The towers of Fight Club are instead clearly symbolic. They are the headquarters of the major credit card companies and their destruction means putting everyone’s debt “back to zero.” The choice of this target for “Project Mayhem” is consistent with the evolution of Tyler’s thought, which was growing increasingly more and more radical and critical towards capitalistic institutions—as expressed for instance in his already mentioned speech after the fight with owner of the bar, or in some of his slogans such as “reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possession.” In a parabolic fashion, Jack “Ikea boy,” who at the beginning of the movie ponders which dining room set “defines me as a person,” eventually destroys one of the causes of his dependence to consumption: credit card companies.

2) Overall narrative context. In Independence Day, the destruction of the towers disrupts an initial status quo. From that moment on, the goal of the heroes is to return to the initial state. Their efforts are based in particular on values such as patriotism, patriarchy, and male supremacy. The title of the movie itself is significant from this perspective. Geoff (1999) notes: “The fact that [Independence Day] is set on the date celebrated for the signing of the Declaration of Independence reinforces the potential of the events both to question--and to provide opportunity to revive--hallowed American values” (par. 10). The reaction of the protagonists to the events can be interpreted in terms of “single-loop learning.” Argyris and Schön (1978), building on concepts first developed by Bateson (1987), distinguish between several types of “learning processes” that occur in organizations. According to the authors, processes of learning are trigged by mismatches between outcomes and expectations. The members of an organization may adopt a range of strategies to deal with these mismatches. The first and most basic form is called “single-loop learning:” in this case, “there is a single feedback-loop which connects detected outcomes of action to organizational strategies and assumptions which are modified so as to keep organizational performance within the range set by organizational norms” (p. 18). Hence, “single-loop learning” is inherently a conservative strategy, because its emphasis is on stability: the norms upon which the organization is based remain in fact unchanged. At the end of the movie, the audience, reassured in its basic values, can leave the theatre satisfied, as Bob Dole’s quotation at the beginning of this paper exemplifies.

In Fight Club, the scenes of “falling towers” are at the very end of the movie. The destruction of the headquarters of the credit card companies may represent a solution to Jack’s existential crisis, but at the same time he has realizes that Tyler, his second personality, was growing rapidly out of control and abusing his charisma to manipulating the “space monkeys.” The interpretation of the movie and the decision of “what happens next” are left to the audience. As Clark (2001) observes, “many of the reviewers of Fight Club have noted that the film has prompted debate” (p. 418). After witnessing the bare hand fights in the movie, it is time for the audience to take sides, to engage “in another kind of fight—to continue appealing to the more intellectual pleasures of rhetoric through critical argument” (Clark 2001, p. 419). This condition of ambiguity arouses an unpleasant deep sense of uncertainty, but on the other hand it may lead to forms of “deutero-learning.” According to Argyris and Schön (1978), when members of an organization engage in “deutero-learning,”

they reflect on and inquire into the previous context of learning. They reflect on and inquire into previous episodes of organizational learning, of failure to learn. They discover what they did that facilitated or inhibited learning, they invent new strategies for learning, they produce these strategies, and they evaluate and generalize what they have produced. (p. 27)

In this sense, Fight Club is a progressive movie, because it stimulates the audience to take sides, to reflect on what they take for granted, and to envision a new society, and the risks a change carries in itself.

Hegemonic Intertextuality: Effacing the Boundaries between Movies and Reality

Which movie have mainstream mass media and political elites chosen to see reflected in the September 11th tragedy? The choice was between two types of movies: Independence Day and Fight Club.

On one hand, there is Independence Day, a modernist work. Its plot follows a traditional, pre-determined scheme. Its protagonists are busy designing plans of action, controlling the situation, and reaffirming their leadership: the heroes act in a manicheistic world of Good vs. Evil and defeat the forces of Evil with the reaffirmation of traditional core values, such as patriotism and patriarchy. Independence Day is in short a movie that gratifies and reassures its audience.

On the other hand, there is Fight Club, a piece of postmodern cinematography, difficult to categorize in any classic genre. Its characters are moved by chaotic and sometimes pathologic impulses. Its anti-heroes try to fight against an oppressive system to eventually find themselves in another one. At the end of Fight Club, the line between Good and Evil is irremediably blurred and there is any trace of certainty but only discussion and reflection.