover, the club’s growth can be directly tied to Tyler. Tyler says that, “without pain and without sacrifice, we have nothing”. In addition, the relationship between the members of the club and its two leaders is one of extraordinary unison. The key to why Fight Club becomes as large and powerful as it does is because of the inexistence of ranking. All members of the club are equal to each other as well as the founding fathers, Jack and Tyler. On multiple occasions in the movie, Tyler exclaims to Jack, “we are not special!” and then when they are in the car speaking about Project Mayhem, which Jack was not informed of, Tyler yells, “You decide your own level of involvement”. Tyler’s exclamations back up the claims of Huizinga himself and serve as a basis for which Project Mayhem is to operate under.
With the organization growing immensely, the ultimate goal was not just a goal that could be strived for and temporarily slaved by starting a fight club, it was now a national goal viewed and desired by the eyes of thousands. Tyler’s ultimate order was the execution of Project Mayhem, a project designed to liberate Americans from the brutally painful oppression the economy has thrust upon them. In Palahniuk’s book, when Tyler and Jack are at the top of the building waiting for the bombs to detonate, Tyler says, “This is our world, now, our world.” This statement, in the context that it was said, is an implication for one of the major reasons behind Project Mayhem. The goal was to blow up the major credit card companies with the intent of destroying all credit history so that people could start new and be free. Without this credit history, there would be no credit scores and everybody would be equal in this sense. This equality is similar to the equality of the members of the Fight Club.
The movie fight club is one that at first glance may seem to be just another action drama with a weak plot, but after multiple viewings and more in-depth analysis, actually is a multifaceted and inspiring movie. This inspiration is seen through the theme of how one man’s insanity is shared by thousands and yet still, the economic and social structures have not changed. Although every member of the club is viewed as equal, they actually do all share one thing in common – their dissatisfaction with their lives, especially in reference to their occupation. This opposition to the current economic system has yet to change the standard.
The references seen in Fight Club having to do with play and war as interlinking ideas, all have significant meaning. Huizinga conveys the true meaning in detail in his book Homo Ludens and his ideas serve as justification for much of the scenes and actions that take place in the movie.
The Struggle of Men in a Feminized World in Contemporary Society
Rarely does somebody see a man as a victim in anything in today’s society. Fight Club steps over that stereotype, by bringing attention to what men are victimized the most from, feminization. Rarely does one notice these changes, and if they do they can claim that the president is a man and it is men whom are in control of this country; which is true politically, however socially it is clear men are the victims of feminization.
Flight Club shows us that men are indeed the victims, especially when we examine the relationship between Jack and Tyler. Tyler is seen as the embodiment of all that is masculine: strong sexual drives, violent, and an alpha male, he likes to be in charge. Tyler lets us know that the worst possible thing that could happen to you would be to loose your manhood, especially to a woman. It is evident when Jack and Tyler first meet for drinks after the apartment has blown up. Tyler tries to make Jack feel better by talking about it. He says, "You know man it could be worse. A woman could cut off your penis while you're sleeping and toss it out the window of a moving car,” (Fight Club, Fincher, 1999). In Freud’s structural model of the psyche, Tyler represents the Id, meaning he only worries about himself and his inner desires (ID). He is driven on instinct and impulses, and shows no concern over breaking society’s rules. Jack shows us a more typical male in today’s society. He works in a cubicle; he is materialistic, depressed, having many qualities of a beta male, meaning he takes the orders and never gives them out. He shows signs of this materialistic value when he talks about the furniture layout in his apartment, “And I wasn't the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue,” (Fight Club, Palahniuk, Chapter 5 Page 43). Lynn M. Ta, professor at University California San Diego, notes that during the movie we see Jack sitting on a toilet, looking at what first appears to be a pornographic magazine, a stereotypical image of a single man; however the camera zooms in so that we see it is an Ikea catalogue. This suggests that consumerism has replaced male sex drives with furniture, something typically seen more in part of a woman’s life instead of a man’s, suggesting this progressive move towards feminism. Jack, instead of asking people to do what he wants like Tyler, he does what other people want him to do. Examining him with Freud’s model, he fits in the superego category, where he is concerned with the needs of society, and trying to always fit in and find his way within society’s boundaries. When you compare their relationship, you notice patterns fitting of each one. Tyler is the leader, Jack is always willing to follow him and do just about anything because Tyler does it. Examining Jack, we begin to realize that Jack is truly unhappy with his life, and that he desires more than what society tells him is good for him. In Fight Club, as with real life we notice society places high values on what people own, and how people look. Jack is seen obsessing with these ideas of materialistic values at he beginning of the novel, however when he meets Tyler you really begin to see his desire for more than the values society has place upon him to achieve, the idea of being a millionaire or being a celebrity is not what masculinity is about. According to Tyler men should be angry that they are slaves to society’s values. When talking to the men in Fight Club, Tyler the embodiment of masculinity asks the men to break free of bonds of society. In a scene in the movie he says, “Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off,” (Fight Club, Fincher, 1999). Lynn M. Ta, comments on this lack of purpose stated by Tyler with no war or depression. Men who use to value strength and athleticism, now value money and material wealth, shifting them away from what men originally valued over material wealth.
During the novel and movie, Tyler and jack have a conversation about their parents. Tyler mentions the fact that Jack and himself are, “We’re a generation of men raised by women,” (Fight Club, Fincher, 1999). They both mention that their fathers were not prominent figures in the childhood years. The later part of the 1900’s, showed a large increase in the amount of divorces in the United States. A large factor in this was the feminist movement, and women now getting out of their homes, and getting jobs, much like men. This evened the playing field, in that it allowed women to have a larger role in society because they now were making money. Women could now care for a family by providing for it, instead of being the typical household mother. Since women no longer depended on their husbands, they no longer needed to stay with them when they were unhappy. This led to the idea of a single mother, whom was forced to take care of the children. Mothers instead of fathers have been taking care of sons, and while this is not bad, it has led to the feminization of men. Boys with fathers generally grow up with a more masculine background, because they simply had a father. The presence of that masculine figure is something that boys raised by single mothers completely lack. It’s not that they grow up like women; it’s that they don’t have the masculine presence that boys with fathers do so they are not as inclined to have masculine instincts that a father would give you, and loose some of their masculinity as an effect.
