Fight Club – GTGC – #103

DON’T TALK ABOUT IT. Seriously.

By “it” I mean #FlashbackFriday, dear listener.   

During our recording for Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys for GTGC this week, we discuss Brad Pitt’s early acting roles at length. Obviously David Fincher’s Fight Club came up due to thematic overlays regarding identity, consumerism, capitalism, mental illness, and extremism. To prime you for more Brad Pitt grimdark fun when we talk Twelve Monkeys this coming Monday, we’re reposting this episode from the GoodTrash vault.

Back in December 2014, each host picked  our favorite films to analyze and America’s Bad Boy Dalton selected Fight Club, since we wouldn’t let him break the Fincher Rule any other way.

After we discuss our ratings of the film, Dalton examines masculinity and toxic masculinity. After a bit of back-and-forth between our hosts questioning Dalton’s analysis, Alexandra discusses mental health stigma, depression, and suicide. Dustin builds on her concepts and discusses the Lacanian mirror stage and self harm. He then gives a formalist reading of the film and calls this film a form of a 21st century American meta-expressionism. All of the hosts when giving final verdict on the film say that the shelf is the best place for it, despite Arthur and Dustin having less glowing reactions to this film.

For our game this week, we get self-indulgent talking about our favorite GoodTrash GenreCast academic “fights.” And as always in the early days, we talk about popular culture, which includes Serial’s season one finale for this episode.

We would encourage you not to destroy something beautiful, but to listen to this episode instead.