Talk:Interpretations of Fight Club/Archive 1

Archive 1

Failed critique?

"Fight Club is a failed critique" thats an opinion not a fact this article is biased 78.144.188.191 (talk) 03:40, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Let's be fair here: the article is titled Interpretations of... and the body makes it crystal clear that these are opinions, none any less valid than another. As such, the argument can be made that attribution to the academic who made that particular remark probably isn't necessary, but I don't think many would object if it were to be added in. (For ease of navigation in the future I've altered the thread title to something more descriptive). Steve ^T • C 08:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

No, no, this is bullshit, that entire section is full of bias, weasel words and injected opinions. It repeats and references criticisms, yes, but describes them and endorses them at the same time without even a veneer of consideration or impartiality! I'm templating this page, this is ridiculous. VolatileChemical (talk) 11:32, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Would it help to implement the other references mentioned in "Further reading" to include more viewpoints? This article has barely begun in its growth, and I just happened to implement the "Failure as social commentary" as a start. FYI, the film is a favorite, so I was not trying to rip into the film but summarize what the cultural critics said about it. We do not need to template the article so rapidly; let's discuss what issues you perceive with it. Is it the fact that not every sentence begins with "Giroux says"? Erik (talk) 18:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I reworded the beginning of the each paragraph of the section to remind readers of the "voice" each time. I think it would be unwieldy to force their mention ("The critics write", "They say") every sentence. Would this setup at least show that it's Giroux and Szeman who opine about this? Erik (talk) 18:20, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, where to start? I don't like the phrase "Failure as social commentary" as a heading title at all, because then that section is only about the opinion that it's a failure. First of all, if we use a statement of opinion as a section or article title then we are taking the view of that opinion. There's a reason the page is called Timeline of Shakespeare criticism, not Timeline of Shakespeare adoration, let alone Why Shakespeare should be adored. We cannot take a subjective view, not ever. We cannot even state a subjective view unless it is strictly a quote. Even if we source it that's not acceptable, sourcing is for backing up an objective fact, not providing external endorsement for an opinion. And look, even if you wanna use that heading title as one possible interpretation, as pointed out in the title of the article...well we simply can't state an opinion in a section title until we have other opinions in the other sections. Right now all we have is the description that it's a failure. (And might I point out that that's not exactly an interpretation, that's a critical evaluation, which is pretty different?)
And it's very misleading to use the phrase "the critics"; despite assuming the facade of external reference through a quotation, using "the" is a claim of universality that disregards all dissenting opinions or viewpoints. "The" is a peacock term that insists a lack of exception and should be avoided in criticism with regard to describing reaction to a work of art, except in indisputable and incontrovertible absolutes of historical record. Such as in the aforementioned article, the phrase "the 17th century poets and authors began to consider him as the supreme dramatist and poet of all times of the English language". There it's okay to use the word "the 17th centurt poets and authors" instead of say "some" or "most", because we've had three hundred years to look back on these people and we know for a fact that the enormous majority of them subscribed to this view, such a majority that we can speak with such illustrative definitiveness. We definitely cannot use the same approach towards a ten year old movie with a divisive critical reaction. VolatileChemical (talk) 07:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The wording "The critics" is not at all intended as a claim of universality. It is just a different way to mention that it's Giroux and Szeman's opinion; it could be "Giroux and Szeman" again, but it is redundant. When one reads the section, it is clear it is their voice alone and not what the world thought of it. I do agree with what you say about making this sub-topic more even-handed, starting with the section heading. We should re-title it "Social commentary" or "Consumerist culture" and review the references below to see what we can cite for this section so it can have more than one point of view. The article is still in its infancy, and I wish I had time to cite the references and to weave together similar sub-topics so all viewpoints are heard. Do you have access to anything below? Erik (talk) 13:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I wrote "The two critics" instead of "The critics" to avoid the appearance of universality, re-titled the section "Consumerist culture", and added a {{POV-section}} tag to the section to show that it is not even-handed yet. Do you have any suggestions to make about the section? The solution may be to temper Giroux and Szeman with other academics covering consumerist culture in a different way. Erik (talk) 13:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I had no problem with the title at the time, but in hindsight the old one was probably not suitable, and gave misleading weight to Giroux and Szeman's opinion. The new one is better, but I guess could be changed depending on future additions. On that, adding other academics' opinions is a good idea to give the section neutrality. But not necessarily the only one; I'm wondering if it's necessary to use the opinion of either "side". What do you anticipate the scope of this article to be? It can be either a straight-up description of the, well, interpretations, or something more, with opinions about whether the film failed or succeeded at presenting such-and-such a theme or commentary At the moment, it's both—none of the other sections come at their subject from the same angle of approval or disapproval—but I can't decide if that works with the article still a work-in-progress. Steve ^T • C 20:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

In reference to the comparison of the making of soap from fat, Chuck Palahniuk has stated that it wasnt based on the Holocaust or the stories of Nazis trying to make soap out of concentration camp inmates. Just trying to be fair here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.227.27.155 (talk • contribs) 14:48, April 26, 2010

Very strong bias in this article; especially in "Consumer Culture" section

A quick review of the references in this article will show that it is biased by definition. The "Consumer Culture" section is based entirely off of one reference that makes a highly specific, non-neutral criticism of the film. This view should of course be included, but this article will never be thorough or worth reading until different interpretations and rebuttals to opposing arguments are included. The other sections are almost equally biased, but the nature of their content is inherently somewhat less egregious than the aforementioned section. DJLayton4 (talk) 15:02, 5 June 2010 (UTC)