Throughout Fight Club, there is this lingering notion of this idea of castration, and it frightens all the men but especially Jack. This fear of, “loosing one’s manhood,” (referring to castration), according to Lynn M. Ta, “Is the most basic form of literally loosing one’s manhood.” One can not reproduce or engage in sex if their genitals are cut of and this theme of fear of castration in the book is the ultimate form of punishment. In a novel where it’s everyone’s goal to reclaim their lost manhood, loosing that manhood is what keeps them in line.
Women have progressively changed what type of man they are attracted to, leading to a change in the behavior of men. Many women still love that quarterback type of character: alpha male, everyone looks up to him. However, women also are attracted to more sensitive and caring men, who might not be the most attractive or the one everyone looks up to, but the one who is the most emotional. Most people often associate this sensitive, caring trait with women, but examining women’s attractiveness to this new sensitive man can signify a shift towards a more feminine culture. One of the basic most instinctual goals of men is to reproduce and spread his seed, and appeasing the female population is the best way to do it. So attributing this shift to what women like, can again show how men are influenced by women to gain some feminine type traits.
Lynn M. Ta, attributes the values of society and this shift to a feminist culture to capitalism. Capitalism creates this idea of material wealth you are what you own. It places people in a hierarchical structure based upon what they own, and how much money they make. This value of materialistic wealth, creates this devaluing of masculinity, especially because it is marketed to them. Men are told that if they buy things via the market, they would become more masculine. Viagra, protein shakes, even steroids are all marketed to men by telling them that, they are men but they could become real men. It is said that the media only tells women to look skinny and eat less. However, people don’t notice that the media also tells men to be strong and workout, so essentially society is now telling men, how to be men. By buying into the market you are effectively becoming more of a man.
The main idea of Project Mayhem, said by Tyler, was to destroy the one of the foundations of capitalism, credit card companies, sending the economy into total chaos. This would lead to devaluing material wealth as it is not a stable thing, much like traits of masculinity are. Tyler believes that society should not tell men how to look, and that men should look they way they want to. In the movie Tyler talks to Jack about the underwear ad on the bus mentioning that society now tells men how to look. The idea of being masculine and being a man is that you look the way you want to, because you are a man and you are supposed to be in charge.
Fight Club addresses the struggle to return to masculinity by the fight club itself. The fight club allows men to become what masculinity really wants them to be. By beating each other up, they are asserting themselves in a way that allows them to assert their masculinity over others; something that this lost generation typically does not get to do. This is what makes fight club an attractive event for the men participating it, they can simply be men. Tyler and Jack interact much in the same way. Tyler was created as a cure for Jack’s depression and consumerism. Tyler as he says is everything Jack is not. Through Tyler, Jack is able to become a different person, taking risk, beating people up, and becoming a leader under the very name of Tyler Durdan. Tyler represents the man Jack desires to be, but because of what society has taught him and demands from him can not be unless he goes against society’s values. If you look at where Tyler lives compared to Jack’s apartment, you notice the lack of consumerism involved in Tyler’s home, the furniture is old, the house leaks, and the basement floods. Tyler also has no real job, and through his job he takes revenge upon the people who he despises the most: the wealthy people who construct society’s values and place them upon other people. Since Tyler is raw masculinity, he refuses to accept these values place upon him by others. Jack accepts these values and lives by them, until he creates Tyler where he destroys them all. Tyler represents Jack’s progression to move away from complete consumerism, and embrace his id and masculinity and pursue what interests him.
While some of society’s values do benefit society more than they take away from the individual, the value of material wealth goes against the rugged individualism that masculinity is. The progression towards this feminine society through consumerism and material wealth is what is causing the decline of masculinity and self assertion, and the John Waynes that we once idolized now are the everyday, sit in the cubicle men, and this takes away from the individualism that are society should really provide.
Flight Club shows us that men are indeed the victims, especially when we examine the relationship between Jack and Tyler. Tyler is seen as the embodiment of all that is masculine: strong sexual drives, violent, and an alpha male, he likes to be in charge. Tyler lets us know that the worst possible thing that could happen to you would be to loose your manhood, especially to a woman. It is evident when Jack and Tyler first meet for drinks after the apartment has blown up. Tyler tries to make Jack feel better by talking about it. He says, "You know man it could be worse. A woman could cut off your penis while you're sleeping and toss it out the window of a moving car,” (Fight Club, Fincher, 1999). In Freud’s structural model of the psyche, Tyler represents the Id, meaning he only worries about himself and his inner desires (ID). He is driven on instinct and impulses, and shows no concern over breaking society’s rules. Jack shows us a more typical male in today’s society. He works in a cubicle; he is materialistic, depressed, having many qualities of a beta male, meaning he takes the orders and never gives them out. He shows signs of this materialistic value when he talks about the furniture layout in his apartment, “And I wasn't the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue,” (Fight Club, Palahniuk, Chapter 5 Page 43). Lynn M. Ta, professor at University California San Diego, notes that during the movie we see Jack sitting on a toilet, looking at what first appears to be a pornographic magazine, a stereotypical image of a single man; however the camera zooms in so that we see it is an Ikea catalogue. This suggests that consumerism has replaced male sex drives with furniture, something typically seen more in part of a woman’s life instead of a man’s, suggesting this progressive move towards feminism. Jack, instead of asking people to do what he wants like Tyler, he does what other people want him to do. Examining him with Freud’s model, he fits in the superego category, where he is concerned with the needs of society, and trying to always fit in and find his way within society’s boundaries. When you compare their relationship, you notice patterns fitting of each one. Tyler is the leader, Jack is always willing to follow him and do just about anything because Tyler does it. Examining Jack, we begin to realize that Jack is truly unhappy with his life, and that he desires more than what society tells him is good for him. In Fight Club, as with real life we notice society places high values on what people own, and how people look. Jack is seen obsessing with these ideas of materialistic values at he beginning of the novel, however when he meets Tyler you really begin to see his desire for more than the values society has place upon him to achieve, the idea of being a millionaire or being a celebrity is not what masculinity is about. According to Tyler men should be angry that they are slaves to society’s values. When talking to the men in Fight Club, Tyler the embodiment of masculinity asks the men to break free of bonds of society. In a scene in the movie he says, “Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off,” (Fight Club, Fincher, 1999). Lynn M. Ta, comments on this lack of purpose stated by Tyler with no war or depression. Men who use to value strength and athleticism, now value money and material wealth, shifting them away from what men originally valued over material wealth.
