Fight Club instead emphasizes chance and chaos. Since the plot is narrated in first-person, the audience shares the surprises encountered by Jack, his sense of confusion, and his enlightenments. Jack is not aware of the details of “Project Mayhem,” which his double personality Tyler is hatching. From an organizational perspective, Tyler also exemplifies the leadership style of postmodern leaders (Berquist 1993; Wheatly 1999). Like in a “chaos game” (Wheatly 1999) where “complex structures emerge over time from simple elements and rules and autonomous interaction” (p. 127), the groups of fight clubs share a simple set of rules determined by Tyler [2] and generate around the United States independently, like self-organized teams. Only Tyler understands the big picture behind the fight clubs, but on the other side Tyler himself is also subject to the rules that he has established: in Fight Club, leaders hold neither a higher rank nor an untouchable control position. For instance, when Jack goes to the police to denounce “Project Mayhem,” three policemen, secretly members of a fight club, confront him. They recognize him as their spiritual leader (“Sir, you are a hero. We really admire you”), since at their eyes Jack and his second personality Tyler are the same person. Nevertheless, they want to subject him to the procedure of castration that everyone who mentions the existence “Project Mayhem” must undergo.

4. Genital/Phallic versus Polymorphous/Androgynous. Scholars have singled out in the subtext of Independence Day clear phallic metaphors (Rogin 1998) and imagery of vagina dentata (Hobby 1996). The list of examples is extensive. The crew of Hiller and David penetrate to mothership, “which opens up her giant V-shaped orifice to invite their tiny projectile inside” (Rogin 1998, p. 57). As their clearly state, their mission is to “plant a virus into the mothership.” During the final battle, one of the pilots, who has been victim of a supposed sexual abuse by the aliens, takes his revenge flying inside the enemy space ship, shouting: “All right you alien assholes! In the words of my generation, up yours!” (Rogin 1998, p. 69). Hobby (1996) also observes that

the aliens' mother ship gives birth to smaller ships that resemble huge vagina dentata hovering above all of the world's major cities. Washington D.C.'s huge phallic structures, shot from an extremely low angle, appear erect and ready to rape the huge vaginal spacecraft. However, . . . the viewer sees the daughters of the mother ship destroy these phallic monuments. (p. 52; see figure 1)

This strongly metaphoric subtext has the precise function of reinforcing male power on women. According to Rogin (1998), “women are . . . restored to supporting roles in this supposedly politically correct film. The three career professionals [the wife of the president, Hiller’s partner, and David’s former wife] with whom the film begins are re-subordinated to their husband by its end” (p. 44). Right before dying, the energetic and politically involved first-lady confides to her husband her remorse for not having surrendered to his desire to return home immediately from her business trip, since he was worried for her safety (Rogin 1998). In regards to the relationship between Hiller and his partner, a former stripper, the movie suggests that this young black man better marry his girlfriend, . . . thereby making an honest woman of the mother of his son, or else - civilization as we know it will come to an end. So what if he already lives with her in suburban bliss, and is an active father? Without the sanction of that piece of paper, a proper church (or in this case chapel) wedding, and the witness of no less a Big Daddy than the President of the United States, actions and relationships mean nothing. (Dowell 1996, par. 5)