SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The society cannot be trusted. The system is your enemy. Man is asleep. These are some of the ideas that bring together two of the most influential and debated American films of the past 25 years.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MATRIX")
LAURENCE FISHBURNE: (As Morpheus) The matrix is everywhere. It is all around us.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIGHT CLUB")
BRAD PITT: (As Tyler Durden) The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club.
DETROW: We've been talking about the movies of 1999 here for months. And for many people, two 1999 movies loom above the rest, both as movies in their own right, but also as pop culture that has shaped our vocabulary and our thinking decades after they first came out - "The Matrix, " directed by Lilly and Lana Wachowski, and "Fight Club, " directed by David Fincher. We wanted to pair these two together for our final conversation about that year in film because both have broad appeal that crosses a whole range of spectrums, gender and politics specifically.
Depending on who you talk to, "The Matrix" is an anti-capitalist screed, a rallying cry for the alt-right or a trans allegory. "Fight Club" is either a celebration of a certain kind of manhood or a critique of it. We want to unpack how these two films have been interpreted over the years. So we called two writers who have thought a lot about it - writer and culture critic, Emily St. James, and Peter C. Baker, a novelist who writes for the music site Tracks on Tracks. Welcome to you both.
EMILY ST JAMES: It's so good to be here.
PETER C BAKER: Hi. Thanks for having me.
DETROW: Let's focus on "Fight Club" a little first. Emily, remind us of what their reactions were like when it first hit theaters.
ST JAMES: When it first hit theaters, it was a flop. You know, it had its critical champions. It had people who were saying this film is just way too hyper violent, which if you watch it today, feels strange. We've moved well beyond it in terms of hyper violence. But at the time, it was greeted that way in some corners. And then it kind of left theaters. And then it had this thing where it got picked up on home video. It was one of the first really big DVDs. People watched it over and over and over again. It became kind of its own subculture. But back in theaters, it was really kind of roundly rejected, which I think people often forget.
DETROW: Peter, you have done a lot of writing where you talk about exploring the so-called manosphere, you know, these loosely sourced sites and blogs and forums and message boards concerned with masculinity and men's issues. And you wrote a story about this for The New Yorker that was titled, "The Men who Still Love Fight Club." Let's start with that. Who are those men?
BAKER: Well, in the story, I was interested in both tracing this history, where in and through the early 2000s "Fight Club" was picked up by these, frankly, sort of nasty, you know, communities of so-called pick-up artists. And other just sort of online communities animated primarily by misogyny, who were not super interested in the elements of the film that constituted a critique of, like, a misogynistic masculinity. And they were more interested in the sort of potential excitement of a misogynistic masculinity.
DETROW: Right.
ST JAMES: I think it's interesting the degree to which both of these films have been interpreted by many of their viewers as within sort of an antifeminist context. When "Fight Club" is very pointed in how it doesn't really have moments where the characters are like, yeah, it's all my mom's fault, or yeah, it's all my ex-girlfriend's fault. They certainly have moments of, like, romantic tension with the Helena Bonham Carter character, Marla, but it is a film that is much more about here's what's oppressing me. It's my dad and it's capitalism. And, like, it's very direct about that in a way that I forgot when I recently rewatched it. There is, like, a weird streak of this film that is careful to not touch that raw nerve, and yet it was still interpreted by many people as like, yeah, you know who's holding you down? It's women.
DETROW: Rewatching it and rereading the book, as well, I was really surprised at how on point it was about the alienation that a lot of people feel for modern culture and what they do with it. Because I feel like how people respond to be feeling left behind or left out has been, like, a defining trait of global politics in a way that's seen a lot of really negative implications over the last decades or so. And 25 years ago, this movie is really narrowing in on these guys who feel like there's nothing for them in society.
ST JAMES: Yeah. I have often called this movie, "The Matrix," "American Beauty," some others like the Cameron Crow 2001 film, "Vanilla Sky" - I call them end of history movies after the Francis Fukuyama essay that became very well-known and very influential and also quite wrong in the end. But, like, the idea is sort of in the late '90s, early 2000s, there's this sense that we've reached the pinnacle of human civilization, and it is liberal democracy coupled with capitalism, and we're all happy about that. And these movies are like, but I still feel spiritually empty. I still feel like something's wrong. I'm still not getting the meaning I need out of life.