During the novel and movie, Tyler and jack have a conversation about their parents. Tyler mentions the fact that Jack and himself are, “We’re a generation of men raised by women,” (Fight Club, Fincher, 1999). They both mention that their fathers were not prominent figures in the childhood years. The later part of the 1900’s, showed a large increase in the amount of divorces in the United States. A large factor in this was the feminist movement, and women now getting out of their homes, and getting jobs, much like men. This evened the playing field, in that it allowed women to have a larger role in society because they now were making money. Women could now care for a family by providing for it, instead of being the typical household mother. Since women no longer depended on their husbands, they no longer needed to stay with them when they were unhappy. This led to the idea of a single mother, whom was forced to take care of the children. Mothers instead of fathers have been taking care of sons, and while this is not bad, it has led to the feminization of men. Boys with fathers generally grow up with a more masculine background, because they simply had a father. The presence of that masculine figure is something that boys raised by single mothers completely lack. It’s not that they grow up like women; it’s that they don’t have the masculine presence that boys with fathers do so they are not as inclined to have masculine instincts that a father would give you, and loose some of their masculinity as an effect.
Throughout Fight Club, there is this lingering notion of this idea of castration, and it frightens all the men but especially Jack. This fear of, “loosing one’s manhood,” (referring to castration), according to Lynn M. Ta, “Is the most basic form of literally loosing one’s manhood.” One can not reproduce or engage in sex if their genitals are cut of and this theme of fear of castration in the book is the ultimate form of punishment. In a novel where it’s everyone’s goal to reclaim their lost manhood, loosing that manhood is what keeps them in line.
Women have progressively changed what type of man they are attracted to, leading to a change in the behavior of men. Many women still love that quarterback type of character: alpha male, everyone looks up to him. However, women also are attracted to more sensitive and caring men, who might not be the most attractive or the one everyone looks up to, but the one who is the most emotional. Most people often associate this sensitive, caring trait with women, but examining women’s attractiveness to this new sensitive man can signify a shift towards a more feminine culture. One of the basic most instinctual goals of men is to reproduce and spread his seed, and appeasing the female population is the best way to do it. So attributing this shift to what women like, can again show how men are influenced by women to gain some feminine type traits.
Lynn M. Ta, attributes the values of society and this shift to a feminist culture to capitalism. Capitalism creates this idea of material wealth you are what you own. It places people in a hierarchical structure based upon what they own, and how much money they make. This value of materialistic wealth, creates this devaluing of masculinity, especially because it is marketed to them. Men are told that if they buy things via the market, they would become more masculine. Viagra, protein shakes, even steroids are all marketed to men by telling them that, they are men but they could become real men. It is said that the media only tells women to look skinny and eat less. However, people don’t notice that the media also tells men to be strong and workout, so essentially society is now telling men, how to be men. By buying into the market you are effectively becoming more of a man.
The main idea of Project Mayhem, said by Tyler, was to destroy the one of the foundations of capitalism, credit card companies, sending the economy into total chaos. This would lead to devaluing material wealth as it is not a stable thing, much like traits of masculinity are. Tyler believes that society should not tell men how to look, and that men should look they way they want to. In the movie Tyler talks to Jack about the underwear ad on the bus mentioning that society now tells men how to look. The idea of being masculine and being a man is that you look the way you want to, because you are a man and you are supposed to be in charge.
Fight Club addresses the struggle to return to masculinity by the fight club itself. The fight club allows men to become what masculinity really wants them to be. By beating each other up, they are asserting themselves in a way that allows them to assert their masculinity over others; something that this lost generation typically does not get to do. This is what makes fight club an attractive event for the men participating it, they can simply be men. Tyler and Jack interact much in the same way. Tyler was created as a cure for Jack’s depression and consumerism. Tyler as he says is everything Jack is not. Through Tyler, Jack is able to become a different person, taking risk, beating people up, and becoming a leader under the very name of Tyler Durdan. Tyler represents the man Jack desires to be, but because of what society has taught him and demands from him can not be unless he goes against society’s values. If you look at where Tyler lives compared to Jack’s apartment, you notice the lack of consumerism involved in Tyler’s home, the furniture is old, the house leaks, and the basement floods. Tyler also has no real job, and through his job he takes revenge upon the people who he despises the most: the wealthy people who construct society’s values and place them upon other people. Since Tyler is raw masculinity, he refuses to accept these values place upon him by others. Jack accepts these values and lives by them, until he creates Tyler where he destroys them all. Tyler represents Jack’s progression to move away from complete consumerism, and embrace his id and masculinity and pursue what interests him.
While some of society’s values do benefit society more than they take away from the individual, the value of material wealth goes against the rugged individualism that masculinity is. The progression towards this feminine society through consumerism and material wealth is what is causing the decline of masculinity and self assertion, and the John Waynes that we once idolized now are the everyday, sit in the cubicle men, and this takes away from the individualism that are society should really provide.
4.14.2008
Primal Instinct and Violence in Search of Masculine Identity in Fight Club
Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk, represents the rebellion against order facilitated by the threat to masculinity among a specific class of American men. Promoted by violence and the desire to revert back to primal instincts, its members partake in a cultural and primitive form of play theorized by Johan Huizinga. The narrator in Fight Club, unnamed in the book but who the movie refers to as Jack, is a single middle-class white man who, in the absence of a father figure, never pursues the path of traditional manhood. He is an unmarried “30 year old boy,” and in his adult years, fails to find self-fulfillment with superficial material possessions. He becomes “a slave to the IKEA nest egg instinct.” In an attempt to relieve his chronic insomnia, Jack attends various support group meetings. However, the emotional release he discovers by visiting these support groups does not resonate with the primal and traditional views of masculinity. As a result he develops a split personality, Tyler Durden, a hyper-masculine superego bent on replacing the disempowered “generation of men raised by women.” The direction of masculinity in Fight Club towards violence becomes a crucial function to reaffirm the traditional characterization of men in modern society.
Since the earliest human societies, man’s primal impulse to reproduce is one of the most basic instincts for survival. Man evolved assets designed to attract at mate. For instance, large muscles may have signaled a man’s proficiency as a hunter and defender. However, men could not rely on strength alone. To be successful, men also had to show that they were creative and dependable providers, cleaver enough to find food and shelter for their families in hostile environments. Although these physical attributes have little meaning in modern societies, where most people work in offices and buy food at the local grocery store, they still hold a powerful sex appeal, an image that is constantly advertised to consumers to fuel their consumption.
