The Trap Works

Fight Club remains relevant because its mechanism keeps working:

• Tyler's critique of consumer emptiness is genuinely accurate
• His solution — destruction through charismatic leadership — is fascistic
• The twist reveals that ideology can be a form of mental illness
• Audiences who celebrate Tyler prove the film's point about seduction by ideology
• The film is a trap: your response to it reveals what you actually believe

Fight Club is one of the rare films that uses the audience's own reactions as evidence for its argument. If you love Tyler, you have missed the point. If you understand why you loved Tyler, you have found it.