We’ve all clicked our heels and said ‘there’s no place like home’ while longing to get back to our pad, have uttered ‘Houston, we have a problem’ when there’s a snag in our grand plan or have given someone a much-needed dose of honesty before yelling, ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ – but most of us haven’t been able to use any of these iconic lines to absolutely boss an essay, like this young woman did.
And the risk paid off massively for Allison Garrett, as she ended up scoring top marks on her uni project.
The young woman, from the US, explained that she and her classmates had been tasked with completing an assignment which involved writing a review on a film that they had watched.
She decided to produce a paper about David Fincher’s 1999 smash hit starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, Fight Club.
Edward Norton and Brad Pitt in Fight Club (20th Century Fox)
The movie follows the journey of an unnamed white-collar worker suffering from insomnia who strikes up a friendship with a soap salesman.
Known only as The Narrator, Norton’s character is pretty much in a constant state of sleeplessness and he isn’t exactly chuffed with how the rest of his life is going either.
After ‘meeting’ Tyler Durden (Pitt), he becomes close with the dodgy salesman and the pair decide to set up an underground fight club/soap-making scheme, while viewers watch them both become increasingly unhinged.
Things start to get seriously out of control when Tyler recruits more members for Fight Club, as it turns into an army of anarchists who rebrand as ‘Project Mayhem’, while causing chaos on the streets in a bid to disrupt social order.
In and among all the scrapping and psychological twists, there’s a string of incredible lines littered in the script.
But there’s one line which came out of Pitt’s mouth which really takes the cake – and Allison decided to use his words of wisdom to make her homework a whole lot easier.
In a post on X originally shared in 2019, she wrote: “The assignment description for essay 5 was to write a review on a movie that we had seen. The opportunity arose, and I took my chances…”
The then-student managed to complete her film review in just 19 words while bagging a mark of 100/100 by simply writing: “The first rule of fight club is: you do not talk about fight club.”
Clarifying she was dead serious about her submission to her professor, she added at the bottom of the page: “That’s it, that’s my essay.”
I’m sure Fight Club fans around the world want to give her a pat on the back for that one, but they will likely want to shake her professor’s hand too, as they couldn’t help but be amused by Allison pushing her luck.
Giving her some feedback on how she bagged full marks, the teacher wrote: “I struggled over this grade for a long time. I finally decided you get a grade for a laugh and how relevant your review is for this particular movie.
“Let me warn you: do NOT try this kind of thing with other professors; they may not have my sense of humour.”
Allison Garrett perfectly repurposed Pitt’s iconic line in the 1999 film for her essay (X/@alligarrett10)
After her tweet went viral, Allison shared some updates on the Fight Club essay saga, explaining that she ‘passed the class with an A’ – and that her teacher apparently almost got the sack because of the popularity of her post.
“I took this professor again this semester,” she explained. “I walked in, and he said, ‘Hey Alli! I just want to say, your tweet almost got me fired, but if I were going to go out, that’s the way it should’ve been. So, thank you’.”
Reflecting on the contents of her essay, she added: “I cannot say that I am sorry because that would be a lie. Am I proud? Yes.”
A host of social media users were also beaming with pride after her boldness paid off, while some fellow students even admitted they were inspired to take a leaf out of her book.
One said: “I have a 10 page paper about a movie due and I’m contemplating this now.”
Another wrote: “Next chance I get I’m going to try this. Also this instructor should give you a B on this assignment. Only a B because you forgot to site your sources.”
Her professor couldn’t help but be amused – however, not all teachers were as supportive of her pushing her luck (X/@alligarrett10)
A third added: “That professor is an absolute legend.”
A fourth wrote: “Nice!!! Glad your teacher was a good sport!”
But it was the reaction from other teachers that really got people talking, as it seemed as though educators were left pretty divided by Allison’s essay hack.
One said: “Kudos to you! I wish some of my students had the creativity and boldness you’ve had.”
However, another reckoned that Allison’s professor had been far too generous when deciding on her grade.
They commented: “As a teacher, I would say, ‘Clever!’ But I’d still give you an F. If your teacher’s assignment was that vague though, you could argue it.”
There’s always one, isn’t there?
