The Cult of Fight Club

This chapter examines why David Fincher's Fight Club (1999) is considered a cult film. Fight Club is a cult film because it is subversive, quotable, iconographic, generically challenging, about marginal characters, complex in terms of its narrative, intertextual, gory and violent; because it transgresses social laws and norms; creates a community of fans and finally, because it was an economic failure on its release. The strong first-person voice of Chuck Palahniuk's source novel is intentionally preserved in Jim Uhl's screen adaptation. The use of a second-person address, which, along with other techniques, breaks the fourth wall, further helps engage the audience in the story of everyman ‘Jack’. The film was mis-sold as a product for the male youth market. Instead, it is a generational film, with particular appeal to the Generation X experience, the generation sired by the ‘baby-boomers’. Indeed, Fight Club's cinematic legacy can be traced back to baby-boomer films. A new generation's quest for meaning and purpose is the unifying factor.