SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE MOVIE

When Jack beats himself up, it is as a parody of the symbolic commodification of “slaves with white collars” through a physically transgressional, social spectacle that is to his financial gain. They join a commune led by Tyler, which is funded by the “corporate sponsorship” Jack obtains from acting like a “crazy little shit” at work. While in opposition to Debord, the audience may become “conscious” by this sarcastic and contemplative reproof by the commodified object/spectacle crucially, the members of Fight Club are not allowed this opportunity. And we’re very, very pissed off.”īrad Pitt, the actor who plays Tyler, could himself be defined as a modern-day millionaire “movie god”, so in Fight Club, a viewer is presented with a satirical irony on the commodification of the Hollywood movie-star.

SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE MOVIE

In Fight Club this idea finds its clearest form in the ironic, self-constructing laws that are repeated throughout the film: “The first rule about Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” In a Tyler Durden lecture, sentiments about the prevailing society are also expressed: “I see all this potential and I see it squandered Slaves with white collars We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. According to Debord, the opposite of “The consciousness of desire and the desire for consciousness” is “the society of the spectacle, where the commodity contemplates itself in a world it has created” ( The Society of the Spectacle, Debord, 1967: 53).

Society of the spectacle