Opinion | Media meltdown over 'Fight Club' ending oblivious to the art of revisionism
By J.B.Browne
The third rule of Fight Club is YOU DO NOT CHANGE THE ENDING OF THE FILM VERSION UNLESS IT'S CLOSER TO THE ORIGINAL BOOK.
David Fincher's 1999 anarcho-punk classic 'Fight Club' is the new proverbial eye at the center of more anti-China hysteria. Last week, China viewers reported seeing an altered version of the film's ending, now streaming on Chinese platform Tencent Video.
Those who had seen the original were understandably stumped and took to the internet to complain of the change. Fincher's ending of the film involved Ed Norton's character, the insomnia-crazed Narrator, who suicides his split-personality, alpha nihilist Tyler Durden played by Brad Pitt. He swallows a pistol and pulls the trigger through the back of his head. Still conscious and finally free of Tyler, The Narrator takes his girlfriend Marla Singer's hand, played by Helena Bonam Carter, as they watch the culmination of his/Tyler's masterpiece — the destruction of consumerism via the blowing up of multiple banks. The Pixies' discordant lullaby 'Where is My Mind' plays us out for one of cinema's most iconic endings.
Now though, this most famous of anarchist finales has stoked the ire of mostly American media who seem to be apoplectic over China's decision to conclude the film with a black screen and coda, which reads as follows (in glorious chinglish):
Through the clue provided by Tyler, the police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to lunatic asylum, receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012.
But here's the Durden — 'Fight Club' author Chuck Palahniuk claims this new version is even more faithful to the book's ending, which was itself revised for Fincher's film. In the book, the orderlies and nurses tending to the Narrator in hospital were secretly all followers of Project Mayhem and reassured their dear leader that everything was still going to plan.
There's a sweet irony in the Chinese version aligning closer to the book. Fincher's revision is more visually compelling, but Tencent Video somehow stayed more faithful to the source material — consciously or not.
All of which opens up the proverbial can-o-worms of market-based revisionism in popular culture, which in this case, confronts the moral frameworks of a cult narrative like 'Fight Club.'
The author himself has acknowledged the cavernous double standards of Americans' angry responses to the 'tweak' given that his own books are selectively banned in the US. So for the outbursts to unironically take aim at censorship and free speech without even the remotest self-awareness of media banning in America is somewhat braindead.
Here's the thing. You should probably do your research if you want to get sanctimonious over some irrelevant nonsense like a 20-year-plus-old Hollywood movie for the Chinese market. It wasn't even banned.
China - nor anywhere - is not the version of the world America thinks it is. Is there outrage in the world that aside from being banned in various public and private schools in the US, an American author like Palahniuk also has to put up with endless revisions to his books from overseas publishers that need to cater to local markets?
Now with book bans spreading across the US like wildfire, why this high and mighty individualist agenda on a movie tweak closer to the truth? And wasn't the original "CENSORSHIP IS WRONG M'KAY" issue from Fincher's initial deviation from the book anyway!?
I mean, it's hilarious to think that Tencent Video is emitting a "don't watch the movie if you haven't read the book" vibe when the whole western world continues to stroke its "China BAD" hard-on. And given that 'Fight Club' is one enormous warning sign about toxic masculinity, perhaps the main character facing the consequences of his actions is more in-line with the book's central theme.
The individualist agenda of Fincher's original narrative change to the ending speaks to how American media corporations like to meditate on big systemic issues stylishly without much conclusive sting. In this way, they are censoring themselves not to rock the boat of a narrative matrix that needs to preserve Amwrican capitalism at all costs. It's a much subtler form of propaganda that the Chinese have not yet mastered, and western journalists are likely entirely unaware of it as they make a living by earning and contributing to it unconsciously.
The US generates more propaganda than any country in the history of news media and popular entertainment. The sub-irony here, another bass frequency layer, is that a film as contentious as 'Fight Club' hasn't been seen in Hollywood since. Or at least one with the same themes and cultural impact.
We live in a world where streaming behemoths like Netflix and Disney+ regularly censor or refuse or selectively commission a universe of curated content, which beams right into our heads from our screens. Melting down over a 'Fight Club' ending closer to the intent of its creator is utterly oblivious to the art of propaganda through selective revisionism.
One question remians: #WhereIsFightClub
As he would refer himself, J.B. Browne is a half "foreign devil" living with anxiety relieved by purchase. HK-born Writer/Musician/Tinkerer.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by J.B.Browne:
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