How “The Art of Self-Defense” Updated “Fight Club” for Millennials

David Fincher’s film adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel Fight Club was released in the fall of 1999. These were the waning days of Generation X’s reign over the cultural zeitgeist. How fitting that exactly 20 years later we are given The Art of Self-Defense just as Millennials prepare to cede the pop-culture throne to Generation Z. While these two movies have vastly different styles, their plots (when described in the most basic of terms) are identical:

                A thirty-something male yearning to reclaim his masculinity joins a club led by a charismatic and mysterious figure and finds himself caught up in a dangerous and problematic cult-like conspiracy.

                Both films tackle the notion of toxic masculinity, how it hurts society, how it stunts men mentally and emotionally, and how it simply no longer fits in the modern world. They both received critical praise at release, though neither were immediate commercial hits. Fight Club would go on to build in popularity after release on DVD until it was a verifiable cult classic. It is too early to tell if The Art of Self-Defense will boast the same.

Fight Club has garnered criticism over the last 10 years or so as being a proponent of problematic notions of masculinity, violence and certain attitudes regarding sex and gender, etc…

Fight Club absolutely does not condone these things. The character espousing these ideas, Tyler Durden, is in no uncertain terms the villain. The audience is not supposed to support him. However, the film’s representation of women and stylized violence does undermine the message it is trying to make. The only notable female on screen is Marla Singer. She exists in the narrative seemingly only to pull the male protagonist through his development arc, and little is shown on screen to demonstrate how that happens other than, “She woman.” She is flatly presented as emotionally unstable and too willing to ignore repeated emotional abuse. The violence is showcased like any 90s action film, even better some might argue. It’s “cool.” The movie itself is struggling with showing Generation X men what they want to see while precariously trying to criticize it. The Art of Self-Defense is more skilled in presenting these critiques without also glorifying them.

Full disclosure: I am an older Millennial, so much so that I don’t always identify as one. I think Fight Club is a superior film in its craft. Its cast is more electrifying. The images on screen are more dynamic and interesting. The tone is more consistent. Yet, The Art of Self-Defense needs to be applauded for delivering this very important theme more effectively.

Tyler Durden in Fight Club proports that the problem with modern men is that “We are a generation of men raised by women.” The movie fails to point to the actual problem, even after it shows Durden to be the maniac that he is in reality.

I hope that what I suspect is true – that Millennial men in their thirties are among the last who, by a majority, were raised by men that defined masculinity as dirty hands, wet dicks, and a complete lack of emotion. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with one, man or woman, taking pride in physical labor or even abundant consensual sexual encounters. The problem comes from them being tied to the definition of a “man.” It causes those men who do not find fulfilment in these things to see themselves as wrong or lesser. It can even lead young heterosexual women to falsely attribute their partner’s flaws to “Just how men are” and get stuck in harmful relationships.

Still, the biggest problem is the idea that men should not experience or share emotions. This has been connected to the fact that American men are far more likely to commit suicide than American women. Conditioning has left millions of men incapable of working through difficult internal conflicts through healthy communication with close friends and partners. This leads to emotional build-up, guilt, and shame.

You can tell immediately that The Art of Self-Defense was written for this new generation. The protagonist in Fight Club witnessed the world around him change. His malaise comes from growing up with these toxic ideas of masculinity only to realize that the world he lives in as an adult does not condone them. Casey in Self-Defense is the way he always thought he should be, polite and non-confrontational. A specific hardship, his being mugged one night, causes himself to seek out the Durden character in this film (a man simply called Sensei for the bulk of the movie). This more closely mirrors how a younger Millennial, raised in a more progressive era, may discover toxic masculinity. This is how a young man today may, through a lack of emotional honesty and communication in everyday life, seek out extremist Men’s Rights Activists groups to identify with as a way to cope with fear and uncertainty.

Here’s where Self-Defense tackles the same subject matter in a far more responsible way. Immediately, everything that Sensei says to Casey is a joke. He means it sincerely, and Casey unfortunately takes it as such. But, Alessandro Nivola as Sensei delivers the lines about dominance over women, having an aggressive nature, and emotional stoicism in a way that the audience can’t help but laugh at how wrong he is. Casey’s embrace of these ideas causes him to lose his job. The latter happens in Fight Club as well, but that movie presents it as the intent, not a consequence. Brad Pitt in Fight Club preaches these lines as the one true thing we’ve been missing in our lives. It can be argued that the alluring nature of Durden’s proselytizing is good filmmaking. If your main character is being drawn down a dangerous path, then the audience needs to see and feel that allure in order to still sympathize with the protagonist. This is one reason why my Generation X half still prefers Fight Club as a work of cinematic art. Although, the Millennial half is writing this article and knows that people need to be seeing and appreciating this newer movie.

Self-Defense still only has one prominent female cast member. While she does help Casey through his arc as a character, Anna is stable, composed and has her own ambitions. She wants to rise to the level of black belt and prove that she has worked the hardest, grown the most and is the most capable. This is something that the movie shows us she has accomplished, though it goes unacknowledged. She’s also stuck in a problematic relationship (though by way of a male-centric hierarchy of power, not a romantic relationship). She also knows that the relationship is fucked up. She doesn’t desire it the way that Marla Singer seems to do.

All acts of true violence in Self-Defense are shot and acted in a way that showcases their ugliness. It is not “cool” when Sensei breaks his student’s arm. It is not “cool” when Casey exacts revenge on, and accidently kills, his supposed mugger. Where Fight Club shows the sparring matches as liberating action sequences, Self-Defense immediately shifts to a horror film presentation. Casey also more quickly realizes that these acts are wrong. He is stuck in the group, because Sensei has blackmailed him with video footage of the crime, which he was falsely goaded into committing. The moral compass of the film is revealed far earlier, allowing the audience to contextualize the message without a second viewing.

Comparing Fight Club and Self-Defense is a uniquely powerful way to show how the intent and execution of a theme are not always the same thing. Perhaps because of my age, I am more likely to revisit Fight Club, but I sincerely hope that the more thematically clear and concise film gains a similar appreciation among those Gen-Zers out there that need to know that some notions of who or how you should be… Well, they’re just bullshit.