[supersloth]

yeah but i'm not talking about the random person who just doesn't care to talk about fight club, i am talking about people who claim it's one of their favorites and watch it all the time and have posters of it up on the wall.

[dorknexus]

my roommate bases his life off of that movie. and he tends to mis-interpret it. sad mostly.

[NeoTifa]

Hahaha you're always trashing your room mate. <3 You know you love him. I mean, who else would bring you home booze every day?

Also, your room mates pretty hot. Just saying.

This post has been edited by NeoTifa: 22 November 2010 - 10:31 AM

[lordofduct]

I have an anecdote for you about interpretations.


When I was a freshman in college I was taking ENC1102 (English Composition 2), the class was mostly about reading American post-modern literature. Of course Hemingway was the talk of the class, Mr. Professorson was a huge fan of Hemingway. He was also an extreme feminist, in preached daily about his wife's different activist groups/petitions/rallies. As the little dick weasel I am I would make snide comments about the hypocrisy of a Hemingway fan being so feminist and anti-male. I went as far as saying aloud in class:

"I bet you go home every night for your spanking and off to bed with no dinner. Don't you?"

So of course, he didn't like me.

Now I'm far from a good writer, I write C or B quality stuff. I would never expect to get an A in this class... but straight F's on every paper I wrote? There was no reason for this, except for one, he didn't like me. That's fine by me, I really had no care for college in the first place and was planning on dropping out already (first of a 10 funeral long procession over 2 years was just starting... nothing like friends and family dieing to turn you off from college).

Anyways, the end of the semester is right around the corner when we receive our final assignment.

'Select any published media and write an interpretation of it from any point of view.'

We all immediately wanted to know what he meant by "published media", and he explained he didn't care if it was tv, film, newspaper, poetry, etc. It could be local 'zine, school paper, or commercially published. It didn't matter, if it was released through some media outlet, it's valid.

I have had several of my short stories and poems in high school published in a national arts magazine. All of it under a pen name, and all of it rather trashy nonsense. For shits and giggles, and to get one final jab at the guy, I write an interpretation of my own poem disguised under my pen name.

I got an 'F'. As well as an 'F', I received a 3 paragraph explanation by my professor why my interpretation was wrong. Despite his and every other English teacher I've had, repeated explanation in classrooms that interpretations are personal (and was also the intent of this assignment, hence the 'from any point of view' stipulation of the assignment). I was a hoot getting to read what HE thought I meant in my poem. The poem was called 'Vagabond: Dirtman, Dustboy', and was about my brother and his time spent in and out of the hospital and how he dealt with social structures around him, to which he had no understanding, he imagined the word in his own very strange manner. But Mr. Professorson felt it was important to outline that it was about some weird hippy dippy nonsense. He was just that, a hippy dippy feminist, of course he saw this in a poem with the repeating words 'vagabond' and 'dirtman'. But what got me all excited was the huge glaring 'F' to go along with it!

So I walk up to his desk...

Me - "So at least you liked the author."

Professor - "Yes she seems a very skilled writer." (My pen name is a girl's name)

Me - "Oh really, yeah I found her in an art magazine that went around my high school. Actually I know them very well. You see, Lynda is psuedonym, an anagram of my own first name."

I then crumpled up the paper and threw it at him.

I got a 'B'.






Moral - interpretations are just that... interpretations.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 22 November 2010 - 10:54 AM

[modi123_1]

I thought I would share this instructional video for the class as well...

[supersloth]

sometimes intepretations are just interpretations. other times it's just people being dumb. if you don't see the anti-commercialization in fight club, or pro-fascism, or anti-feminism themes, then you just aren't paying attention.

[lordofduct]

supersloth, on 22 November 2010 - 10:05 AM, said:

sometimes intepretations are just interpretations. other times it's just people being dumb. if you don't see the anti-commercialization in fight club, or pro-fascism, or anti-feminism themes, then you just aren't paying attention.

