Movie: American Psycho vs American Society

Director Mary Harron’s American Psycho, portrays a man who appears socially, financially, and culturally successful to the outside world. But the same culture that he strives to conquer seems to lead him to horrible acts of violence. The mere idea of committing the acts of violence shows the downfalls of our current society. Some of these downfalls may be loss of respect for others, and a money driven mentality. Driven by Greed, Harron’s Patrick Bateman is continually striving for improvements in his physical appearance, financial/social status, and masculinity. This continual need for improvement and desire for perfection by Patrick mirrors our American work ethic.

American Psycho’s Patrick illustrates how his economic and social stature can mask his serial killer mentality. In a scene where he discusses movie reviews with his secretary while holding a nailgun to the back of her head. She

has no idea of the nail-gun and thinks he is a normal, sane person because of his high social status. As he lures women back to his fancy apartment, he is using his money and nice things as a tool to commit these acts of violence. This ironic twist of a man’s mentality rela

In Philip Simpson’s book Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer Through Contemporary American Film and Fiction, he discusses film violence saying, “Part of the demonization strategy of these films requires not only that the serial killers are more intelligent and insightful than their middle-class contemporaries but that they also are sublimely brutal in a way that shocks increasingly jaded filmgoers.” This is very true of the film American Psycho as Patrick Bateman is seemingly above all law that governs normal Americans so that he embraces the fact that he can continually get away with murder, and even assume one of his

Sharrett’s book. The workaholic, fueled by the desire for many aspect of self-improvement, will cut feelings off in an attempt to better his/her socio-economic status. Newitz calls this worry “economic performance anxiety”.

made teenagers jump and get scared at certain scenes. But film has taken a whole new step in the direction of profiling the actions of serial killers. What is called the modus operandi by the experts is the locating of patterns in the serial killer’s spree of murders. Simpson discusses in his book the serial killer having two sides to his personality. “One serves as a point of audience identification. The other is a threatening villain.” Bringing up the dividing line between the serial killer’s personality, Simpson points out how they are “excluded from a dominant social order. The monstrous killer is the melodramatic stage villain.” This is

Some topics in this essay:
American Psycho, Psycho’s Patrick, Patrick Bateman, Stephen Prince, Newitz Sharrett’s, Christopher Sharrett, Film Fiction, Fight Club, american psycho, serial killer, Philip Simpson’s, acts violence, Postmodern Media, serial killers, “economic performance anxiety”, “economic performance, performance anxiety”, aspects freedom, patrick bateman, serial killer’s, violence film,