Arthur Chu (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} arctangent) wrote in adamcadre, |
Also
Basically there was the Trilogy of Disaffected Middle-Class American Rebellion in 1999 -- American Beauty, The Matrix, and Fight Club -- and of the three I think Fight Club is the artistically superior one and, interestingly, the most socially responsible.
For all that Tyler is glorified and idolized in the film, the film's very "edgy" disturbing nature that made it such a hit with college-aged males also does in fact make Tyler's message more ambivalent and scary at the same time as it makes it appealing.
Compare The Matrix, where there is never any real question at all whether Morpheus is the good guy and we should sit back and let our brains rest comfortably while our adrenal glands pump us up for the heroes' bullet-drenched massacre of security guards and cops in the name of liberation. And American Beauty *should* be making us feel bad about Lester Burnham being an irresponsible, emotionally abusive, masturbating pedophile but layers on the heaps and heaps of appealing witty asides for him so thick while tossing huge steaming piles of unnecessary condemnation on his wife that ultimately it's nothing but one long redemption and exoneration for Lester Burnham and an advertisement for the joy of the midlife crisis. (Indeed, the way the movie warps its own moral to make Lester an unquestionably likable character despite the fact that the movie revolves around him being a narcissistic dick to basically everyone in his life -- and the way critics unquestioningly embraced this -- reminds me a lot of Look Back in Anger, and Kit Whitfield's moderately infamous-on-the-Internet takedown of said play as a Macho Sue masturbation exercise.)
By comparison to Lester Burnham or Neo, give me Tyler Durden any day -- a swaggeringly dangerously masculine and appealing psychopath for sure, but a psychopath who wears his psychopathy on his sleeve, who is grungy and nasty and dirty and profane, who hurts countless innocent people unapologetically, and whom you at least feel a little frisson of guilt about identifying with. (I don't mean to excoriate American Beauty entirely, I just find it a flawed movie that undermines its own premise by having the director's clear love for Kevin Spacey cut down what, if you just read the script, is supposed to be a cockeyed glance at a guy who's not all that lovable. The Matrix, on the other hand, I find to be morally askew from beginning to end and forgivable because unlike most stupid action movies it actually *tries* to have a moral stance -- I also forgive it because I do think the two sequels prove the Wachowskis meant to deconstruct this "FUCK YEAH RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE" bullshit from the very beginning, and only failed to do so because the sequels were such terrible movies in every other respect.)
Basically there was the Trilogy of Disaffected Middle-Class American Rebellion in 1999 -- American Beauty, The Matrix, and Fight Club -- and of the three I think Fight Club is the artistically superior one and, interestingly, the most socially responsible.
For all that Tyler is glorified and idolized in the film, the film's very "edgy" disturbing nature that made it such a hit with college-aged males also does in fact make Tyler's message more ambivalent and scary at the same time as it makes it appealing.
Compare The Matrix, where there is never any real question at all whether Morpheus is the good guy and we should sit back and let our brains rest comfortably while our adrenal glands pump us up for the heroes' bullet-drenched massacre of security guards and cops in the name of liberation. And American Beauty *should* be making us feel bad about Lester Burnham being an irresponsible, emotionally abusive, masturbating pedophile but layers on the heaps and heaps of appealing witty asides for him so thick while tossing huge steaming piles of unnecessary condemnation on his wife that ultimately it's nothing but one long redemption and exoneration for Lester Burnham and an advertisement for the joy of the midlife crisis. (Indeed, the way the movie warps its own moral to make Lester an unquestionably likable character despite the fact that the movie revolves around him being a narcissistic dick to basically everyone in his life -- and the way critics unquestioningly embraced this -- reminds me a lot of Look Back in Anger, and Kit Whitfield's moderately infamous-on-the-Internet takedown of said play as a Macho Sue masturbation exercise.)
By comparison to Lester Burnham or Neo, give me Tyler Durden any day -- a swaggeringly dangerously masculine and appealing psychopath for sure, but a psychopath who wears his psychopathy on his sleeve, who is grungy and nasty and dirty and profane, who hurts countless innocent people unapologetically, and whom you at least feel a little frisson of guilt about identifying with. (I don't mean to excoriate American Beauty entirely, I just find it a flawed movie that undermines its own premise by having the director's clear love for Kevin Spacey cut down what, if you just read the script, is supposed to be a cockeyed glance at a guy who's not all that lovable. The Matrix, on the other hand, I find to be morally askew from beginning to end and forgivable because unlike most stupid action movies it actually *tries* to have a moral stance -- I also forgive it because I do think the two sequels prove the Wachowskis meant to deconstruct this "FUCK YEAH RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE" bullshit from the very beginning, and only failed to do so because the sequels were such terrible movies in every other respect.)
