In this technology era where Americans have never been more connected, author Susan Faludi argues that american manhood has become totally disconnected from previous roles in society and useful primarily as a consumer. However, I disagree because Faludi is essentially arguing that men have an instinctive way and that society is the sole catalyst in their response. This presumption assumes that there is one way to be male, and that way is portrayed as very barbaric. An example of this can be seen in the movie Fight Club.
Fight Club highlights the economic superfluity of the American male because members of the fight club all are overworked and underpaid and fight club is a way to reject, "We've all been raised to believe that we'll be millionaires and movie idols. But we won't!" Demonstrating his disappointment and bitterness towards the American Dream. There is much focus on economic status in the film. Gray-collar men are criticized by Tyler, but he also tries to empower them to overcome social stratification and the trap of working for someone else. Tyler pretends to rob a convenience store, tells the clerk he is going to murder him and then tells him that if he does not pursue the dream he originally held that he will be dead in six weeks. This implies that the motivation to succeed must come from the individual. The narrator (Jack) demonizes the upper class when he blackmails his boss to put him on salary for not revealing the company's unscrupulous business practices and quits his job as a recall coordinator. This implies that the people at the top of society are slaves to the service class that Jack/Tyler belongs to. There is a certain disdain for the classes higher than Jack, but then Tyler is the side of Jack that is brave enough to reject materialism. Tyler believes, though he works at a restaurant and as a projectionist, is not truly one of the class of gray-collar workers. At one point, Jack interrogates a worker in a dry cleaning facility and is disgusted by him and tells him how he isn’t special, and he puts him down for his occupation. The working poor are lulled into cooperating and staying in the service of richer classes because they are mislead to believe that if they work hard they will ascend to higher security and status.
The superfluous male does not extend itself across generations because, according to Tyler, this generation of men has had no great wars in which they could prove their toughness and worth, and serving someone richer than them does not allow the working man to test themselves. It is for all males who have been forced to work for other superfluous males without having the opportunity to prove their worth in other ways.
Perhaps there is a kernal of truth in Faludi’s argument, but this condition is not exclusive in males. In the blog, JUST JEN, the author posted about women struggling to define themselves in the working world without disconnecting themselves from their previous roles in society. “Women should be able to live knowing that they are “doing the right thing for themselves and for the people who depend on them” without having to compromise achieving their fullest potential in their career and in their personal life” (Robinson).
I think that what should be taken from Faludi’s theory is that the roles of men and women are changing, but this identity change does not come from a man or woman’s role as a consumer. Instead, this change seems to have been sparked by a shift in the working world. Maybe Faludi is right; maybe identities are being skewed because men need to fight and women need to care for their children. Regardless, it seems to me that the true problem is that people are defining themselves by the work they do. There seems to be a problem with both men and women sacrificing the things they care about for their careers. This is because in America success is measured by occupation. People are defining themselves by how much they make instead of measuring their success by more ethical means. The only remedy would be to lower the competition level in the work place, and to change policies in such a way that is more conducive to allowing workers to take time off to pursue things other than their career, like their families.
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