The first rule of Fight Club is: Don't talk about homoeroticism

Brookey, R., & Westerfelhaus, R. (2002). Hiding homoeroticism in plain view: 
     The Fight Club DVD as digital closet. Critical Studies in Media Communication,  
     19, 21-43.

            Sometimes movies come around at exactly the right time. The first time I saw Fight Club, I was 13, and the movie’s “screw everything” mentality spoke to my overdramatic, jaded adolescent mind. Since then, it has been my favorite movie of all time. In retrospect, my love of the movie may have made me biased because I do not buy into Brookey and Westerfelhaus’ arguments about Fight Club’s homoeroticism. While I cannot deny that homoeroticism exists in the film, I believe the homoeroticism serves to show the narcissism of the narrator’s character rather than imply a homosexual relationship with Tyler.

            Brookey and Westerfelhaus argue that through the use of DVD “extra text,” namely the commentaries by the cast and crew, the principal players in Fight Club deny, dismiss, and distract from the film’s homoeroticism to help the film appeal to a more mainstream audience. The authors focus on four key segments of the film—Tyler and the narrator’s first fight, the first real Fight Club meeting, the narrator’s fight with Angel Face, and the film’s ending—highlighting how the DVD commentaries attempt to erase homoeroticism from Fight Club.

            First the authors analyze Tyler and the narrator’s first fight. The narrator calls Tyler after his apartment explodes, and they hang out in a bar. Tyler tells the narrator he should just ask to stay with him, and out of nowhere asks the narrator to hit him as hard as he can. Brookey and Westerfelhaus code the bar scene as a “coy, homoerotic flirtation” (p.33). The segment also calls attention to penises and male bodily functions multiple times as the narrator reveals that Tyler splices pornographic films into family movies and pees and masturbates into food while working as a waiter. Additionally, Tyler tells Jack his situation could be worse—a woman could have cut off his penis and thrown it out of her car window. Finally, Tyler enjoys a “post-coital cigarette” (p.34) after their first fight. While these flirtatious elements are homoerotic, Brad Pitt’s commentary treats the scene as a joke, essentially dismissing the importance of the moment, while Chuck Palahniuk calls the scene “weird” (p.34) because of its romantic implications. Director David Fincher simply ignores the content of the scene and focuses on the technical aspects of filmmaking.

            The second segment features Tyler listing the rules of Fight Club. Men fight without shirts, shoes, or belts, and are not allowed to speak of the club, implying that “these fights carry a sexual tension that makes them seem more than mere brawls; they signify a relationship that dares not speak its name” (p.35). In the commentaries, the actors and director ignore the homoerotic elements and attempt to distract the viewers by talking about other concepts related to the film. Fincher talks about how funny Edward Norton looks while Norton compares the film to The Graduate.

The third segment, and perhaps the most blatantly homoerotic scene in the film, revolves around the narrator’s jealousy that Tyler has struck up a friendship with a young Fight Club member, nicknamed Angel Face. The narrator is envious of the attention Tyler pays to Angel Face and can tell that Tyler is planning something without him. In a jealous rage, the narrator challenges Angel Face to a fight and beats his face until he is unrecognizable, claiming that he wanted to “destroy something beautiful” (p.36). This is the only scene in the film where Fincher addresses homoeroticism; however, he denies it as a story of “self-love” rather than homosexual love, while Norton refers to the narrator’s emotions as “a brotherly jealousy” (p.37). Interestingly, though, the screenwriter concedes that the scene “obviously has homosexual connotations” (p.37); however, Palahniuk, the author of the book Fight Club, laughs off the suggestion, even though in the book, the narrator meets Tyler for the first time on a nude beach.

In analyzing the ending of the film, Brookey and Westerfelhaus argue that even though Tyler is the narrator’s narcissistic projection, the narrator is incapable of entering a loving heterosexual relationship until he destroys Tyler, coding their relationship as a metaphor for sexual confusion. Norton and Fincher dismiss the inherent homoeroticism by claiming that the narrator’s concern for Marla saved him.

            Perhaps my inner 13-year-old fangirl makes me biased, but there were a few weaknesses in the article, including one big oversight in its premise. Brookey and Westerfelhaus argue that “the supplemental material included on the DVD is used to make the product more marketable to mainstream audiences by framing the homoerotic elements of the film as homosocial behavior” (p. 22). However, in order to see these extra-text elements, one has to buy or actively seek out the DVD and be interested enough in the film to watch its special features. As the authors acknowledge at the beginning of the article, the film was intended to “piss off a healthy number of people” (p.21). From that argument, it is safe to assume that a healthy number of people will dislike the film and not seek out its bonus content. Only truly diehard fans will listen to the DVD commentary in the first place. Additionally, the film only made about $37 million dollars in the United States. This is not a mainstream movie, so why appeal to the masses now? The authors may be overestimating the mainstream appeal of DVD special features in general.  

            Additionally, the film undeniably has homoerotic content. The narrator is weirdly fixated on Tyler, and jokes that they live an “Ozzie and Harriet” life together. As someone who has watched and read Fight Club several times, however, the homoeroticism does not represent gay content. To me, the entire point of the film is that the narrator is a horrible narcissist. He invents this charismatic, hypermasculine alpha male alter ego who looks like Brad Pitt at the height of his attractiveness. The narrator is not in love with Tyler; he’s in love with himself. I had always assumed that was the entire point of the film. While some of the fight scenes with other men border on homoerotic, that is a natural side effect of featuring men fighting. All wrestling is homoerotic—the basic premise is that physically fit men have to writhe around on a floor together. Homoeroticism is inherent in any form of male-on-male fighting. (For more information, here is a link to a Village Voice article on the history of homoeroticism in wrestling: www.villagevoice.com/2000-05-02/news/grappling-with-homosexuality/). While there is certainly homoerotic content in Fight Club, I feel as though the authors read a bit too much into the fighting and not enough into Tyler and the narrator’s relationship.

            That said, the article has many strengths. In particular, the authors’ concept of DVD special features as extra-text worthy of examination is brilliant. Everything about DVD special features sends a message from the movie trailers they choose to include to the design of the menus to the DVD commentaries and interviews. While watching a 30 Rock DVD for my final paper, I saw an ad at the beginning of the DVD that framed Tina Fey as unattractive to men—which is one of the major themes in my paper. DVD content certainly has the power to frame readings of the text, and I applaud Brookey and Westerfelhaus for highlighting this.

            Finally, this article connects nicely with the readings from the past two weeks. Interestingly, like Bonnie Dow’s article on Ellen and Helene Shugart’s article on Rosie O’Donnell, Brookey and Westerfelhaus illuminate “the rules” for portraying gay characters in pop culture. In line with Dow’s arguments, they point out that in many cases, gay characters reinforce heterosexuality by serving as asexual or apolitical comedic foils. They are often defined most by their relationships to other straight characters. Additionally, the piece fits nicely with the theme of visibility and invisibility. If you buy Brookey and Westerfelhaus’ arguments, then the cast and crew of Fight Club work hard to dismiss, deny, and divert attention away from the visible homoeroticism in the film. They are implicitly hoping for the film to pass as a heterosexual (love) story. Like several of our readings this semester, it operates on the assumption that mainstream audiences are uncomfortable with homosexuality or homoeroticism.