If you see the themes as 'pro-fascist' or 'anti-feminist', I could say the very same thing about you. That may be the way you see it, and shit... Chuck Palahniuk (or Fincher, and the screenplay writer, considering the movie) might even see it that way, but it's the reader who decides what it means for themselves!


If you said they walked away from Fight Club and thought it was an allegory for Barney & Friends... I might agree w/ you. But most interpretations I've heard have been all pretty valid... religious, anarchist, fascist, militant, anti-militant, etc.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 22 November 2010 - 11:14 AM

[supersloth]

i think you are missing my point in that you and i are doing some kind of analysis on the story. we read/watch, think about it, and then move on. the people i am talking about are the 'dude they were like, fighting and shit and it was awesome. that totally helped them feel better when they felt bad. FUCKING SWEET. *hangs poster on wall*' type of people.

[dorknexus]

I'm tellin you fools. Anarcho-Primitivism.

[supersloth]

that's prolly the best way to break it down into one phrase that i've seen.

[NeoTifa]

Quote

(first of a 10 funeral long procession over 2 years was just starting... nothing like friends and family dieing to turn you off from college).

I had 6 my senior year.

[lordofduct]

NeoTifa, on 22 November 2010 - 10:26 AM, said:

Quote

(first of a 10 funeral long procession over 2 years was just starting... nothing like friends and family dieing to turn you off from college).

I had 6 my senior year.

That must have been hard. My brother passed the day before final exams (not senior year), and that was balls ass hard... I couldn't imagine the stress as a senior (maths be the stressness!). I got my brother signature tattooed on my wrist that day, and when I was handing in one of my exams, the teacher made the snide comment:

"What, exams make you want slit your wrists? Heh."

I didn't know what to say to that one. I brushed it off as cosmic coincidence.

[NeoTifa]

Hmmm it was high school so it wasn't as bad. One of them was murder though, so that was shocking. The others were cancer or pneumonia.

[lordofduct]

supersloth, on 22 November 2010 - 10:18 AM, said:

i think you are missing my point in that you and i are doing some kind of analysis on the story. we read/watch, think about it, and then move on. the people i am talking about are the 'dude they were like, fighting and shit and it was awesome. that totally helped them feel better when they felt bad. FUCKING SWEET. *hangs poster on wall*' type of people.

Really my point is that, even though shallow to you, that was those people's interpretations. And there's nothing wrong with that. My interpretation of the story is different as well, I saw it as a large onion of themes, some of which were opposing and hypocritical if taken at the same time. These themes were interlocked skillfully to allow for a large diverse audience to grab a hold of it and enjoy it in their very own way. Which lead to why it was such a large blockbuster in film, and best seller in writing. The themes of which were so well crafted that it even allowed those who like to disect films to see why others enjoy them could have fun with it (like myself).

Essentially it made for a film that allowed both the heavy thinkers (like yourself), and the popcorn munchers (like your roommate), to leave very well satisfied, and both 'getting' it. Because they did, they got exactly what it is they came for. Don't tell me that the fighting to feel better wasn't a theme, because it was, shit most of the side characters in the story didn't understand what was going on beyond that they were there to have fun fighting.


Why was it so skillful? Because Chuck Palahniuk wrote it, and David Fincher directer it. Two very skilled (though far from prolific) artists of their media. You're bound to get a story that attracts all types of people with different opinions. And of course a group of people who don't like it.

Look at it this way... to you they're simpletons who don't understand the depth of the film. While they think you're some snob looking into a puddle and thinking it's the sea.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 22 November 2010 - 11:51 AM

[dorknexus]

A friend of mine in college (who I also went to high school with) was killed while star gazing around my sophomore year. He was with friends and they decided to climb higher up a cliff/hill face to get a better view and he slipped and fell 80 ft.

I didn't know him super well but I was pretty bummed for a while afterwards.

Quote

Really my point is that, even though shallow to you, that was those people's interpretations.

Just as much as they have the free will and right to interpret a piece of art as they choose, we also have the free will and right to interpret their interpretations as retarded.

This post has been edited by Dark_Nexus: 22 November 2010 - 11:50 AM