Readers Take a Moral Swing at Defender of ‘Fight Club’

David Green seems to think that presenting graphic, over-the-top scenes of violence counts as praiseworthy artistic expression, and he disses Kenneth Turan for holding “traditional values of right and wrong” (“The ‘Fight Club’ Debate: Just What Is the Message Here?,” Nov. 1). This attitude is why parents worry about the violence in computer games, music and movies.

Parents are afraid that their kids will become desensitized to violence to the point that they will embrace it as something cool. The fact that “Fight Club” failed to make Green flinch underscores the disturbing perception that a lot of teenagers (especially those who do not live in high-crime areas) see violence as an abstract experience: another vacuous, emotionally orgasmic component of a self-absorbed, entertainment-focused (and, yes, consumer-driven) youth culture.

Green fails to realize that subversiveness for its own sake is not a virtue. There is nothing socially beneficial in a style of entertainment that encourages us to have a casual attitude toward violence.

“Fight Club” may deserve kudos for its counter-normative style, but all those cool cinematic techniques do not make the sadomasochistic horrors of this movie any less sickening.

CAMERON M. TURNER

Monrovia

My faith in Kenneth Turan was kindled when he trashed “Titanic.” So I gallop to his defense in this case. It may be a generation thing, since David Green is 16 and I am 73, but in his Counterpunch, I read nothing that could induce me to overcome my reluctance to see “Fight Club,” in spite of stylistic or structural fireworks. His enthusiasm for the film is clear, but it’s pure adrenaline and other hormones speaking.

So thanks, but no thanks. I see enough pummeling and bloodied faces in national and international daily news, and I fail to “get” the aesthetic beauty in that either.

RACHEL ROSENTHAL

Los Angeles

Having seen both “Fight Club” and David Green’s Counterpunch with “open eyes,” I can draw only the following conclusion:

If “Fight Club” represents the voice of anybody, it’s young American men who are socially privileged and emotionally immature. That is, male individuals who are wealthy, spoiled, insensitive, unimaginative, superficial, selfish, brutish, boorish, homophobic and misogynistic. If Green thinks this describes his “new generation,” that’s his prerogative. However, I believe the most compelling reason behind the rule “Don’t talk about Fight Club” is because the film is lousy and insults most people’s intelligence.

REBECCA EPSTEIN

Los Angeles

Green, like any other artist or filmmaker, is entitled to whatever vision of humanity he wishes to produce. However, as an individual parent, and collectively for most parents, I reject his vision as being that of “a whole new generation.”

I work hard as a parent to inculcate values, love, honor and decency in my own son, such that he should never feel the need for “Armani suits, Fred Segal haircuts, Prada shoes, cell phones,” etc., to define his self-worth and purpose in society. Nor should he feel the need to destroy whatever there is in society in order to live his own life.

MAUDE HAM

Burbank