The Mask Part 6: The Material Mask

The Mask:
Introduction: Masks and Masking
Part 1: The Metaphor
Part 2: The Mask that Fits
Part 3: Ontology
Part 4: Masquerade of the Gods
Part 5: Mask of Sanity

In continuation of my little mask series it would be fitting to now discuss one of my favorite films that I to talk about a lot (and analyze... and for that matter, to watch): Fight Club. Given that my last post centered around American Psycho, it is fitting to now discuss Fight Club because I have always felt it is a corollary to American Psycho. Both are social critiques that focus on materialism and identity, and I consider both to be some of the greatest social critiques of the 21st Century (Fight Club I would just rank as the single greatest social critique for this century). Where American Psycho is a satire on the yuppie lifestyle and materialism, Fight Club is a straightforward protest against materialism. While materialism is the primary subject for both films, the materialistic lifestyle is a product (a masking) for a loss of identity - the unknowing of self. American Psycho is clearly a satire given its rather comical ending, its anti-climatic conclusion that is just as hollow and pointless as Patrick Bateman himself. In the ending monologue Patrick Bateman says, "But even after admitting this there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing." Bateman is an example of masking, only material masks covering a hollow core. This is the disease of materialism that fun is being poked at here. But the Narrator of Fight Club clearly has a different issue with the materialistic mask. Bateman has no intent of revealing or finding what lies beneath the mask. The Narrator, on the other hand, is searching for something deeper than his clever apartment and wardrobe.

I should go ahead and clarify here that the mask is not just a material thing, which should be clear from all that has been discussed about masks thus far, but here we will focus on the mask of materialism. The material mask is your job, how much money you have in the bank, the car you drive, the contents of your wallet, your fucking khakis. These are all things that we think define us, but they don't. Rather we define them. This should be evident when Tyler says, "The things you own end up owning you." It used to be that the things we owned, the things we made, the things we used and cared for, those things that would be with us for the rest of our lives were reflections of ourselves. Take Abe Lincoln's ax for example, which was also his father's, and his father's before him. The ax had the head replaced twice, and the handle replaced thrice. And yet it is still Lincoln's ax. While no single part of the ax is the original ax, it is nonetheless the same ax (ignoring Theseus's Ship paradox). The material ax is of no concern here, only that the ax reflected the men who owned and cared for it. The ax is a reflection of Lincoln, his father, and his father's father. Unlike Bateman's stainless steel ax used to hack up Paul Allen, the ax had purpose and was cared for. Lincoln owned that ax. Bateman did not own his. When we are no longer the masters of our stuff those things no longer reflect us (unless it's a literal reflection, like Bateman's face reflected on the metal of the ax), but rather we are a reflection of those things. It is clear that we are slaves to those things which are only there for a shallow image of materialistic success and wealth.

This is a wicked turn for the nature of the mask: suddenly we ourselves can become a mask for things we thought would define us. This was Bateman's problem: the things he thought defined him ended up being defined by him. This was the Narrator's search, the reason he invented Tyler Durden, the reason he created Fight Club: he needed to lose this material mask in order to define himself. This is something I have discussed elsewhere in this blog, but it would be useful to reiterate those ideas again through the framework of the mask.

The Narrator's quest is ultimately to hit "bottom." Rock bottom is a spiritual place, not material. As Tyler tell him: "Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not some goddamn seminar." The Narrator thinks because he gave up the condo life, gave up all his flaming worldly possession and moved into a dilapidated house in the toxic waste part of town that he has hit bottom. But as Tyler says: "Sticking feathers up your butt does not make chicken." There is a difference between material rock bottom and spiritual rock bottom. Here we have another perfect mask that concerns the problem of identity and personal definition: "sticking feathers up your butt." Just because your image appears to be a chicken does not make you a chicken, nor does appearing to be destitute make you free from the enslavement of materialism. We are not defined by our image nor by what we own. Tyler's message is to let those things go, to hit bottom in order to find ourselves. This is what Fight Club provided.

Fight Club was about finding freedom. Letting go, and "losing all hope was freedom." The Narrator initially finds freedom when he cries against Bob's giant breasts ("the kind you think of God's as big"). Upon crying, once he let go he saw his own sobbing face marked like a smiley face on Bob's shirt (a face made from his own face). But he suddenly became addicted to these support groups. This is wear Tyler begins to work his way into the Narrator's life, setting the groundwork for Fight Club and Project Mayhem. The support groups became just as meaningless to the Narrator as his stuff: he was not being defined by the groups, but rather he defined them. Marla showed him this, because "her lie reflected my lie." The mask is a reflection of ourselves. Marla is a reflection of what the Narrator needs to define himself ("I would ask: what kind of dinning set defines me as a person?"). He was reflected in the group (the mask), but the mask did not reflect in him. What's the point of a mask that doesn't show the world something about ourselves? What is the purpose of a mask that we have to answer to and not the other way around?

