There is an old urban legend that states if you say “American Psycho” three times in an empty room a chino clad man child, who spent his summer interning at Goldman Sachs, will magically appear. He will then tell you that American Psycho is single-handedly the best movie ever committed to film. These men will then melt like the Wicked Witch of the West when you tell them that their bible of manhood was, in fact, directed by a woman.
Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Pyscho, Moviemaker.com
American Psycho is one of those films that ‘real men’ hold up as the archetype of what it means to be successful and male; trapping you in dark corners at parties to spit at you that “lunch is for the weak” and that their idol in life is Jordan Belfort, Patrick Bateman, Tyler Durden. If you are really lucky, he may worship all three. Each pumped up caricature of masculinity bleeds into one misconstrued idea of ‘maleness’, the point of the films often lost on those who cling to the belief that having seen Fight Club is enough of a personality trait to make up for growing up in suburbia. Spoiler alert, it is not.
Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in Fight Club, Medium.com
However, where American Psycho stands out from the overcrowded market of what I like to call, ‘stock bro porn’, is with its cut-throat analysis of the capitalist system and the men who worship at its altar. The fact that these fanboys often fail to see the mocking undertones of a film that holds no punches in its critique of male greed, is really the cherry on top.
Bret Easton Ellis’ novel, from which the film is adapted, lays a foundation of satire attacking the dual morality of Reagan’s 1980s; a decade of fast money, fast morals and the ‘American dream’. However, it is Mary Harron’s bold and unapologetic 2000 adaptation that moulded American Pyscho, and Patrick Bateman, into a trojan horse of feminist and Marxist critique.
As a character, Bateman doesn’t just represent capitalist greed and the consumerism that plagued Reagan’s America, he is capitalism itself. Ellis took inspiration from a section of the 14th amendment, which allows for companies to be seen as individuals; Bateman is an experiment in what that individual would look like. By stripping him of the fraught family relationships found in the novel, Harron births Bateman unnaturally into her adaptation’s narrative. He has no family, no real roots or responsibilites. By removing a justifying backstory, and a chance at pity, as an audience we are forced to evaluate his actions for what they are. We are presented with a black and white approach to ‘sin’ which feels cuttingly close to the capitalist machine he represents in all his violent glory. Capitalism cares little for excuses and tragic backstories after all.
It is a beautifully twisted film, and beauty is what Bateman craves. He is the perfect consumer. He reads all the reviews, appreciates the finer points of restaurant design, and wants only the best. The only issue is, none of it is fulfilling. Watching Christain Bale as Bateman hack into a fellow businessman to the upbeat pop classic, ‘Hip to be Square’ by Huey Lewis, is almost beautiful in its comedic timing and ugly violence. This is a film with a rhythm and a beat it rarely misses until its chaotic, messy end. Despite Bateman being the perfect consumer, no amount of Valentino suits, reservations at the trendiest restaurants or pop music can fill the shallow void that comes from vanity and its pursuit over substance.
American Psycho is hardly a feminist film, but it does not need to be in order to critique the masculine greed of capitalism which is as present in 2021 as it was in the early 2000s and in the 1980s. Harron’s critique doesn’t come from her perspective as a female, it comes from her perspective as being one of the others, the ones that capitalism often forgets to serve. Capitalism, and Batmen, fail to see the beauty and the worth in the world outside their office on Wall Street, and as a result, their world is unfulfilling, hollow, and unsustainable.
The film may be worshipped, and somewhat marred, by the future generation of stockbrokers and politicians, but 20 years later it is still a trojan horse of beautiful satire and sharp critique. Harron is still getting the last laugh, and in 2021, we all need some more of that.
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