September 11th attack shocked the film industry as much as everything else. After immediate reaction of censoring sensitive images, films changed their tone drastically. The most famous case is probably Independence Day(1996) and War of the Worlds(2005). Former treated mass destruction with tounge in cheek, "We will survive" tone, while latter is more serious and "Humans are real animals" tone.
Fight Club
I recently watched Fight Club and it was very pre-9/11 with some late 90s film tropes. The 'Narrator' is dissatisfied with his boring but stable life and rebels to conformist society (American Beauty, Office Space). He joins radical, sexy underground group (Matrix). Their terrorism is treated tongue in cheek way with very little human cost (True Lies).
I won't summarize entire plot of Fight Club, but the 3rd act is centered around Project Mayhem. Fight Club turned from guys punching each other to full blown cult, as members shave their head, moves to old house, and work day and night for free. Their actions evolved from feeding pigeons diarrhea medicine to blowing away credit card companies to end credit society. 'Narrator' freaks out of Project Mayhem but the movie mostly sticks to tongue in cheek or even anti hero tone. Only one death is shown and even that is a member shot by police. Tyler Durdon, leader of the club, insist no one will die from bombing.
And why it reminded me of Four Lions
The whole third act reminded me of Four Lions(2010). A British film about unbelievably dumb jihadists from Northern England. It's 180 degrees different from Fight Club. For example unlike Fincher's smooth and precise camera work in Fight Club, Four Lions uses documentary style hand held camera popularized by The Office.
But the biggest difference is how they portray terrorism. Fight Club is led by muscular Brad Pitt with sexy outfit, and he gives charismatic speech about consumerism and masculinity. Pitt's portrayal of Tyler Durden is so great it got infamous for getting uncritical worship from naive audiences.
Jihadists in Four Lions wears unassuming cloth, lives in dull place, gives ridiculous speech or even rap. Their belief is mix of pop culture, vague anger to consumerism and very limited knowledge about Islam (one guy can't understand how praying to Mecca works) Those jihadists' plan is wearing bomb under silly costume and blow themselves in London Marathon, which goes horribly but hilariously wrong.
Differences and similarites
The difference between two films came from the period they were made. Fight Club was made when terrorism wasn't top concern in people's mind, even though we experienced major terror attacks in 1995 Oklahoma City and 1993 WTC. Four Lions was made when terrorism was major threat, to a level we overestimated the danger so much we invaded Iraq.
But they have similarites too. They precisely portrayed how cults control followers by humiliation and sense of belonging. They twist our expectation on terrorism. Their protagonist is soft speaking cult leader who lost control what they started. And this is my favorite similarity, they have gay characters who joins group to prove their masculinity. Narrater in Fight Club is famously queer coded. Barry in Four Lions, the only white member of the group, is closeted gay man who 'test' other jihadists by making them pee on his mouth.
My writing got too long as I write. I hope it's readable. If you haven't watch these movies, I highly recommemd watching them both, preferably as double feature. They make each other even funnier, as I can see Fight Club is what extremists imagine themselves, but they're actually just idiots in Four Lions.
Other countries that experienced strong growth in 80s like US, UK or Australia kept grow to late 2000s. Though Japan fell into stagnation in 90s like Italy, they grew constantly from 50s to 80s. What made Italy different from these countries?