If there is one thing I know for sure in this topsy-turvy world, it’s that Tyler Durden would absolutely despise NPR. The publicly-funded state propaganda outlet never makes an appearance in the novel or the movie, as far as I can recall — but, if it did, the reference would be dripping with colorful and “gleefully anarchic” (as one of Chuck Palahniuk’s novels was described) disdain.
NPR beta Scott Detrow recently welcomed novelist Peter C. Baker and “writer and culture critic” Emily St. James—all of whom, if you key them up in Google images, look exactly how you might imagine them to—to oversimplify and bash two iconic films from recent American history.
(As I have covered previously for PJ Media, including via “The Telegraph Smears George Orwell as ‘Misogynistic,’ Homophobic,’ ‘Sadistic,’” this retro-canceling of iconic cultural people and their work-products is a favorite pastime of the corporate state media. They spend a wildly inordinate amount of their time and energy brainstorming which beloved historical figure or work of art they can burn at the metaphorical stake next.)
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The incredibly nuanced and deceptively complex treatise on modern society that Palahniuk weaved with “Fight Club,” according to these people, can be reduced to an “antifeminist” screed.
Via NPR (emphasis added):
BAKER: Well, in the story, I was interested in both tracing this history, where in and through the early 2000s "Fight Club" was picked up by these, frankly, sort of nasty, you know, communities of so-called pick-up artists. And other just sort of online communities animated primarily by misogyny, who were not super interested in the elements of the film that constituted a critique of, like, a misogynistic masculinity. And they were more interested in the sort of potential excitement of a misogynistic masculinity…
ST JAMES: I think it's interesting the degree to which both of these films have been interpreted by many of their viewers as within sort of an antifeminist context. When "Fight Club" is very pointed in how it doesn't really have moments where the characters are like, yeah, it's all my mom's fault, or yeah, it's all my ex-girlfriend's fault. They certainly have moments of, like, romantic tension with the Helena Bonham Carter character, Marla, but it is a film that is much more about here's what's oppressing me. It's my dad and it's capitalism. And, like, it's very direct about that in a way that I forgot when I recently rewatched it. There is, like, a weird streak of this film that is careful to not touch that raw nerve, and yet it was still interpreted by many people as like, yeah, you know who's holding you down? It's women.
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You’ll be shocked to learn that “The Matrix,” another classic that had very little to do with gender relations whatsoever, was misogynistic as well, per the NPR beta and his guests.
Continuing:
BAKER: Well, it's almost so simple and direct an appropriation that it very quickly becomes something that has nothing to do with the movie. But originally, you know, this idea or this online community called the Red Pill sprang up. And in the movie where it's suggested that by taking the red pill, the main character can sort of wake up and begin to realize the deep truth about the world, which in the case of "The Matrix" is that all of us are living in a computer simulation. Online, this sort of, quote/unquote "men's rights" community, the red pill, the revelation to be woken up to was that feminism, you know, certain modern views about relationships between the genders, were a big lie.
So, you take a massive pop culture hit, which shaped the zeitgeist of an entire era, then find some obscure online community that’s using a single plot element to promote its agenda — and voila! You’ve got yourself a Two Minutesc Hate Social Justice™ segment for your lobotomized audience to lap up on their morning commute.
