A new episode of Robot Chicken last night had a sketch about Fight Club in it, and it made me wonder some things about the rules of Fight Club. I know that the rules say we’re not allowed to talk about Fight Club. (The author and scriptwriter must have gotten special dispensation to write about it though, huh?) But are we allowed to blog about Fight Club, or tweet about Fight Club? Because Fight Club was written and made into a movie before the advent of blogs and Twitter, so I’m not clear on what the deal is. Perhaps the rules of Fight Club could use a helpful update?
Also, in the movie of Fight Club, Brad Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden (Edward Norton’s second personality), says the first and second rule of Fight Club is not to talk about Fight Club. But in doing so, he is talking about Fight Club. And by designating both the first and second rule of Fight Club as such, he talks about Fight Club twice as much as he needs to. (I guess he likes to break the rules, huh?) But doesn’t this set a bad example, by breaking this rule not once, but twice? And at every meeting, he does this again and again. So why don’t the guys say: “Well, you’re talking about it right now, so shouldn’t you get thrown out of ‘this thing’?”
I was initially wondering if perhaps Tyler Durden should refer to Fight Club as a nondescript code term, like the Mafia called their organized crime stuff “Cosa Nostra” (“Our Thing”). But then I realized that even if you are referring to it in such a way, you are still talking about it. Even if you used Pig Latin or whispered or whatever, you’d still be talking about Fight Club. So shouldn’t Durden hand out brochures, or use sign language? That’s technically not talking about it, and yet he could still communicate the message. I know this is perhaps trivial, but how can he expect anyone else to obey the rules when he doesn’t even do it himself?
