{"id":8839,"date":"2022-09-27T06:48:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T06:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthwatchminute.com\/?p=8839"},"modified":"2022-09-27T06:48:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T06:48:00","slug":"the-brad-pitt-fight-club-body-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthwatchminute.com\/?p=8839","title":{"rendered":"The Brad Pitt ‘Fight Club’ Body, Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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EDDIE GUY<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Self-improvement is masturbation.\u201d \u2014Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, Fight Club<\/strong>
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FOR NEARLY 500 YEARS, <\/strong>Michelangelo\u2019s David <\/em>stood in tribute to the ideal male form, and it took Brad Pitt less than 20 seconds to destroy it. For the uninitiated, the moment comes about 45 minutes into his 1999 movie Fight Club, <\/em>when Pitt\u2019s character, Tyler Durden, takes a turn in the underground fighting ring he helped create. After pummeling his opponent into the floor, Durden rises, shirtless and bloody, exposing his full physique to the audience. And we haven\u2019t looked away since. <\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s because while the statue of David is all about perfectly proportional muscles and rippling abs, Durden looked both powerful and degenerate. He was a hard-drinking, chain-smoking antihero with jagged abs shaped like sharks\u2019 teeth and a crazy-low level of body fat. <\/p>\n

The film flopped\u2014at least initially\u2014returning just over half of its $67 million budget domestically. And yet the Brad Pitt Fight Club <\/em>Body has attained near mythological status among men of all stripes. In the early aughts, Pitt\u2019s lean and chiseled look appeared on posters that plenty of guys hung up in their dorm rooms. (I\u2019ll admit, I had one.) A decade later, the movie had become a cult classic and cultural flash point, selling enough DVDs that the special edition was reissued, while in 2013 actor Charlie Hunnam became the first of many leading men to publicly point out how nearly impossible it would be to match Pitt\u2019s physical standard in that role. <\/p>\n

Granted, part of Pitt\u2019s ultra-shredded appeal may have been that he was appearing on the heels of two decades of muscle-bound beefcakes like Arnold and Sly, who presented their own unattainable caricatures of masculinity. Unlike the Terminator or Rambo, Durden was a soap salesman who fought against normal stuff\u2014or, rather, our resignation to complacency and (in his eyes at least) emasculating social norms. Sometimes that meant brawling with random guys in a bar basement, although eventually it led to a darker scheme to free others from our cultural fixation on money as a measure of self-worth. <\/p>\n

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Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden during the now classic Fight Club <\/em>basement scene.<\/p>

20th Century Studios<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But Pitt wasn\u2019t trying to create a fitness ideal like the Hemsworths and Wahlbergs of today, who market themselves as walking wellness brands. It was one part of one character in one movie in a career that contains multitudes. Still, the Durden obsession continues in Hollywood, with stars like Kumail Nanjiani, Dax Shepard, and Rob McElhenney all holding up Pitt\u2019s Fight Club <\/em>body as their own inspiration or ideal. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen that movie came out, there was absolutely a shift,\u201d says Roberto Olivardia, Ph.D., a lecturer in psychology at Harvard Medical School and a coauthor of The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession, <\/em>who helped coin the term \u201cmuscle dysmorphia.\u201d \u201cI started hearing with my patients that the goal wasn\u2019t to look like Muscle & Fitness<\/em>. It was more around Brad Pitt.\u201d Thousands of people still Google some variation of \u201cBrad Pitt Fight Club\u201d every month, with thousands also searching for his workout, according to Semrush, an analytics company that tracks the popularity of online search terms. <\/p>\n

Pitt\u2019s first rule of the Fight Club <\/em>Body may be that he\u2019s no longer interested in talking about the Fight Club <\/em>Body. (He did not respond to our request for an interview.) But plenty of others affected by the movie still fixate on it. Once we tracked them down, they confirmed just how enduring and problematic the illusory standard has become. It turns out there are really three main components to the allure, and like the movie itself, each affects our view of a healthy male body image in more complicated ways than you may think. <\/p>\n

