My Story: Part Two

Why ‘Fight Club?’

Alright, so who even names their gender cell initiative Fight Club? I mean, Fight Club is a movie about the destruction of society, male chauvinism, rejection of modern capitalist lifestyles and borderline glorifies a hyper-aggressive, unhinged and dangerous way of living to break-away from our mundane ‘feminine’ lifestyles in favour of the ‘manly’. So, what gives?

Well, there exactly lies the heart of our Fight Club. The idea is to not just rightly identify all that is wrong about something, like mentioned above, and to work on ways to rectify them, but also to find the good from the most obscure of places and to put them into practice to make society just that bit better. It’s all about the perspective you see. The reason we ended up drawing inspiration from the infamous film, was because of the idea of egalitarianism it depicted and how it preached for everyone to live true to themselves, as they really are, unbridled from the imposed notions of society. 

The Fight Club belonged to no particular person. Every member was Fight Club and no one could definitely be pointed out to say, “that person runs the Fight Club”. Heck, even Tyler Durden himself, who led the entire fiasco was himself dispensable, for if anyone ever strayed from its objectives, even Tyler himself, then it’s the Club which is to move forward with its plans and fulfill its goals. Taking inspiration from this, the Fight Club Collective (FCC) as we call it, has no real leader as well. Some people give it shape and structure, guide the course it takes and oversee its functioning, but in a way, everyone is like Tyler here. They all are leaders in their own right, but they all are dispensable too. Like Tyler, if tomorrow any of the members is no longer in the club, the collective as whole swoops in and fills up the vacuum, making sure that the Collective keeps working towards its goals. Egalitarianism is a core tenet of the FCC. There’s no real hierarchy. Everyone works towards the same goal and the newest member holds the same say as the oldest. It is important to note here that it is a self-fuelling endeavour, whoever comes in has to contribute in some way. (it could be anything, literally)

On the point of living true to yourself; Fight Club really preached living out one’s inner instincts. It showed the importance of expressing yourself and letting your inner-self out. Keeping yourself limited and not acting out on your desires because society would look down upon it was for the losers. Similarly, the FCC intends to help people live out themselves. It doesn’t matter if you are queer, trans, gay, or lie anywhere on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, you should be able to live as yourself openly with your own chosen identity (<3). Society shouldn’t dictate for you how you should live or act or love. Be yourself and express yourself openly in your own ways, as members of the Fight Club did. The Fight Club was a place of brotherhood and camaraderie, a place of acceptance. Everyone was accepted and appreciated as equal. The FCC too shall be such a place. 

Further, Fight Club gave us a lot to think about. Its depiction of hyper-masculinity, male chauvinism, and disdain for all things feminine was a perfect display of just how comical these things really are despite them sounding all fancy and macho in the beginning. It made us realise the inherent flaws in such ideologies and just how dangerous they were to everyone. So rather than just focus on the negatives, we realised what all needed to be corrected and how important it was to correct such problematic behaviour. All the more reason we really associated with the film and thus the name. 

Finally, on the conclusion front. The movie concluded with the execution of Project Mayhem. A project aimed at erasing all social-financial constraints and making everyone equal, placing everyone on the same plane, a fresh start. Similarly, the FCC was begun with a certain conclusion in mind, its own Project Mayhem of sorts, and it culminates with the formation of an official and authorized gender cell in RMLNLU, which will deal with all sorts of issues related to gender and sexuality. This will be our attempt at setting things right, of trying to change things for the better once and for all. For too long, we have sat on the fence and let things move past. With the FCC and its Project Mayhem, we aim to correct what has been lost and to put everyone on an equal footing. It is time for everyone to be their own Tyler Durden now and take this thing to its logical conclusion, establishing a gender cell in RML. 

There is more to the fight club collective and for that, please watch out for Part 3 of this narrative. 

Enough talk now. Let’s fight!

Write to us at: 

fightclubrmlnlu@gmail.com

Suggestions, ideas, some encouragement are more than welcome 🙂

– Written by an earnest member of the fight club collective, who for the time being will stay anonymous.

Artwork Credits: We’re happy to share that the artwork displayed along with this post is created by Muskan Sirohi of Batch 2023. Her beautiful piece has succinctly depicted the core idea behind this collective, that is, diversity. 

(The Journal Committee or the Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University does not endorse the same, the views and initiative are of the Author)