The other day while hanging out with a group of my male friends, I made the biggest mistake of pointing out the physique of another man. While the boys were locked into the computer screen watching sports highlights over and over again(and I mean literally!), I couldn't help but notice and comment on the physique of the men that flashed across the screen. However, I wasn't aware of the unspoken rule against critiquing male bodies around heterosexual males. According to them, they didn't notice the bodies of the athletes which played across the screen, they were just watching the highlights; as if by some miracle the bodies playing the sports and the sport being played were somehow disconnected. In a room full of men who were watching men, why was it such a big deal that I mentioned the obvious? Weren't they looking at the same bare-chested Maidana v. Broner boxing highlights that I was? Needless to say, I was pushed out and made to seem like an intruder to the male bonding experience because I interrupted or more so exposed the obvious; that these men were watching men who barely had clothes on. As if it was easy to simply ignore that these men were bare-chested for goodness sake!
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The male bonding experience has often been categorized as the realm in which masculinity is upheld and maintained. However, what if one were to read this experience in contrast to the hegemonic ideals of what the male bonding experience signifies? In the movie Fight Club, the notion of the homosocial male bonding experience is presented in a way that can be viewed as homoerotic. It is not to say that the male bonding experience suddenly and automatically signifies homosexuality, but the film itself certainly raises questions regarding the homosocial experience and its relation to homoeroticism.
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| Homoerotic?....no way! |
While watching the film Fight Club, the audience is informed of the most important rule of Fight Club: you don't talk about fight club. As the film progresses, and images of bare-chested grown men fighting in a store basement flash across the screen, one can't help think that they are simply just having fun, just bonding. For many club members, fight club serves as a device which allows them to exert their masculinity. Because many members have experienced forms of non- normative masculinity, one has developed breasts and another would rather look at domestic magazines instead of porn( because porn is somehow only pleasurable to men), fight club allows them to regain their masculinity. Through violence in this homosocial arena, the members are able to embody masculine ideals. However, at times the homosocial environment brings forth moments of intimacy which seem homoerotic. For example, while the character Tyler takes a bath we see narrator Jack enter the same bathroom and the two have a conversation. Not only is the intimate act of taking a bath invaded, but it is replaced and transformed into a homosocial environment where men just have conversations.
Throughout the film, "sexual subtexts" are often transformed into innocent behaviors and made to seem a part of the homosocial environment as opposed to homoeroticism. So when we see male genitals across the screen in a movie directed to a male demographic, we should simply ignore its homoerotic undertone. In essence, we should simply just believe that the homosocial environment is void of any evidence of homoerotic behavior, bringing us to the unspoken rule of fight club: don't mention homoeroticism.
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