Tyler is one of the chief mask of the film for Marla. Marla is the expression the Narrator wants to present to the world. Tyler is the Narrator's mask (face - facere) that he made to reflect what he aspired to being like ("I didn't create some loser alter ego to make myself feel better"). Tyler says, "You were looking for a way to change your life. You could not do this on your own. All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you want to look. I fuck like you want to fuck. I am smart, capable, and most importantly I am free in all the ways that you are not." It is impossible to express an emotion (signified) without a mask (signifier). Tyler is the signifier for Marla, the signified. Marla is already at bottom or almost there ("I'll say this about Marla, at least she's trying to hit bottom"), and Tyler is the means to hit bottom, to find freedom from the material mask. The support groups were a freedom to, if I may use Eric Fromm's terms. Tyler is freedom from. Fight Club was initially freedom from, but it soon became something to identify with, so it evolved into Project Mayhem. Fight Club became freedom to Project Mayhem, which provided the freedom from materialistic enslavement.

There is two other important masks in Fight Club that concerns the material mask: the condom and the dress. After one of Tyler and Marla's sexcapades Marla approaches the Narrator and says, "The condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip one on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, and then throw it away; the condom I mean, not the stranger." Immediately following this Marla gives another example of the exact same material mask: "I got this dress at a thrift store for one dollar... It's a bridesmaid's dress. Someone loved it intensely for one day, and then tossed it. Like a Christmas tree, so special, then BAM! it's on the side of the road. Tinsel still clinging to it. Like a sex crime victim. Underwear inside out. Bound with electrical tape." Narrator: "Well then it suits you" (the mask that fits, but is not her own). Marla: "You can borrow it sometime." Both the condom and the dress are material things that cover and fit perfectly. The condom is meant to fit anyone, just like the glass slipper was only meant to fit Cinderella. But rather than having Prince Charming, the perfect person, the condom allows anyone to be a prince, and then it's tossed. So special. Just like Miss Singer's bridesmaid's dress and a Christmas tree: one special night, then it's tossed.

This is the nature of the material mask. It defines nothing. The material mask defines us no more than a condom makes a man Prince Charming (wearing an identity that is not your own, like Augustus wearing the trophy cuirass). This is the point of Fight Club: to lose these material masks, to forget the condom, forget the dress, Christmas tree, DKNY wardrobe, string bean stripe patterned furniture, coffee tables in the shape of a yin-yang; to hit bottom to discover what these masks distract us from finding. When a man fights ("how much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?") he engages in primitive activities, fight or flight, there in the darkest of all places where instinct takes hold, there is where he hits bottom and finds freedom from material things (Fight Club makes it a point not to concern itself with women, which is left to Marla). What's the point of all our stuff in the hunter-gatherer sense? The question concerning what we find when we hit bottom is another matter. Supposedly it is at bottom that the men find themselves, discover their supposed identity, and how they define themselves. At the very least hitting bottom provides the solid ground upon which to rebuild our identities, to make the masks that truly define us. These can't be masks we purchased. We have to make them (facere, agere). Our masks have to reflect us, like Lincoln's ax. Tyler says: "You will wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life." He is describing a post-apocalyptic world where we make and fix our own stuff, hunt our food, build our houses, et cetera. These will be things we make (facere), things we wear, and not things that wear us.

Since I've discussed Fight Club before, I have written before that in hitting bottom we define ourselves. I would like to amend that, as I highly doubt that hitting bottom has anything to do with definition of identity; that is at bottom we find who we truly are. Rather I think, now, that hitting bottom gives us the foundation upon which we build a more authentic identity, or at least a less superficial and materialistic identity; because what is an authentic identity if all identity is masks and cross dressing? What is "authenticity" anyway? In our study of the mask it seems more fitting that in hitting bottom we make (facere) our identities/masks rather than finding them.

Now for an art example. Master Buonarroti did a sketch once entitled The Dream, which depicts an angel giving divine inspiration to a male inclined against a globe (often interpreted as melancholy, but also the world). In the background are depictions of a number of contorting figures representing sins, mostly the seven deadly sins with the exception of pride. The nude is sitting upon a box filled with masks. This is the only work by Michelangelo I know of in which masks are not depicted upon a face, except for Saint Bart's skin, but rather laying around.  These masks have been interpreted as worldly deceits, distractions from more noble work and aspirations. So in a sense they are like our material mask, the most useless mask of them all, the one mask that tells nothing about ourselves. They are not on a face because they define nothing, reflect nothing but their own distraction. They are not necessary, and therefore discarded like a condom or a Christmas tree. What is particularly interesting is that the most prominent mask, the one in the center, has a flat nose and a forked, boxy beard, which is in the likeness of Michelangelo himself. This would be our second example of Master Buonarroti depicting his self portrait on a mask that was not attached to a face; the other being the skin of Saint Bartholomew. It is not entirely understood as to why Micky made his self portrait on this material mask, perhaps he was speaking to his own childish, conceited nature, his own sins he was trying to overcome in order to receive divine inspiration for more noble work.

Whatever the reason, whatever the path, the point of the mask is help us define ourselves, to know ourselves, and to express what we have found out about ourselves and show it to the world theater. The material mask is the most dangerous mask because it does not define us, except by showing to the world that we are naught but a hollow core. Discarding the material mask, to hit bottom, to overcome our worldly concerns, to be better than our sins and shortcomings is the way to making the masks that truly define us. It isn't about authenticity, to show our true faces, but to show what we think we are under the masking.