The singular takehome from the move isn’t that we’re (nearly) all being exploited … the French Revolution was a long time ago now … and the English Civil War (which the French malcontents had referred to as “The glorious English revolution”) over a hundred years before that — we didn’t need Karl Marx to tell us.
No … the most important message of Fight Club was/is
It’s a working class movie about, and for, the working class. Oh, yes it is: it doesn’t matter how much you earn, if you weren’t born into wealth and have (had) to work to make ends meet … to make that income … you are working class; and anyone who says otherwise has an agenda (almost certainly that of ensuring that you don’t cause them trouble by recognising that fact) — you might like to consider yourself better than others because you’re ‘middle class’, but the aristocracy look down on you just as much as they do the other peasants.
Most significantly of all though, it’s about and for working class revolution. And that is why it wasn’t recognised and awarded, not because ‘Boomers’ didn’t like it. If it had been made today, it wouldn’t have been recognised either — the Establishment don’t like it … and they never will (not until the nature of Society, and who and what governs it, changes). Wait until some Gen ZZ-Plural-Z-Alpha filmmaker makes a similar work … the Gen X establishment isn’t gonna acclaim it either.
Finally. consider that you live in the US, so your experience is influenced by that.
I’m not sure that the US could ever have produced Trainspotting, for instance … next to which (however much I might like it), Fight Club is comparatively tame — revolutionary, sure, but still very middle class.
Here in the UK, art is typically grittier than in the US. Compare the high-octane antics of boys in da hood popping caps in each other’s ass with something like Kingsman or The Transporter. Look at Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch — even our comedic moments involve someone repeatedly slamming another’s head in against the jam with a car door rather than beautifully choreographed bullet-time ballets.
It’s quite possible that Fight Club might’ve won if only Hollywood more of a British aesthetic to start with.
