Fight Club vs. Culture Jam

Consumerism is one of the more discussed topics in Fight Club and in Culture Jam. In the beginning of Fight Club, Edward Norton is portrayed as a compulsive buyer whose life revolves around catalogs and popular belief. This was to show how many Americans spend their hard e

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In one chapter titled, The End of the American Dream, Lasn describes how we went from a happy and motivated society, to one that would rather watch the Home Shopping Network than go outside and ride a bike. The media has become an evil tool for brainwashing current and younger generations to conform to popular culture. They both center their offense on the idea that most of us are sheep. Lasn views the media as a corporate reassurance that “doing what we [the corporations] say” is good and beneficial. However Fight Club’s means of resolution are a bit more radical. This message was also comprehended in Fight Club, but in this movie, the media is used against itself. I feel that both of these mediums portrayed an important message about where our culture is headed. Or maybe we are really lemmings, because (no matter how absurd) whatever we think everyone else is doing, we want to conform to the norm for fear of being ostracized (this is how the media becomes manipulated for evil; they make us think “this is what everyone else is doing”, so we will think “hey I want to do it too”). Death threats, vandalism, public bombings, and a host of other highly illegal activity become Fight Club’s trademark (kind of a national shock treatment). Unfortunately, I do not feel any honest reform will be made until we hit rock bottom.

While the film Fight Club, and the book Culture Jam both acknowledge the misuse of media to create consumerism that poisons popular culture, they both take different means to solving these issues. arned money, not on beneficial items but instead on yin-yang coffee tables. Culture Jam makes a more realistic argument to solving America’s cultural vices, but more importantly there methods (for the most part) are legal. Lastly, this movie and book also attack people’s unquestioned acceptance of popular culture.

Common topics in this essay:
Culture Jam, Fight Club, Fight Clubs, Shopping Network, Edward Norton, Dream Lasn, Kalle Lasn, fight club, culture jam, popular culture, Kalle Lasns, book culture, fight clubs, book culture jam, , else doing,

Approximate Word count = 503
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

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