50 Movies for 50 States Part 3, I Am Jack's Swollen Prostate

First off, a little side-note. I like Google Maps, and I use it to search out all kinds of things, especially in Las Vegas. The grid-like form of Vegas streets, while easy to navigate, means every street is packed full of little businesses. Between that and the tourista nature of the city, each block is packed with little franchise shops easily recognized by travelers and immigrants, and so it makes finding cool indy businesses a difficult task.

So, I search on Google Maps for little shops off the beaten path. Everytime a new biz opens, its certainly added to the map. Today, my quest was to find a local movie rentals so I could get a copy of Trick R Treat to review. Blockbuster is too expensive... and I have late fees there... so I quested to find a little shop run by some college drop-out with a movie fetish that might be able to feed my hunger for lesser known, high quality cinema.

After browsing around, I find only one that exists on my side of the strip, and I go. After about an hour of cruising around, I discover the fault of Google maps: they put up every business as it opens, but dont' remove any of them when they close down. The once frequented Pacific Video has been replaced with an Indian Supermarket, run by a family that was probably confused by the cursing white man who kept circling their building. Interesting point, though, they also have a tattoo shop in the back of their grocery.

Damn you, Blockbuster, damn you to Hell.

Anyway, next on the list.

3. Delaware- Fightclub

I think Delaware might have set this up. It seems to be an obvious trap that one of the coolest (and as a result, over-quoted by people who probably really don't get the context or agenda of the work) movies ever takes place in Delaware... and is pretty much the ONLY movie that takes place in Delaware. If you go to Wikipedia and look at their list of movies from Delaware, all they have is the recent Triggerman.

In fact, before my research pointed me to Fight Club, my initial choice for the state was Waynes World for this telling sequence:

So, why Delaware? The state is never explicitly mentioned in Fight Club, though street names that are mentioned point to Wilmington.

Fight Club is more than just a ode to brutality and anti-consumerism. Fight Club is about one man's schrizophrenic attempt to find man's true nature, believing it to be anarchy, the state of nature. Tyler Durden's snide attitude may seem funny and quirky, but the overall message he, and Chaos, Inc. seem to be spreading is that man is becoming weak. We're sick. Capitolism is a disease that threatens to wipe out mankind, and the primary symptom is debt. Brainwashed into buying, into needing, the many and fit are sickened, tricked into pouring the fruits of their labors into the pits belonging to a few weak-yet-dominant individuals. of course, in Fight Club, the cornerstone of this fallicy lies squarely on the shoulders of Credit Agencies.

And that's why Delaware is so important. It seems almost symbolic that the first state of the American Union is the cornerstone for all of the credit card and consumer credit agencies, the five or six entities that control the lives of over 200 million individuals... and more, if you consider how Mastercard and Visa are now must-have items in foreign nations. Control of the world's financial markets lie in Delaware, and Fight Club asserts that the first step to personal freedom is to bring those companies to the ground.

Whether you agree with this message or not, people seem to have found a lot of appealing ideas in this Palahniuk adaptation. There are many themes of personal pride, integrity, and independent thinking that stand out in this vision of a world buried in muck and detritus.

So, Delaware, there you have it. Your defining moment: home to a group of organizations that threaten to enslave mankind through a series of imaginary numbers and arbitrary scores. Throne of the devil. But still, a nicer place to live than Detroit.