Jack’s emotional emasculation results from the cultural consumerist consumption, as Tyler simply says, “The thing you own end up owning you.” Jack becomes addicted to the social groups as his only means of an intimate emotional release from the pains of feminization. Fight Club stages the fight against corporate consumption as a fight against all that is feminine, in which the idea of individualism is a marketing ploy designed to convince people to buy things like “the clever Njurunda coffee tables in the shape of a lime green yin and an orange yang” in order to express themselves (43). This is the domestication of masculine identity Jack is absorbed in, and the only release of his dissatisfaction is to pretend he is dying at various support groups. The support group for men with testicular cancer, “Remaining Men Together,” allows men to freely confide in each other their fears and humiliation as a result of their testicular cancer. One of the members, Bob, a former body builder who juiced up on steroids, lost his testicles to cancer and developed “bitch-tits” as a result of hormone replacement therapy. After the requisite sharing of stories, it is time to hug; it is a process that is clearly mocked as a feminized approach in therapy for men. Yet the therapy they seek involves the reconciliation of their loss by saying “we’re still men.” Fight Club contains numerous references to castration as the epitome of loss of masculine identity. For example, after Jack’s condo is blown up, Tyler tells him that it could be worse: “A women could cut off your penis while you’re sleeping and throw it out the window of a moving car.” Also, castration is used as a threat to various enemies of Project Mayhem. These men have lost not only their manliness, but also their capacity to reproduce future generations. They have lost a major part of their primal instinct for survival. While Tyler is emotionally emasculate, Bob represents the physical manifestation of emasculation by having his testicles removed. But even Bob with his “bitch-tits” is able to reaffirm his masculinity through the violence of fight club.
Violence is portrayed as a sport in Fight Club. Fight club provides the basic structure for men to vent their aggression with the contempt they find in society around them. In primitive man (as well as other carnivorous animals), it would seem that the primal emotion inciting combat with other fellow humans was the instinct to survive. Generally speaking, since they must eat to live and kill to eat, when they were driven by hunger they had two options: to hunt other animals less mighty then themselves, or combat their own kind by either stealing from them, or in the stress of famine, devouring them for food. While the men in fight club are not fighting to satisfy their desire for food, the warrior mentality of the individuals who participate in the ritual of fight club are engaging in a form of play theorized by Huizinga. Like animals, men participate in play, an action that “is more than a mere physiological phenomenon or a psychological reflex” (Huizinga 1). This basic instinct for survival is fundamental to the simplest forms of play; possibly to satisfy some primal necessity to prove one’s dominance. Huizinga summed up the formal characteristic of play to a “free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious’, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly” (Huizinga 8). Each man is allowed the chance to fight an opponent in a testosterone-fueled bare-knuckled brawl until one becomes limp or yells “Stop!” War in Fight Club is seen as a cultural function. The one-on-one battles are “waged within a sphere whose members regard each other as equals or antagonist[s] with equal rights” (Huizinga 89). This camaraderie allows the members to fight each other so fiercely and remain loyal friends after. The participants are “convinced that the action actualizes and effects a definite beatification, brings about an order of things higher than that in which they customary live” (Huizinga 14). Each fight becomes an endurance of pain, a test of who can last the longest and achieve a heightened state of what it means to be alive. The glorification that comes from this blend of combat and play intertwined to form war as “the most intense, the most energetic form of play and at the same time the most palpable and primitive” (Huizinga 89).
War as a game resonates in fight club the same way that Huizinga proposed: “all fighting is bound by rules of play” (Huizinga 89). The rules of Fight Club adhere to this formal characterization of play, allowing the men to engage in physical contact “within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner” (Huizinga 89). The setting of fight club allows for this form of play to exist. The first two rules of fight club, “You do not talk about fight club,” are designed to encourage all men to follow in the newly established counterculture. Under the illusion of secrecy, fight club existed “only when fight club started and fight club ended.” The basement arena of fight club provides a space, “a playground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally,” where each man has the opportunity to transcend reality and rise above the lifestyle that corporations have cast upon them, essentially saving their masculinity (Huizinga 10). Violence, as play in this setting, “promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world” (Huizinga 46). We can clearly see the regression of masculinity in the all male members of fight club towards violence in a gruesome spectacle of bare-knuckled brutality and stylistic gore, in which fighting becomes more than a ritual, it is the source of their release of inhibitions.
Fight Club becomes a self-destructive method of self-discovery that frees men from emasculation. Each male in fight club turns to violence in an attempt to reawaken the senses. Fight Club turns violence into a traditional notion of masculinity, and enables men to engage in a heterosexual style of brutality and male bonding. It becomes a place where men can experience a true admiration of the now, a sense of being in the present. They are searching for a type of freedom that doesn’t come until one has nothing to lose. “You weren't alive anywhere like you were alive here,” Jack says, because, “who guys are in fight club is not who they are in the real world” (51, 49). Fight club “isn’t about winning or losing fights” or “about looking good” (51). Unlike the commercial image of men, to which Tyler remarks “self-improvement is masturbation”, Jack understands fight club to be a rebirth through violence. He remarks that after fight club “when you wake up Sunday afternoon you felt saved” (51). For the members of fight club “self –improvement isn’t the answer…self-destruction is the answer” (49).
In fact, Jacks manifestation of an alter ego is primarily the result of his desire to escape. Tyler is composed of all the traits he wished he had, “I look like you want to look, I fuck like you want to fuck. I’m smart, capable and most importantly I am free in all the ways you are not.” Tyler often questions Jack’s motives towards a feminized sense of consumerism by asking if it is “essential to our survival in the hunter-gatherer sense of the world.” Tyler wants to revert back to minimalism, which brings up the issue of primal necessities. Unlike Jack who is concerned with material goods and the status they would bring him, Tyler lives on mere necessities. The house he lives in is a basic shelter, and a leaky one at that. He stops watching television and rarely showers. Tyler’s aspiration towards primalism is clearly evident when he describes his vision of the world around him. “In the world I see,” he says, “You are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.” Tyler’s persuasion for an instinctive primal direction leads to the creation of fight club and eventually Project Mayhem.
