Express Yourself
(Fight Club)

For the Narrator of Fight Club (dir. David Fincher, 1999), the problem of how to express himself has begun to consume him. It's a large-scale problem, with no easy solution - what defines a man at the end of the twentieth century? As the Narrator starts to tell his story, he begins at the place where an increasing number of people seem to find themselves today - IKEA. He is a single man living on his own in a block of self-contained apartments ('Pearson Towers - A Place to be Somebody'), earning enough money to create a comfortable existence for himself. In his isolated world, the only thing he can relate to is the furniture. 'Like so many others, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct … I'd flick through catalogues and wonder, "What kind of dining set defines me as a person?"' Here is a man whose identity is found in a table and four chairs.

It is no wonder that this mode of existence does not satisfy him. His life is as wooden as his dining set, as empty as his fridge, as dull as his apartment's colour scheme. What he needs is someone to set him free, to show him how to express his true self, rather than the fake one he's bought from the IKEA catalogue … His name is Tyler Durden. He is the ultimate expression of the Narrator's self - he has the looks of Brad Pitt, he is a magnificent lover, he is witty and intelligent, he lives as if he really is free to choose what to do and who to be. Tyler gives the Narrator confidence too. 'I felt sorry for guys packed into gyms trying to look like how Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger said they should.' As they take a ride on a bus, the Narrator points out a Gucci advert that bears the image of a man's finely honed body. 'Is that what a man looks like?' he asks Tyler, who merely laughs in response (Tyler really does look like the man in the advert.) Is the Narrator deluding himself that Tyler has led him from slavery to freedom? True, he is no longer the image of his furniture - but he is starting to reflect the image of Tyler. In Tyler he trusts.

The Narrator's new religion has to have a home, a place of worship. 'How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?' Fight Club is the answer to Tyler's question. It's a place where men can come and express themselves freely - who you are in Fight Club is not the man you are out in the real world. 'Fight Club wasn't about winning or losing. It wasn't about words. The hysterical shouting was in tongues, like in a Pentecostal church. When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered.' The Narrator is looking down at his own blood on the concrete in the aftermath of a fight as he says, 'Afterwards, we all felt saved.'

In spite of repeated warnings to the members not to talk about Fight Club, the new converts cannot stop themselves from witnessing to their friends. As the club grows, so do Tyler's ideas - he soon has a whole army of servants, ready and willing to obey their master. Instead of names, they have numbers, instead of expressing themselves, they express Tyler.

The problem with Tyler is that, just like any other man-made idol, he doesn't love the creatures who have fashioned themselves after him. 'Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else.' He has no respect for his army of desperados - they are nothing to him. But instead of freedom, they have bought another lie. They have transferred their affections from one idol to another.

The Narrator was looking for a way to find his true identity and to express himself. He wanted someone to worship who would appreciate the love that he had for his creator. So he made an idol and called him Tyler Durden. Tyler is nothing more than the 'self' that he really wants to be - he is a figment of his imagination, the product of his longings, a false god.

The longings that the Narrator has are not just a coincidence. They relate to the truth - that there is a God who wants to have this kind of relationship with every man and woman that he has created. He made us in his image (Genesis 1:27) and to that end, he was meant to be the one who would equip us with our identity, who would define who we are, the one in whose presence we would express our true selves - the one we would worship. God wasn't joking when he said to the Israelites, 'You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman …' (Deuteronomy 4:15, 16 NIV). He knew that breaking this command would result in an endless pursuit for him, the one who is greater than any idol man could ever imagine, because he gave us this longing in the first place.

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