The psychosis of American Psycho

In class today we watched on of the most gruesome and disturbingly freaky films I think I've ever seen. The name says it all "American Psycho". I'm not one that enjoys or finds any sense of gratification in violent or so-called "thriller" films. Watching the film I could not help but be extremely repulsed by the main character Patrick Bateman. I know it is "just a movie" but I cannot even begin to describe how disgusted I was as I watched this psychotic individual carry out his maniacal abominations.  Granted this is probably the reaction the director wished to incite in the audience, but this film has definitely made it onto the list of films I can live without. Yes, I can analyze the film through the lens of popular culture and see how it deals with the themes of identity and capitalism. Bateman is so consumed with “fitting in” and being seen as a “normal” person that he puts on a façade to disguise his gruesome bestiality. To think that there are actually individuals like his character that can carry out this charade of normalcy while simultaneously living a life of utter depravity and insanity is chilling to say the least. From the few scenes we watched it was apparent that the characters infatuation with material goods and labels was exaggerated the point is made that in America too often we get caught up in our materialistic mindset that like those around Bateman we don’t recognize the monsters that our capitalist society has created. I cannot help but wonder though if Bateman truly is a construct and by product of a capitalist society or if he really is just psychotic. Yes I know we have discussed Foucault And how he writes that our disciplines, discipline us and how we create disciplines such as psychology, biology etc. in order to maintain order and create norms about what is and is not socially accepted. However true that may be I can honestly say that if Patrick Bateman lived next door I wouldn’t care about Foucault theories at all. My only concern would be getting him behind bars in a maximum penitentiary. Foucault could argue that I have simply fallen for the brainwashing lies of society but frankly I choose brainwashing over brainsmashing. However I have digressed from the subject at hand…Throughout the film Bateman is compulsively obsessed with having and being the best in his field. He is defined by his suits, his business cards, his fiancés social status, his high-rise apartment etc. etc. He is simply a pastiche of commercialized products and even though he is a cold blooded murderer the only things that trigger panic and anger are the realizations that someone is higher up on the social ladder than he is. He himself says “ I have all the characteristics of a human being but not a single identifiable emotion…except greed and disgust”. Now is this simply because Bateman is a byproduct of the brutal dog eat dog business world or because frankly he’s just psychotic? I say toss the popular culture and theories aside and call it like it is, the man is a few cards short of a full deck. The scene in which he butchers Paul Allen is gruesome and inexplicably noxious. Throughout his tirade Bateman continues to spew an endless rant about a popular band, their lyrics etc. like some mad advertiser pushing his products. I couldn’t help thinking that it slightly resembled that scene in the film The Truman Show with Jim Carrey. In the scene where he is freaking out because he’s beginning to question the reality of the world in which he lives. As he attempts to talk to his wife about his concerns she continues in her role as the wife and keeps looking at the cameras adverting various products. Here her “husband” is opening up to her about his concerns and all she can think about is Quakers Oatmeal. There is no denying that our capitalist system has played a role in conditioning us to being frivolous and materialistic but hopefully we are not in the depraved mentality consuming Bateman. Suffices to say that though this film did illustrate some of these concepts dealing with identity in a capitalist world, in all honesty watching that film was 40 minutes of my life I wish I could get back…