Violence in Project Mayhem is used as a tool to attack corporations which hinder grey-collar masculine identity. Through fight club, the practice of minimalism, and the destruction of various aspects of white-collar society, the members of Project Mayhem construct a new identity where they abandon commercialized individuality in favor of their own counterculture. The members of Project Mayhem are told: “You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.” Rather, “You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” This theme is constantly repeated in order to escape capitalist society, where image is everything. Tyler instructs that "You are not your bank account. You are not the clothes you wear. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your bowel cancer. You are not your Grande Latte. You are not the car you drive. You are not your fucking khakis.” In addition, Tyler sends each member various homework assignment. For example, one of the assignments was to pick a fight with a stranger, but to lose. The homework assignments Tyler hands out exemplify the crisis portrayed in America and the need for violence as radical change. Jack says that “most people, normal people, do just about anything to avoid a fight.” By using violence against total strangers, the members of Project Mayhem are reaching out and expanding the thrill of violence as a means of redefining masculine identity. Jack also uses self-inflicted violence to blackmail his boss. Ironically the “corporate sponsorship” he received is used to wreak havoc on the rest of corporate society.
The overwhelming spectacle of violence in Fight Club plays a key role in providing the audience with a primal understanding of masculinity. Violence in Fight Club progresses out of Jack’s dissatisfaction with corporate consumption into a massive counterculture army bent on demolition as a means to freedom. It is this physical aggression that serves as the crucial element of male bonding. In terms of Huizinga, fight club as play involves each participant into a state of higher being. Just as each step, from therapy support groups, to the creation of fight club, to the widespread destruction in Project Mayhem, is packaged as an attempt to reestablish masculine identity.
Since the earliest human societies, man’s primal impulse to reproduce is one of the most basic instincts for survival. Man evolved assets designed to attract at mate. For instance, large muscles may have signaled a man’s proficiency as a hunter and defender. However, men could not rely on strength alone. To be successful, men also had to show that they were creative and dependable providers, cleaver enough to find food and shelter for their families in hostile environments. Although these physical attributes have little meaning in modern societies, where most people work in offices and buy food at the local grocery store, they still hold a powerful sex appeal, an image that is constantly advertised to consumers to fuel their consumption.
Jack’s emotional emasculation results from the cultural consumerist consumption, as Tyler simply says, “The thing you own end up owning you.” Jack becomes addicted to the social groups as his only means of an intimate emotional release from the pains of feminization. Fight Club stages the fight against corporate consumption as a fight against all that is feminine, in which the idea of individualism is a marketing ploy designed to convince people to buy things like “the clever Njurunda coffee tables in the shape of a lime green yin and an orange yang” in order to express themselves (43). This is the domestication of masculine identity Jack is absorbed in, and the only release of his dissatisfaction is to pretend he is dying at various support groups. The support group for men with testicular cancer, “Remaining Men Together,” allows men to freely confide in each other their fears and humiliation as a result of their testicular cancer. One of the members, Bob, a former body builder who juiced up on steroids, lost his testicles to cancer and developed “bitch-tits” as a result of hormone replacement therapy. After the requisite sharing of stories, it is time to hug; it is a process that is clearly mocked as a feminized approach in therapy for men. Yet the therapy they seek involves the reconciliation of their loss by saying “we’re still men.” Fight Club contains numerous references to castration as the epitome of loss of masculine identity. For example, after Jack’s condo is blown up, Tyler tells him that it could be worse: “A women could cut off your penis while you’re sleeping and throw it out the window of a moving car.” Also, castration is used as a threat to various enemies of Project Mayhem. These men have lost not only their manliness, but also their capacity to reproduce future generations. They have lost a major part of their primal instinct for survival. While Tyler is emotionally emasculate, Bob represents the physical manifestation of emasculation by having his testicles removed. But even Bob with his “bitch-tits” is able to reaffirm his masculinity through the violence of fight club.
Violence is portrayed as a sport in Fight Club. Fight club provides the basic structure for men to vent their aggression with the contempt they find in society around them. In primitive man (as well as other carnivorous animals), it would seem that the primal emotion inciting combat with other fellow humans was the instinct to survive. Generally speaking, since they must eat to live and kill to eat, when they were driven by hunger they had two options: to hunt other animals less mighty then themselves, or combat their own kind by either stealing from them, or in the stress of famine, devouring them for food. While the men in fight club are not fighting to satisfy their desire for food, the warrior mentality of the individuals who participate in the ritual of fight club are engaging in a form of play theorized by Huizinga. Like animals, men participate in play, an action that “is more than a mere physiological phenomenon or a psychological reflex” (Huizinga 1). This basic instinct for survival is fundamental to the simplest forms of play; possibly to satisfy some primal necessity to prove one’s dominance. Huizinga summed up the formal characteristic of play to a “free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious’, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly” (Huizinga 8). Each man is allowed the chance to fight an opponent in a testosterone-fueled bare-knuckled brawl until one becomes limp or yells “Stop!” War in Fight Club is seen as a cultural function. The one-on-one battles are “waged within a sphere whose members regard each other as equals or antagonist[s] with equal rights” (Huizinga 89). This camaraderie allows the members to fight each other so fiercely and remain loyal friends after. The participants are “convinced that the action actualizes and effects a definite beatification, brings about an order of things higher than that in which they customary live” (Huizinga 14). Each fight becomes an endurance of pain, a test of who can last the longest and achieve a heightened state of what it means to be alive. The glorification that comes from this blend of combat and play intertwined to form war as “the most intense, the most energetic form of play and at the same time the most palpable and primitive” (Huizinga 89).
War as a game resonates in fight club the same way that Huizinga proposed: “all fighting is bound by rules of play” (Huizinga 89). The rules of Fight Club adhere to this formal characterization of play, allowing the men to engage in physical contact “within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner” (Huizinga 89). The setting of fight club allows for this form of play to exist. The first two rules of fight club, “You do not talk about fight club,” are designed to encourage all men to follow in the newly established counterculture. Under the illusion of secrecy, fight club existed “only when fight club started and fight club ended.” The basement arena of fight club provides a space, “a playground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally,” where each man has the opportunity to transcend reality and rise above the lifestyle that corporations have cast upon them, essentially saving their masculinity (Huizinga 10). Violence, as play in this setting, “promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world” (Huizinga 46). We can clearly see the regression of masculinity in the all male members of fight club towards violence in a gruesome spectacle of bare-knuckled brutality and stylistic gore, in which fighting becomes more than a ritual, it is the source of their release of inhibitions.
