What is it that defines a person’s depth? What use is it in trying to fit into a shallow herd of sheep that never change? How much have we sacrificed of ourselves to avoid society's judgement? American Psycho, directed by Mary Hallon (and novel written by Bret Easton Ellis) is a satire psychological film reflecting on the aspects of wealthy American yuppie culture: eroding creativity and individuality with money, drinking and desire. Patrick Bateman is a man who despises his position surrounded with such shallow, dismissive people and can’t bear the thought of being one of them, consistently trying to scream to the world that he’s alive by adopting fake layers of interest to try and brand an identity to himself. However, deep inside Bateman is a psychopathic monster that converts his jealousy and self-condemnation into violent blood-lust. The film exploits themes of identity, masculinity and comprehension and I will try my best to explore some of the film’s greatest depths and symbolism.
Bateman consistently tries to be the perfect man with standards by simply refusing to let anyone get in the way of him being the perfect guide to anyone he pleases’ satisfaction. This is shown in moments such as when he insists the detective have an expensive drink and when he assures his date they’ll get a seat at her restaurant of choice even after the reception tells him it’s been booked out, then trying to delay it for as long as possible and casually trying to convince her to stay to keep his credibility. He even obliviously tries to seem less suspicious in his interrogation of Paul Allan’s disappearance, conducted by himself, by pushing standards to the limit as he thinks they’re a sort of shield or suggesting he’s sacrificed so much for improving his image that he’s made no effort to master the basic aspects outside of the typical perfectly-styled man, such as gaining different perceptions of basic things. He’s been doing the reverse of his intentions all along but refuses to admit it by continuing his bloodshed and paranoia of the smallest elements.
The most divine example of perceptions, and the comprehensions that go with them, for Bateman undergoes when he exchanges business cards with his colleagues. We don’t see much difference in them at all, but Bateman sees every difference immaculately and gets infuriated with his supposed inferior one. We can think of Bateman as his business card too, seeing the smallest details in people and ripping them wide open with trying to best them in every way, whereas we wouldn’t tend to differ Bateman’s dress from the others as well as the business cards, with the audience’s impressions being reflected when someone even mistakes Bateman for his rival, Paul, with the only difference between the two being their ties but Bateman simply refuses to accept himself as a plain card and claims he has a ‘slightly’ better haircut, showing his self-centered egotistical self refuses to seep away into the crowd. His psychopathic tendencies seem to feed off his pointless comparisons, shown in its brightest colours when he ends up murdering his rival, Paul, with an axe for presumably having a more stylish business card.
The irony is that all the ‘american dream’ people see each other as the business cards, too tangled in their everyday caffufs of smoking jackets and money discussion to truly distinguish each other. What’s furtherly ironic is that Bateman’s psychopathic side makes him the most genuine and real person there but chooses to try and match up to the best details when nobody cares enough to even solidly identify him, with him getting mistaken for someone else twice in the film. He claims to distinguish himself by having refined tastes in music and food (lapping up everything from the dates of album release to the hidden themes and messages in the lyrics) when it’s clear he’s merely rehearsed punchy descriptions of fancy menu items and albums (you don’t even see him eating!) practically looking like he’s a guy off a colourful ad or radio show when he’s just talking to a colleague or his fiancé, truly showing how desperate he is to get approval from everyone and gets completely self-centered by being fake to the point where he sees it as normal, to which people continue to take no notice of or pin him as being ridiculous.
It’s likely that he doesn’t even like these artists whom he claims are ‘mainstream’ or is listening to anything with the headphones he wears most of the time but is instead just trying to look interesting.
On one occasion, he’s even seen watching pornographic films but doesn’t even seem turned on. He’s seemingly building another fake layer by seeming like he knows the best sex, only to demonstrate to prostitutes who only see sex for the money, but, again, he doesn’t see this and his constant revisiting of them and the same dismissive treatments he gets off them most likely led to further anxiety bursts of his mental illness.
Bateman’s self-absorbance is also shown when he boasts his glamorous speeches when his company is clearly drunk or hungover, seeming like his delusions are increasing to the point where he gets no concept of reality. Centering every situation around himself and getting agitated when the attention drifts, trying to convince everyone he’s the best choice. He once says ‘you could always be thinner’ when Jane, his colleague and date, says he looks too good to be dieting, as though his monster is his true self and his outer-shell is a rock he tries to throw as hard as he can, growing more violent with each throw as he knows each one isn’t perfect, oblivious to the fact that being perfect is impossible, inflicting his pain on others.
He also has a way of looking down on everyone around him, hating everyone lower than him such as homeless people for not being proactive with their lives and hating his equals in a made-up mind game that they’re trying to be better than the greatest one there is, attempting to kill his homosexual colleague after turning out to also have a better business card after pinning him as being so inferior that he’s not worth his time. But are these false interests and gimmicks any more fake than these indistinguishable people’s lives? These people don’t see any differences in their lives to the point where they don’t even get suspicious when they see him him lugging a sack with Paul’s corpse inside, leaving a trail of blood, while Bateman doesn’t see this and is doomed to an immaculate insight, obsessing over the details unnoticeable to everyone else, not understanding why people don’t notice him and killing people out of frustration.
