Psychological Concepts of the Fight Club - Movie Review Example

Fight Club Movie Review Introduction This paper is a review on the Fight Club movie. The paper is based on analyzing the several psychological concepts and relating them to the movie. The Fight Club gives a wide opportunity to apply the theories of psychology and various psychological concepts in the topics covered in the course. The various psychological concepts are will be looked at in this paper include topics on emotion, motivation, personality, development of the individual over the life span, and finally, the health and stress that the human body gets subjected to during their participation in the Fight Club. In addition to the analysis of the various psychological concepts and theories in regard to the movie above, the paper also provides an article that gives the hypothesis of the research. The Fight Club movie has been the big star since a ceremony where people celebrated with a lot of violence and the heroes got drinking licenses and smoking. They could also beat up one another and sometimes they beat up their own members. Such celebration was called the Death Wish. A character known as Edward Norton, has a very depressed life and he comes from the urban. He describes himself as an urban loner. Edward Norton makes up to be the star. He goes gone to give a description of his life as a very complicated world. He does this in a dialogue where he uses a very tone. He says that his job and life are driving him crazy. As a result of releasing his pain he decides to attend the 12-step meetings where he thought that he could be able to meet people with many problems and thus he could be able to find catharsis of his pain by watching the people who had more problems than he had. It is very ironical that Norton attends the first meeting and finds that it is for post-surgical patients who suffered from testicle cancer (Deacy, 2005). The movie continues as Norton continues to attend meetings, he noticed a lady known as Marla who was a tourist just as himself and who also likes attending meetings. Although Marla knows that he is a faker, she still wants to believe that everyone has a genuine pain. In the plane, Norton meets Tyler where he finds comfort. He later decides to move to the ground floor and finds a Fight Club where some men meet secretly to find their freedom and to find self realization through fighting other men. At this point of the movie, the movie starts to be brutal and violent. The people in the Fight Club have very hard fists and one would think that they have fists made out of steel and they would hammer each other without mercy. According to Durben, this movie is all about freedom. The men want to free themselves from the struggles of life and especially modern life, which sort off imprisons the men and hence they do not have an option and mind of their own (Deacy, 2005). The movie continues and outlines the main plan. Tyler Durben says that “it’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” This is very true because the members of the Fight Club cannot grow any stronger because of fighting or because of the sake of being club members. Instead, they are beaten thoroughly which is harmful to their health and also at times they are broken down. However the movie, Fight Club does not advocate for the view of Durben. The audience thus would back the behavior that Norton shows in the fighting rather than the argument that Durben poses. Norton and Pitt go through very tough moments in the movie; they are physically tortured while Marla on the other hand becomes angry since there is no one who is interested to have sex with her. In this movie, several psychological concepts can be applied. These include the emotions, motivation, personality, and development of the individual over the life span, and health and stress that the characters like Norton, Durben, and Marla experience. To begin with emotions, which psychologically refer to the state of feeling, which is complex which result to psychological and physical changes influencing behavior and the way of thinking of a person (Schneider, 2005). In relation to the movie, Edward Norton experience emotions. Norfton experiences emotions whereby he feels lonely and is very disturbed by his job and his life which is driving him crazy. The emotions therefore result to his change of behavior whereby he finds it best to attend meetings and thus finds himself in a Fight Club. Psychological motivation the process that starts, guides, and directs or keeps a person determined to his goal. Norton has motivation that he should keep away from his job and his life that is giving him a lot of stress (Stangor, 2010). Therefore, he thinks that by attending meetings and finding people who have worse problems than he would give him hope of living. The members of the Fight Club are motivated by the fact that they would get enough freedom of doing anything and they would also realize themselves better. Psychologically, personality is that what makes people unique in their own ways. It is a branch of psychology that outlines the understanding of a person and their behavior that makes them unique. There are several theories of personality which tend to focus on the development of human behavior while other theories look at the reasons that lead to the differences in personality (Stangor, 2010). Personality here comes whereby Norton and the rest of the Fight Club members who get involved in the fighting because of realizing themselves. They want to realize themselves although they will not realize themselves just because of being members to the club. The act of fighting each other in turn will also hardly help them to realize themselves. Another concept of psychology applied in this movie is the development of the individuals over their lifespan. Erik Erikson theory on developmental stages clearly outlines the development of a person throughout their lifespan. Norton is in the stage where Erikson refers to as middle adulthood which begins at 40 years to 65 years (Schneider, 2005). This is a generative and parenthood stage where the person focuses on creating and nurturing things that will last them and also they work so hard in their job. Norton is disturbed because he is lonely and he also has a workload with no one benefiting. The failure of the stage results to shallow involvement to the world which Norton has assumed. Marla on the other hand is in the young adulthood whereby she is craving for intimacy when she got angry because nobody wanted to have sex with her and thus she experiences isolation (Stangor, 2010). Finally, health and stress is another psychological concept which applies to the movie. Stress results to poor health especially if it is a negative force which demands a lot from the person. Stress made Norton and the members of the club to violently treat them. They fought hard and thus instead of trying to help themselves out, they are motivated by the fact that they are releasing their pain on others which is just causing havoc instead. Conclusion The movie of Fight Club has applied several psychological theories. Many people especially men get involved in fighting just because of realizing their anger or as a way of realizing stress especially if it is a negative stress which takes along period. This type of emotion is known as rebound emotion whereby a person expresses their pain to other people as a way of creating peace with oneself. People should look for another way to release their stress or pain rather than beating up people violently. This would not do away with pain but instead it would increase more pain. Therefore fighting should be discouraged. References Deacy, C. (2005). Faith in film: Religious themes in contemporary cinema. Aldershot [u.a.: Ashgate. Schneider, D. J. (2005). The psychology of stereotyping. New York [u.a.: Guilford Press. Stangor, C. (2010). Introduction to psychology. Irvington, NY: Flatworld Knowledge. Read More