Fight Club becomes a self-destructive method of self-discovery that frees men from emasculation. Each male in fight club turns to violence in an attempt to reawaken the senses. Fight Club turns violence into a traditional notion of masculinity, and enables men to engage in a heterosexual style of brutality and male bonding. It becomes a place where men can experience a true admiration of the now, a sense of being in the present. They are searching for a type of freedom that doesn’t come until one has nothing to lose. “You weren't alive anywhere like you were alive here,” Jack says, because, “who guys are in fight club is not who they are in the real world” (51, 49). Fight club “isn’t about winning or losing fights” or “about looking good” (51). Unlike the commercial image of men, to which Tyler remarks “self-improvement is masturbation”, Jack understands fight club to be a rebirth through violence. He remarks that after fight club “when you wake up Sunday afternoon you felt saved” (51). For the members of fight club “self –improvement isn’t the answer…self-destruction is the answer” (49).
In fact, Jacks manifestation of an alter ego is primarily the result of his desire to escape. Tyler is composed of all the traits he wished he had, “I look like you want to look, I fuck like you want to fuck. I’m smart, capable and most importantly I am free in all the ways you are not.” Tyler often questions Jack’s motives towards a feminized sense of consumerism by asking if it is “essential to our survival in the hunter-gatherer sense of the world.” Tyler wants to revert back to minimalism, which brings up the issue of primal necessities. Unlike Jack who is concerned with material goods and the status they would bring him, Tyler lives on mere necessities. The house he lives in is a basic shelter, and a leaky one at that. He stops watching television and rarely showers. Tyler’s aspiration towards primalism is clearly evident when he describes his vision of the world around him. “In the world I see,” he says, “You are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.” Tyler’s persuasion for an instinctive primal direction leads to the creation of fight club and eventually Project Mayhem.
Violence in Project Mayhem is used as a tool to attack corporations which hinder grey-collar masculine identity. Through fight club, the practice of minimalism, and the destruction of various aspects of white-collar society, the members of Project Mayhem construct a new identity where they abandon commercialized individuality in favor of their own counterculture. The members of Project Mayhem are told: “You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.” Rather, “You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” This theme is constantly repeated in order to escape capitalist society, where image is everything. Tyler instructs that "You are not your bank account. You are not the clothes you wear. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your bowel cancer. You are not your Grande Latte. You are not the car you drive. You are not your fucking khakis.” In addition, Tyler sends each member various homework assignment. For example, one of the assignments was to pick a fight with a stranger, but to lose. The homework assignments Tyler hands out exemplify the crisis portrayed in America and the need for violence as radical change. Jack says that “most people, normal people, do just about anything to avoid a fight.” By using violence against total strangers, the members of Project Mayhem are reaching out and expanding the thrill of violence as a means of redefining masculine identity. Jack also uses self-inflicted violence to blackmail his boss. Ironically the “corporate sponsorship” he received is used to wreak havoc on the rest of corporate society.
The overwhelming spectacle of violence in Fight Club plays a key role in providing the audience with a primal understanding of masculinity. Violence in Fight Club progresses out of Jack’s dissatisfaction with corporate consumption into a massive counterculture army bent on demolition as a means to freedom. It is this physical aggression that serves as the crucial element of male bonding. In terms of Huizinga, fight club as play involves each participant into a state of higher being. Just as each step, from therapy support groups, to the creation of fight club, to the widespread destruction in Project Mayhem, is packaged as an attempt to reestablish masculine identity.
“Dogfight” in terms of Huizinga: What happens when a game ends?
In “Homo Ludens” Huizinga characterizes play as limited; as an act “played out” in the confines of a specific time and place. He says play has its own course and meaning. “Play begins, and then at a certain moment it is “over”. It plays itself to an end” (9). Unfortunately, Huizinga does not take the player into consideration, who has invested himself in the act of play, which inevitably will end. What then is the player to do? Like a junkie, the player must wait for his next fix; his existence is purposeless until he can resume his game of fancy or find a new game to sink his teeth into.
In Gibson’s “Dogfight”, all the characters experience a “what then?” moment, where the game they play spirals to an end. They are left in a transition period, with one game over and another yet to begin. Huizinga describes each game as “temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart” (10). When a temporary world ends how does it affect the player in the real world?
Deek, the protagonist of “Dogfight” begins the novel in limbo, inhabiting an empty existence until he is introduced to SPADS&FOKKERS, a flight simulator game. Deek hones his skills and refines his program in hopes of defeating the ultimate player, Tiny. When the two finally battle, Deek takes the illegal drug hype in order to maximize his chance at victory. Deek’s dreams of triumph materialize and he narrowly defeats Tiny. However, the means Deek uses to attain success leave him ostracized from everyone he knows. Gibson ends “Dogfight” with, “A starry old night like this called for big talk. But standing there with all of Jackman’s silent and vast and empty around him, he realized suddenly that he had no body left to tell it to. Nobody at all.” (167). Deek is in the same situation as in the beginning of the story; living an isolated, purposeless existence.
What is purpose? “The American Heritage Dictionary” defines purpose as, “an object toward which one strives or for which something exists; an aim or a goal”. This all depends on which perspective the word purpose is looked at from; biological or spiritual? Huizinga would argue that play cannot be looked at soli from a biological perspective, because play is more than merely a biological function. Huizinga asks, ““Why is a huge crowd roused to frenzy by a football match?”” (2). He continues, “This intensity of, and absorption in, play finds no explanation in biological analysis. Yet in this intensity, this absorption, this power of maddening, lies the very essence, the primordial quality of play” (2). To Huizinga play is above biological purpose because a key element of play is fun. Huizinga says, “…the fun of playing, resists all analysis, all logical interpretation” (3).
I agree with Huizinga that play serves more than a biological purpose; I would argue that this purpose is a self-realizing one. A key aspect of play is the capacity to put ones abilities to the test and to discover something about the self in the process. This self realization is the safety net which prevents the player from losing purpose when a game ends. Deek may be physically alone in his moment of victory, but his solitude will not take away from the self realizations he made while playing the game. These realizations or spiritual discoveries are not always positive, and in Deek’s case are quite negative. At the end of “Dogfight” Deek realizes that his selfish antics led to his exclusion and has a better understanding of his morality. These realizations will stay with Deek, till his death, through memory. They can be learned from or discarded, but could only arise through the decision to participate in a form of play. In relation to play and memory Huizinga says, “Once played, it endures as a new-found creation of the mind, a treasure to be retained by the memory” (10). Deek’s treasures (aka realizations) will guide him until he finds his next type of play where he can expand on them and form new realizations.
