Marla, Freud, Religion, and Manhood: An Interpretation of David Fincher’s Fight Club

Abstract

This paper connects the reading biblical narrative about women with the experience of viewing David Fincher’s film Fight Club. To do so first requires understanding Marla Singer, the primary female character in Fight Club, as the linchpin in a Freudian psychodrama. Using Freud as a guide allows for an exploration of what this film says about the formation of male identity while also providing space for reflection on how the production of maleness simultaneously generates religious systems or religiously–oriented norms. Within this interpretive framework, comparison of Marla’s position and function to that of women in biblical narrative and feminist reading of such reveals some striking similarities.