And it does feel like "Fight Club" is especially tying that to how men feel about that aspect of their lives. The way that, like, just buying stuff doesn't fill them up. But also, like, just committing violence doesn't fill them up. There's, like, a need for connection that this movie is exploring, but it's like they won't admit to themselves that they have this need for connection, so they have to center it on violence, on blowing things up. It's a very devastating critique of a certain kind of masculinity through those lens. But it is very much rooted in that time period in a way that still speaks to us today.
DETROW: Let's shift to focus on "The Matrix" a little bit now. When it comes to cultural impact today, I feel like we need to start with the idea of the red pill. Let's listen to the scene where Morpheus is offering Neo two options.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MATRIX")
FISHBURNE: (As Morpheus) You take the blue pill. The story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill. You stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
DETROW: Peter, let's go back to the group of people you zoomed in on in that article and spent a lot of time talking to. How has that world appropriated the idea of the red pill in conversation, in thinking?
BAKER: Well, it's almost so simple and direct an appropriation that it very quickly becomes something that has nothing to do with the movie. But originally, you know, this idea or this online community called the Red Pill sprang up. And in the movie where it's suggested that by taking the red pill, the main character can sort of wake up and begin to realize the deep truth about the world, which in the case of "The Matrix" is that all of us are living in a computer simulation. Online, this sort of, quote/unquote "men's rights" community, the red pill, the revelation to be woken up to was that feminism, you know, certain modern views about relationships between the genders, were a big lie. That it was in a man's best interest to wake up from, to be awoken from, to find his fellow newly enlightened men and figure things out alongside them on message boards online.
DETROW: Yeah. I do want to talk specifically about one reading that has really become increasingly prominent in recent years, and that's a lot of people talking about it and reading about it and, you know, support from the directors about the idea that it's a trans allegory. Can you tell us about how that conversation has developed and also what some of the key plot points on screen really support that read?
ST JAMES: Sure. I mean, we'll just start with the red pill. When the Wachowskis were making this movie, the pill that you took - the estrogen pill that you took was red. And that often has been seen as like, oh, of course, the pill that you have to take to see the reality is estrogen. I don't like that limited of a read of the film. I think that the film contains many different metaphors within it. But certainly, it is a movie about when something in your life just feels wrong. And you wake up to the fact that what is around you is a constructed system, which I think for a lot of trans people is how they feel about gender.
But one thing I think is fascinating is both of these films involve queer folks behind the scenes in some regard. Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the novel that "Fight Club" is based on, is a gay man. The Wachowskis are both trans women. It is interesting that these movies, that are from queer perspectives, ended up being so appropriated by people who are often very anti-queer themselves.
DETROW: I kind of want to end the conversation really zoning in on each movie, and asking each of you what you think in each one of these films, "Fight Club" and "The Matrix," what holds up the best or what you think about the most 25 years later when it comes to just the way the film was made or the story or the images or whatever it is. Emily, I'll start with you.
ST JAMES: I think, like, the core metaphors of them are so endlessly able to be sort of stretched and manipulated and turned into whatever you want them to be. I mean, I think all the time about how "The Matrix" or how "Fight Club" look at our relationship to the society we live in in a way that constantly reveals new aspects to me the older I get.
DETROW: What about you, Peter?
BAKER: I think they speak to this eternally recurring feeling of alienation from your setting, from your context, which can be anything. And they speak to the power of that feeling of alienation once you decide to sort of escape it or rebel against it. That's what's powerful about them - the way that they latch on to that feeling of disconnect of alienation and show all the places that it can take you.
DETROW: That's Peter C. Baker, as well as Emily St. James. Thanks to both of you for taking the ALL THINGS CONSIDERED pill and joining us to talk about "The Matrix" and "Fight Club."
ST JAMES: You're welcome.
BAKER: Yeah, thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROB DOUGAN'S "CLUBBED TO DEATH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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