Similar to Deak, Nance plays the game of student as an engineering major at William and Mary University. The purpose of her game is to ace a job interview with I.G. Feuchtwaren. “Dogfight” ends with the reader never knowing whether or not Nance passes the interview, but odds are she does not, because Deek uses her second hit of hype. Without hype Nance will lack the ability to produce the same quality of work that she was able to muster for her final project. Even in the slim chance that she does pass the interview without hype, she will still lack the ability to consistently perform in the spirit of her final project, and her hirers will discover her fraud. Let us assume that Nance does not pass the interview and has to continue her schooling. Nance faces a game-over situation, and like Deek is presented with a “then what?”
Even though Nance has been denied a programming job, she is left with two options; to continue pursuing the job or to give up and move on to another game. Huizinga believes that the ability to repeat a game until one is victorious at it is one of the most essential qualities of play. He says, “In nearly all the higher forms of play the elements of repetition and alternation (as in the refrain), are like the warp and woof of a fabric” (10). I agree with Huizinga that repetition is essential to play, but repetition is not always a possible alternative. For example, in 1988 Tim Dagget, a member of the U.S. Gymnastics team, had to withdraw from the Olympic Games because he had broken his leg and severed an artery competing in the World Championships in October of that year. In a New York Times article Dagget gave a comment about his condition; “I had reached a point it wasn't possible to do any more”. Just as Dagget cannot repeat the 1988 Olympic Games, Tiny can never restore the prestige the kickers at Jackman’s had for him. Tiny lived for the esteem of being the best SPADS&FOKKERS player, and Deak’s one-hit wonder changed Tiny’s life purpose. Ironically Deak’s victory over Tiny leaves him in the same situation as Tiny. Deak knows that he would never be able to defeat Tiny again, especially without the use of hype. Deak is left with a game in which the same results can never be reproduced. At the end of “Dogfight”, both Deak and Tiny are forced to create a new purpose for SPADS&FOKKERS, or find an entirely new game to play.
The game-over puts Deak (the winner) and Tiny (the loser) into the same situation. The winner and the loser are brought back to ground zero; the winner must find a way to keep on winning, while the loser must find a way to start winning. This parallels with Huizinga’s statement, “In the sphere of sacred play the child and the poet are at home with the savage” (26). The child and the poet are as the winner and the loser, and the savage or drive to win is the core purpose for both.
Some games cannot be repeated; in this case the winner and the loser are forced to find a new game. For instance, Australia’s swimming legend Dawn Fraser, winner of eight Olympic medals, twenty-seven individual and twelve relay world records. In 1964 due to inappropriate conduct, she was banned from competition for ten years, and spiraled into depression. Dawn recalls, “I wanted to die…I felt I had no friends, which was wrong, but I pushed away anyone who tried to help me….” (bluepages). She claims that pursuing another sport, golf in her case, brought her out of depression and near suicide. For some starting up a completely new game is an affective way to rekindle the spirit of play. Who knows, maybe Deak and Tiny might take up golf and be saved from the emptiness of their transition from one game to the next.
Unfortunately, not all players can successfully transition from game to game as Dawn Fraser could. For example, Austria’s ex-cross-country-skiing coach Walter Mayer attempted suicide, after he was relieved of his job because of a doping scandal he was part of. In this case, Mayer could not successfully transition from one game to the next, and felt that death was his only escape. Suicide is another option for both Deak and Tiny, and I consider it the antichrist of play. Suicide is the abandoning of play; it is a conscious choice to exterminate all forms of play, especially the solo form of play, the imagination. When the mind is abandoned, play cannot exist. Huizinga says, “But in acknowledging play you acknowledge mind, for whatever else play is, it is not matter” (3).
When a game ends ones mind is taken back to reality, and one is able to reflect on the choices made during game-play. In many instances the “absorption” or “maddening power” of a game will result in unintentional, yet severe outcomes for individuals involved with the player. An example in “Dogfight” is Deak taking advantage of Nance’s brainlock, and exploiting it to steal hype from her. After Deak had attained his victory, he had to come to terms with this unscrupulous act that enabled his success. This parallels to Huizinga’s example; “A Kwakiutl father in British Columbia killed his daughter who surprised him whilst carving things for a tribal ceremony” (23). The Kwakiutl father and Deak were both so involved in the “pretend” aspect of their play, that they were able to commit these devilish acts, which would never have been enacted outside the sphere of game-play.
The end of a game marks the beginning of another; for life consists of moving from game to game, self-actualizing in the transition period, and applying new found realizations to novel pursuits. Players cannot always cope with their realizations, or let go of previous games. In such situations, a player may be found in limbo, the heaven of a previous game out of grasp, and the hell of starting a new game to hard to bear. A Players life is comprised of an ongoing cycle of game-play, game-over, and start-over; only through death will one be relieved of such an existence. Or will one? Maybe death is just a form of game-over that enables us to reflect in transition and then be born again, able to continue our play. Huizinga was correct in saying, “…It seems to me that next to Homo Faber, and perhaps on the same level as Homo Sapiens, Homo Ludens, Man the Player, deserves a place in our nomenclature” (97).
In Gibson’s “Dogfight”, all the characters experience a “what then?” moment, where the game they play spirals to an end. They are left in a transition period, with one game over and another yet to begin. Huizinga describes each game as “temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart” (10). When a temporary world ends how does it affect the player in the real world?
Deek, the protagonist of “Dogfight” begins the novel in limbo, inhabiting an empty existence until he is introduced to SPADS&FOKKERS, a flight simulator game. Deek hones his skills and refines his program in hopes of defeating the ultimate player, Tiny. When the two finally battle, Deek takes the illegal drug hype in order to maximize his chance at victory. Deek’s dreams of triumph materialize and he narrowly defeats Tiny. However, the means Deek uses to attain success leave him ostracized from everyone he knows. Gibson ends “Dogfight” with, “A starry old night like this called for big talk. But standing there with all of Jackman’s silent and vast and empty around him, he realized suddenly that he had no body left to tell it to. Nobody at all.” (167). Deek is in the same situation as in the beginning of the story; living an isolated, purposeless existence.
