Browse Exhibits (2 total)

In the late 1990s, Chuck Palahniuk's novel and later David Fincher's film, Fight Club, served as a cultural call to arms for men who were feeling emasculated at the turn of the 20th century.

"The first rule of fight club is you don't talk about fight club" (Palahniuk). With this line, Palahniuk and his seminal work of nihilism and transgressive fiction not only acknowledged the transgressive and countercultural nature of the work, but also opened the door for a cult-ish following. The term cult and its natural connotations are both an apt observation of Palahniuk's readership who have often acted out many of his plots, but is also a name adopted by his fan site chuckpalahniuk.net.

This exhibit has selected images of the artist and representations and adaptations of his work as well as their cultural and critical impact and the novel's ultimate crossover to a Hollywood adaptation directed by David Fincher, starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt and cult status.

In the introduction to a movie tie-in edition of the novel, Palahniuk writes about an exchange with a cowboy on a haunted tunnel tour, "There, another step in the dark, the cowboy says, 'The first rule of the Haunted Tunnel Tour is you don't talk about the Haunted Tunnel Tour.'

And I stop. The rope still a loose sagging smile between us.

'And the second rule of the Haunted Tunnel Tour,' the cowboy, his whiskey smell says, 'is you don't talk about the Haunted Tunnel Tour...'

The rope, the feeling of braided fibers, is twisted hard and greasy smooth in my hand. And still stopped, puling back on the rope, I tell him: Hey...

From the dark, the cowboy says, 'Hey, what?'

I say, I wrote the book.

The rope between us going tighter, tighter, tight.

And the rope stops the cowboy. From the dark, he says, 'Wrote what?'

Fight Club, I tell him.

And there, the cowboy takes a step back up. The knock of his boot on a step, closer. He tilts his hat back for a better look and pushes his eyes at me, blinking fast, his breath boilermaker strong, breathalyzer strong, he says:

'There was a book?'" (Palahniuk xii)

While Palahniuk wrote a book that sought to highlight the sense of isolation of men whose masculinity had been dulled or overshadowed by consumerism, many of the books themes and motifs became imbedded in popular culture from fashion to music to mass media to mock media to college campuses to parodying porn sites (Palahniuk xiii). Palahniuk's text and its influence became pervasive to the point that many did not or still do not recognize the source material for what has become cliche in many cases.