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WHEN M<\/strong>cELHENNEY <\/strong>and Nanjiani appeared on Shepard\u2019s Armchair Expert <\/em>podcast in March 2020, McElhenney shared that the Fight Club <\/em>Body is still \u201cthe primo, number-one all-time body\u201d that his own celebrity trainer has told him guys want to achieve. Shepard agreed and even fanboyed out over the now GIF-able basement scene. \u201cBefore the shirt comes off, you\u2019re not really noticing very much,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when the shirt comes off, you\u2019re like, oh Jesus.\u201d Their entire conversation continued with at least some awareness of the absurdity: At one point, Nanjiani said the actor appears \u201cpretty small\u201d but great, even though that\u2019s the opposite of the superhero idols of today, who are, as McElhenney once put it, \u201cfucking jacked.\u201d <\/p>\n

Therein may lie the biggest appeal for normal guys: Unlike the supreme swoleness of someone like the Rock, Pitt\u2019s physique isn\u2019t about getting outrageously bigger; it\u2019s about honing what you\u2019ve already got under the shirt. In theory, that could make his transformation seem more doable to some men\u2014that is, until you consider exactly who you\u2019re watching. \u201cI have a feeling that this motherfucker kind of walks around looking like that,\u201d McElhenney joked on the podcast. <\/p>\n

Don Saladino, NASM, a Men\u2019s Health <\/em>advisory board member who has trained Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and others, says many of his clients still show up seeking that look, too. But McElhenney\u2019s jokes may have some truth to them: Saladino calls Pitt an \u201cectomorph,\u201d which means his lean frame doesn\u2019t carry much body fat naturally. So he\u2019s got a head start when getting chiseled. As Mike Runyard, the film\u2019s stunt coordinator, told Men\u2019s Health UK <\/em>in a 2016 story about the movie: \u201cBrad just turned up looking like that. That was his deal. I didn\u2019t do anything with him. I saw him using hand weights on set, but that was it.\u201d <\/p>\n

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In Fight Club<\/em>, Pitt\u2019s durden is explicitly anti-fitness.<\/p>

20th Century Studios<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Saladino guesses that the actor also likely went through a \u201ccut\u201d\u2014a period in which bodybuilders and other athletes limit macronutrients and water to lose mass, which can create an ultra-lean, muscular look but comes with side effects, including weakness, irritability, even hormone imbalances and\/or suppressed immune function. All of which is to say, there\u2019s a level of genetics and stunt dieting that probably makes the Fight Club <\/em>Body not achievable for most guys without proper coaching, even though plenty have wrecked themselves in pursuit of it. <\/p>\n

The exact routine that Pitt used to achieve his Fight Club <\/em>physique hasn\u2019t ever been confirmed and is pretty inconsequential. If you\u2019re seeking to reshape your body in a healthy way, hard work and consistency are far more important than a proprietary fitness plan, says Duffy Gaver, author of Hero Maker <\/em>and the trainer who helped Pitt bulk up for 2004\u2019s Troy<\/em>. Gaver thinks Pitt\u2019s true superpower is his motivation. \u201cPeople have this desire to feel special. Like I got a special car, I got special clothes, I got special stuff. I have a special trainer that has a special workout,\u201d he says. \u201cThe idea that there\u2019s a special workout out there is just a fucking marketing thing for the industry to sell you shit.\u201d Tyler Durden couldn\u2019t have said it better himself.<\/p>\n

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THE GLARE <\/strong>of Pitt\u2019s own fame likely made both his onscreen physique and Durden as a character seem even more appealing. When the film first dropped, \u201c[Pitt] was this real, kind of god-level movie star you don\u2019t see anymore,\u201d says Brian Raftery, author of Best. Movie. Year. Ever., <\/em>which explores the landmark films of 1999 as a pop-cultural turning point. <\/p>\n