What is purpose? “The American Heritage Dictionary” defines purpose as, “an object toward which one strives or for which something exists; an aim or a goal”. This all depends on which perspective the word purpose is looked at from; biological or spiritual? Huizinga would argue that play cannot be looked at soli from a biological perspective, because play is more than merely a biological function. Huizinga asks, ““Why is a huge crowd roused to frenzy by a football match?”” (2). He continues, “This intensity of, and absorption in, play finds no explanation in biological analysis. Yet in this intensity, this absorption, this power of maddening, lies the very essence, the primordial quality of play” (2). To Huizinga play is above biological purpose because a key element of play is fun. Huizinga says, “…the fun of playing, resists all analysis, all logical interpretation” (3).
I agree with Huizinga that play serves more than a biological purpose; I would argue that this purpose is a self-realizing one. A key aspect of play is the capacity to put ones abilities to the test and to discover something about the self in the process. This self realization is the safety net which prevents the player from losing purpose when a game ends. Deek may be physically alone in his moment of victory, but his solitude will not take away from the self realizations he made while playing the game. These realizations or spiritual discoveries are not always positive, and in Deek’s case are quite negative. At the end of “Dogfight” Deek realizes that his selfish antics led to his exclusion and has a better understanding of his morality. These realizations will stay with Deek, till his death, through memory. They can be learned from or discarded, but could only arise through the decision to participate in a form of play. In relation to play and memory Huizinga says, “Once played, it endures as a new-found creation of the mind, a treasure to be retained by the memory” (10). Deek’s treasures (aka realizations) will guide him until he finds his next type of play where he can expand on them and form new realizations.
Similar to Deak, Nance plays the game of student as an engineering major at William and Mary University. The purpose of her game is to ace a job interview with I.G. Feuchtwaren. “Dogfight” ends with the reader never knowing whether or not Nance passes the interview, but odds are she does not, because Deek uses her second hit of hype. Without hype Nance will lack the ability to produce the same quality of work that she was able to muster for her final project. Even in the slim chance that she does pass the interview without hype, she will still lack the ability to consistently perform in the spirit of her final project, and her hirers will discover her fraud. Let us assume that Nance does not pass the interview and has to continue her schooling. Nance faces a game-over situation, and like Deek is presented with a “then what?”
Even though Nance has been denied a programming job, she is left with two options; to continue pursuing the job or to give up and move on to another game. Huizinga believes that the ability to repeat a game until one is victorious at it is one of the most essential qualities of play. He says, “In nearly all the higher forms of play the elements of repetition and alternation (as in the refrain), are like the warp and woof of a fabric” (10). I agree with Huizinga that repetition is essential to play, but repetition is not always a possible alternative. For example, in 1988 Tim Dagget, a member of the U.S. Gymnastics team, had to withdraw from the Olympic Games because he had broken his leg and severed an artery competing in the World Championships in October of that year. In a New York Times article Dagget gave a comment about his condition; “I had reached a point it wasn't possible to do any more”. Just as Dagget cannot repeat the 1988 Olympic Games, Tiny can never restore the prestige the kickers at Jackman’s had for him. Tiny lived for the esteem of being the best SPADS&FOKKERS player, and Deak’s one-hit wonder changed Tiny’s life purpose. Ironically Deak’s victory over Tiny leaves him in the same situation as Tiny. Deak knows that he would never be able to defeat Tiny again, especially without the use of hype. Deak is left with a game in which the same results can never be reproduced. At the end of “Dogfight”, both Deak and Tiny are forced to create a new purpose for SPADS&FOKKERS, or find an entirely new game to play.
The game-over puts Deak (the winner) and Tiny (the loser) into the same situation. The winner and the loser are brought back to ground zero; the winner must find a way to keep on winning, while the loser must find a way to start winning. This parallels with Huizinga’s statement, “In the sphere of sacred play the child and the poet are at home with the savage” (26). The child and the poet are as the winner and the loser, and the savage or drive to win is the core purpose for both.
Some games cannot be repeated; in this case the winner and the loser are forced to find a new game. For instance, Australia’s swimming legend Dawn Fraser, winner of eight Olympic medals, twenty-seven individual and twelve relay world records. In 1964 due to inappropriate conduct, she was banned from competition for ten years, and spiraled into depression. Dawn recalls, “I wanted to die…I felt I had no friends, which was wrong, but I pushed away anyone who tried to help me….” (bluepages). She claims that pursuing another sport, golf in her case, brought her out of depression and near suicide. For some starting up a completely new game is an affective way to rekindle the spirit of play. Who knows, maybe Deak and Tiny might take up golf and be saved from the emptiness of their transition from one game to the next.
Unfortunately, not all players can successfully transition from game to game as Dawn Fraser could. For example, Austria’s ex-cross-country-skiing coach Walter Mayer attempted suicide, after he was relieved of his job because of a doping scandal he was part of. In this case, Mayer could not successfully transition from one game to the next, and felt that death was his only escape. Suicide is another option for both Deak and Tiny, and I consider it the antichrist of play. Suicide is the abandoning of play; it is a conscious choice to exterminate all forms of play, especially the solo form of play, the imagination. When the mind is abandoned, play cannot exist. Huizinga says, “But in acknowledging play you acknowledge mind, for whatever else play is, it is not matter” (3).
When a game ends ones mind is taken back to reality, and one is able to reflect on the choices made during game-play. In many instances the “absorption” or “maddening power” of a game will result in unintentional, yet severe outcomes for individuals involved with the player. An example in “Dogfight” is Deak taking advantage of Nance’s brainlock, and exploiting it to steal hype from her. After Deak had attained his victory, he had to come to terms with this unscrupulous act that enabled his success. This parallels to Huizinga’s example; “A Kwakiutl father in British Columbia killed his daughter who surprised him whilst carving things for a tribal ceremony” (23). The Kwakiutl father and Deak were both so involved in the “pretend” aspect of their play, that they were able to commit these devilish acts, which would never have been enacted outside the sphere of game-play.
The end of a game marks the beginning of another; for life consists of moving from game to game, self-actualizing in the transition period, and applying new found realizations to novel pursuits. Players cannot always cope with their realizations, or let go of previous games. In such situations, a player may be found in limbo, the heaven of a previous game out of grasp, and the hell of starting a new game to hard to bear. A Players life is comprised of an ongoing cycle of game-play, game-over, and start-over; only through death will one be relieved of such an existence. Or will one? Maybe death is just a form of game-over that enables us to reflect in transition and then be born again, able to continue our play. Huizinga was correct in saying, “…It seems to me that next to Homo Faber, and perhaps on the same level as Homo Sapiens, Homo Ludens, Man the Player, deserves a place in our nomenclature” (97).
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