’’You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, He HATES you.’’

Hi everyone! I was extremely excited when I found out Professor Harris would be talking about Fight Club in class on Tuesday. I could not wait to blog about my ideas on christianity and popular culture in this film ... considering it is one of my favourites. 

To begin I would like to start off by saying the clip shown in class was a great one to give a brief idea about the film and consumer culture. It could really open up a persons view point about their life and the stuff that fills it. Do we really need a sofa that may last us a life time or does that Louis Vuitton purse truly define me as a person - NO! Tyler says this and in many ways Christian beliefs say this as well. It is not what you own, it is how you act, respond and love on another that leads you to salvation or a higher good. 

I would also like to post a clip of the film from later on in the movie. In this scene Tyler Durden is burning the unnamed narraters hand with a chemical. He is trying to perform a sort of ritual or conversion on the narrater as he says, ’’It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we are free to do anything.’’ Hitting rock bottom is when you can then re-evalute your life and start again without the confusion of consumer culture or religion. (Side note: Christianity does preach this too because for some after we have hit rock bottom we may come to realize Jesus is the only man for me because He is the only one who will accept me at this state)

Furthermore, this scene says alot about God and the self. Tyler wants us to realize God may not like us, He may not have a plan for us and we need to accept that in order to be free. There should be no restraints, no problems or items that would keep us back from understanding that we 

DO NOT NEED IT!

What this says to me in relation to the class is that in some cases such as these, popular culture depicts religion as a bad thing. Although Tyler does not say God does not exist, he says God does not like you - this may lead the audience to believe that there is a God but what do we really know about him. 

This connects to Lynch’s Four Approaches to the Study of Religion in Popular Culture, specifically the third approach from an insiders point of view about suspicion, that popular culture is corrupting the view of Christianity as seen in parts of this movie.

Hope you like my analysis of Fight Club I look forward to reading any comments you may leave!

If you were wondering the title of this post is a quote from the scene I displayed above.