When anyone questions his image, even with as feeble of an insult as ‘dork’ his insecurity amplifies. His biggest example is when Paul jokingly says: ‘but then I’d have to kill you.’ getting an identity crisis of the idea of his biggest distinguishable feature, his other side, not even being exceptional, striking directly to the monster than to Bateman. He takes every detail from everyone personally and uses it to fire up his jealousy that feeds his beast. Furthermore, elements of his churning monster tend to slip through at some points when he’s nearly at breaking point, such as abruptly saying ‘did I mention I like to dissect women?’ while eating with Paul, either showing how insecure his demon is by blinding him at such inappropriate moments or he’s trying to throw in elements of his strongest individuality to seem interesting even though it’s immensely socially inept.
However, Bateman seems to see anyone who’s redeemably a real person who doesn’t just care about money and business and has some element of substance and passion as the people who give him actual awareness of his actions, as if the actual Patrick Bateman sees the monster inside of him and tries to get the people he cares about out of his life before his other self gains control again. He butchers two prostitutes, and several others afterwards, after they straight up say they’re not interested in hearing about what he ‘does’ and take an interest in the things he unknowingly opts to people to prove they’re real. However, when he invites his colleague, Jane, to his house, she gives him genuine remarks and talks of her desires and interests in life, he almost kills her with a nail gun presumably after she says she doesn’t know who Ted Bundy is (a reflex test of worth to see if someone can take an interest in him), only to shift into manual and letting Jane go after she voluntarily talks about her life-desires and feelings, saying that ‘something bad would happen’ should she stay, showing he truly isn’t in control and these actions are involuntary, to which his lack of control starts to slip into sheer insanity towards the end of the film as he has no remaining perception of what’s real and what’s imagination, combining events that most likely did happen, such as Paul’s murder, with events that were almost certainly his imagination, such as his mad shootout near the end where he somehow manages to make a police car explode by shooting at the gas tank with a handgun. It’s most likely that he’s using pop culture violent movies to expand his imagination of his violent mind, also shown when he presumably chases a prostitute down a hall with a chainsaw after being seen watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre just before.
However, Bateman finally gets hit with reality when his lawyer Harold mistakes his own client for another colleague, hitting him in the face after showing the extreme of this world’s diminished individuality that Bateman has been trying so hard to top with all these desperate haircuts, business cards and music tastes. Harold seems to have taken the confession Bateman phoned to him about all his murders and that he killed Paul Allan, is because Bateman is ‘a boring, spineless lightweight’ and couldn’t be taken seriously for anything more than a dork, hitting him in the face after trying to create the polished envisioning of the perfectly styled man while being oblivious that it’s the things that make you stand out that define you, with his blood-lust, again, ironically being this defining element which nobody is aware of. His lawyer, a representative of the typical everyday yuppie, furtherly claims it's not possible he could've murdered Paul Allen because he, apparently, had dinner with him just 10 days ago. This most likely is a further example for how deeply delusional and air-headed these people are. With it being likely Harold was eating with another indistinguishable white sheep that had the same dress, ego, and shallowness of Paul and couldn't tell the difference, showing stubbornness as a defining feature of these people too. What makes this so significant is it's the first time Bateman has been served directly a rock-solid example of the true depth of these people's non-existant individuality.
When he sits back down with his cardboard cut-out friends, a sign is shown behind him, reading: ‘THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.’ Suggesting he knows he can’t escape his inner demons even when realising the reasons for their screaming. He sees the monster, his demented inner self, is the only thing that separates him from these delusional, trapped souls and he chooses to embrace it. He’s doomed to live amongst these delusional people, their passions swapped for greed, unknowingly wandering aimlessly through life and all he can do is hope something will lift him out. It’s almost as if this moment is the one of awakening for Bateman. A brilliant metaphor for identity crisis.
The film (and the book alike) are as relevant today than ever. After all, isn’t Bateman like those people who make everything look perfect on social media like Instagram and Snapchat? Ironing out every detail to see a picture of their ideal world with pictures of their most glamorous features, shoving their apparent ‘interests’ in peoples’ faces to seem interesting and belonging somewhere when their life generally isn’t anywhere near what they boast. Bateman is practically a hyperbole of today’s social media usage, amplifying every outside feature and putting forth flashy pieces like recipe descriptions and music reviews to seem like he’s an interesting person to everyone around him without acknowledging his depths, allowing immense isolation, consistent jealousy and anxiety to follow. If we allow ourselves to get obsessed over comparing ourselves to others and let figments of others’ imaginations control our life, our jealousies and insecurities will eat us out from the inside and we don’t tend to notice it until we’ve become a shadow of our former identity, much like how Bateman’s identity crisis paved a way to unleashing the violent side of his psychopathic self.