“The White Man’s Bruce Lee”: Race and the Construction of White Masculinity in David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999)

Born theoretically white, we are permitted to pass our childhood as imaginary Indians, our adolescence as imaginary Negroes, and only then are expected to settle down to being what we really are: white once more.

—Leslie A. Fiedler

There is something at least a little bit odd about the representation of Asian American masculinity in Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999). The film’s only Asian American character with a significant speaking part appears just once; and even though he looks unambiguously Asian, he has a European family name. A Korean American actor, Joon B. Kim, plays an unlucky liquor store clerk whom the hyper-masculine Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), one of the film’s two male leads, drags into a dark alley. Forcing him to his knees, he tells the weeping young man that he will shoot him in the head. “There’s going to be nothing left of your face,” Tyler intones, causing the Asian American man to emit a high-pitched squeal. “Raymond K. Hessel,” Tyler asks as he inspects the clerk’s expired community college identification card, “what did you study?” Raymond’s terror prevents him from responding. Fearing a violent outcome, the other male lead, the film’s nameless narrator (whom Edward Norton, the actor who plays him, calls Jack),¹ implores him to speak. “Answer him, Raymond!” “Animal s-s-s-stuff,” stutters the clerk. Tyler wants to know why he quit. “I-I don’t know,” Raymond stutters some more, “too much school.” Tyler continues the interrogation, “Would you rather die here on your knees in the back of a convenience store” or finish school? Under threat of death, Tyler orders him to complete his veterinarian education. “I know where you live,” he whispers to Raymond. The camera pulls in tight to Jack’s face, which registers disgust. “I think I’m going to be sick,” he mutters.

After Tyler orders Raymond to run away, the scene takes a turn. “That wasn’t funny,” Jack shouts, “what the fuck was the point of that?” By way of a response, Tyler shows Jack that the gun has no bullets, retroactively turning his sadism into benevolent paternalism. Even though Tyler had earlier identified Raymond as a “human sacrifice,” implying murder, Raymond was never in any danger. “Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel’s life,” says Tyler, “his breakfast will taste better than any meal that you and I have ever tasted.” Jack’s affect changes from disgust to quiet admiration. It turns out that Tyler perpetrated the charade to force Raymond out of a self-defeating passivity. By Tyler’s logic, once Raymond had faced death, what he had formerly considered to be insurmountable would seem much less so. “He had a plan,” says Jack’s voiceover, “and it started to make sense.”

From Tyler’s point of view, Raymond represents the many American men emasculated by an American society circa 1999 dominated by corporations and consumerism. The “plan” to which Jack’s voiceover refers involves helping such men to recover their masculinity through physical violence. With Jack’s help, Tyler founds Fight Club, an underground group in which men recoup what they take to be their inherent masculine selves through bare-knuckle brawling. Fight Club starts off as a loose association with a handful of members grappling late at night in a tavern parking lot. But because contemporary society has marginalized so many, it quickly gains members and momentum, eventually replicating franchises across the nation.

The “human sacrifice” scene emphasizes Raymond’s emasculation by rehearsing the stereotypical gender binary that defines feminine behavior as weak and passive and masculine behavior as strong and active. Tyler’s domination of Raymond is total. He stands rock solid while holding the gun to Raymond’s head; Raymond’s body undulates with fear. Tyler is calm; sweat glazes Raymond’s face. Tyler’s voice is low and composed with no articulated pauses; Raymond’s speech alternates between stuttering and high-pitched whimpering and crying...