Narcissism, Masochism and the Reconstituted Male—Masculine Performances in Fight Club and The Wrestler
References
851 citations
"Narcissism, Masochism and the Recon..." refers background in this paper
...The establishment called ‘Fight Club’ becomes a cultural inevitability given that ‘the strength of anti-militarism has undermined people’s acceptance of its unavoidability’ (Segal 1990, p. 131)....
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793 citations
"Narcissism, Masochism and the Recon..." refers background in this paper
...Brought into modern cultural discussion with her ‘Notes on Camp’ in 1964 by Susan Sontag, one of the defining features of camp is its view of ‘being-as-playing-a-role’, the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theatre (Carlson, 2004, p. 166)....
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...Fight Club’s take on blatant consumerism as a solution to the emasculation of American men will also be examined in the light of discussions on consumer capitalism and an attempt will also be made to analyze the films on the basis of their latent masochistic, narcissistic and camp suggestions, drawing from Savran, Susan Sontag and the insightful analysis of Fight Club done by Henry Giroux (2003). It will also attempt a critique of Robert Bly’s thesis (2004) on the absence/loss of masculine role models, the dominance of maternal figures and initiation rituals through a discussion of the ‘postmodern cut’ as posited by Zizek (2000)....
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...Fight Club’s take on blatant consumerism as a solution to the emasculation of American men will also be examined in the light of discussions on consumer capitalism and an attempt will also be made to analyze the films on the basis of their latent masochistic, narcissistic and camp suggestions, drawing from Savran, Susan Sontag and the insightful analysis of Fight Club done by Henry Giroux (2003)....
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703 citations
"Narcissism, Masochism and the Recon..." refers background in this paper
...According to Blauner (1964), the feelings of meaninglessness and estrangement experienced by men at the workplace forced them to search for identity and affirmation outside the workplace, in the realm of consumption....
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612 citations
"Narcissism, Masochism and the Recon..." refers background in this paper
...It will also attempt a critique of Robert Bly’s thesis (2004) on the absence/loss of masculine role models, the dominance of maternal figures and initiation rituals through a discussion of the ‘postmodern cut’ as posited by Zizek (2000)....
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...In an interview by Keith Thompson, ‘What Men Really Want’, Robert Bly captures this over-emphasized docility: When I look out at my audiences, perhaps half the young males are what I’d call soft....
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...Tyler’s character has clear resonances of the Cultural Masculism of the 1990s, championed by Bly’s Mythopoetic Men’s Movement. The Mythopoetic Men’s Movement also has semblances to the Jungian understanding of masculine psychology. Jung theorized in Aspects of the Masculine (1989) that the Hero delivers himself from the Mother archetype (and thus from the infantile ‘Unconscious’ to a ‘Conscious’ personality) only to encounter the demands of the Anima....
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...In Alienation and Freedom (1964), sociologist Robert Blauner articulates that industrial workers experienced feelings of powerlessness (having no control over their actions on the job), meaninglessness (performing specialized tasks that they could not relate to the ‘whole’), isolation (having no identification with the firm) and self-estrangement (no integration between work and life)....
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...The idea that this absence of mentoring father figures is an important explanation for the soft, feminized and consumerist men (represented by Jack in Fight Club) is one that is addressed by Robert Bly’s thesis in his cultinspiring Iron John (1990). Bly is also the leading proponent of the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement in America....
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