Pitt had become a heartthrob immediately with his breakthrough role in 1991\u2019s Thelma & Louise <\/em>and by 1995 was displaying range in thrillers like Se7en <\/em>and 12 Monkeys<\/em>. Toss in some high-profile tabloid romances, and by the time Fight Club <\/em>appeared in 1999, Pitt had been named People<\/em>\u2019s Sexiest Man Alive once already, something he\u2019d repeat in 2000. Today he\u2019s the kind of actor (and producer) who, even in his 50s, can still wow audiences both in serious roles and with his shirt off. He did both in 2019\u2019s Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood, <\/em>20 years after Fight Club, <\/em>to earn his first onscreen Oscar, for best supporting actor. Check out IMDb and you can see that Pitt\u2019s had plenty of other thirsty roles. (Gaver even made Pitt\u2019s workouts for Troy <\/em>available online and in his book, but the Brad Pitt Achilles Body has never quite taken off.) <\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s because Fight Club<\/em>\u2019s Tyler Durden seems like someone you could <\/em>conceivably sit next to on a plane and wind up becoming friends with, even if he\u2019s played by Pitt. He has everything an impressionable young man could want\u2014the stylishly absurd wardrobe, marathon sex sessions with Helena Bonham Carter\u2019s Marla Singer, and no scruples about his behavior\u2014but he doesn\u2019t make those things feel beyond the audience\u2019s reach, either. \u201cPeople walking out of Fight Club <\/em>weren\u2019t thinking, Boy, Tyler Durden is really a dangerous person to emulate, and Edward Norton\u2019s character\u2019s really not well,<\/em>\u201d Raftery says. \u201cThey walked out thinking, Man, Tyler Durden is cool, and Brad Pitt looks awesome, and that\u2019s who I want to be.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n

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Pitt as Durden in Fight Club<\/em> is explicitly anti-fitness.<\/p>

20th Century Studios<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It helps that Durden is no superhero. The character is even explicitly <\/em>anti\u2013fitness regimen, chain-smoking throughout the film. In one scene, immediately before his shirtless fight, Durden and Edward Norton\u2019s narrator critique a Gucci underwear ad on a bus, with Durden scoffing at the male models. (A nice sentiment, even if it is coming from Brad Pitt.) <\/p>\n

Rather than honing his muscles, Durden is more concerned with using them\u2014the same mindset held by adherents of functional fitness, yoga, and MMA training, all pursuits that have since risen to prominence in the fitness industry. A comment Pitt made to CNN in 1999, responding to critics\u2019 complaints about the film\u2019s violent themes, echoed this ethos. \u201cThe idea is just to get in there, have an experience, take a punch, more importantly, and see how you come out on the other end\u2014test yourself,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Pitt humanized that experience so well that Durden became unforgettable. \u201cWhen people talk about chemistry onscreen, they\u2019re usually talking about two people, how they get along,\u201d says Raftery. \u201cBut there\u2019s also chemistry between the performer and the character they play, where it becomes so inseparable that if you were to see Brad Pitt walking down the street a couple weeks after Fight Club <\/em>came out, would you think that\u2019s Brad Pitt? Or would you think that\u2019s Tyler Durden?\u201d <\/p>\n

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THERE\u2019S ONE MORE <\/strong>aspect to the Fight Club <\/em>Body that men may envy, even if it\u2019s not immediately easy to pinpoint. \u201cThere was actually something even more threatening about [Durden] than Hulk Hogan,\u201d says Olivardia, the Harvard psychologist, calling back to a longtime body-dysmorphic trigger. \u201c[Pitt\u2019s] body really communicated this message of functionality.\u201d <\/p>\n

Especially by the end of the film, when Norton\u2019s and Pitt\u2019s characters finally face off: Durden appears to carry himself like an accomplished fighter, seamlessly switching between martial-arts stances. At one point he holds his arms out wide, as though inviting anyone to stop him. <\/p>\n

Pitt reportedly took boxing and taekwondo classes with Norton to prepare for his fights. He\u2019s since continued such hands-on training whenever a role demands it (see: Snatch, Troy, <\/em>and even Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood<\/em>). \u201cHe put in a lot of time, as he does with all his movies,\u201d says Robert Alonzo, a stunt coordinator who helped Pitt develop the hand-to-hand chops needed to play stuntman and former soldier Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood<\/em>. \u201cHe\u2019s very committed, and so obviously the proof is in the pudding. You see it onscreen.\u201d <\/p>\n

Onscreen, Pitt\u2019s level of physical comfort and flow comes off as something else. Even way back with Durden, he had swagger (long before that term became overused). It\u2019s like he\u2019s constantly aware of his body and what it can do. I know about that feeling because, years after that Fight Club <\/em>poster came down from my wall, I took up Muay Thai, training four to six days a week for four years. Over time, the sport taught me that you don\u2019t need to beat someone down to feel stronger. If you can focus on technique and keep your primal urges in check, you\u2019ll gain an almost palpable sense of self-control. That\u2019s something I recognize in Pitt\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

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BRAD PITT THROUGH THE YEARS<\/h5>\n

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