The wild thing to me about anyone idolizing the character in American Psycho is that it’s all but outright stated outright that the guy lives in wonderland and hallucinated all of his wild power fantasies except maybe being rich. He’s outright called a dweeb by his lawyer at the end once he has a complete mental breakdown. It’s like someone idolizing Nicholas Cage’s character in Vampire’s Kiss.
As with most things, it started ironically
Media literacy is generally really low. Many people don’t take the entire piece in context, they fixate in a specific part that appeals to them and I ignore the rest that shows how destructive that type of behavior is.
I don’t think that was the takeaway from the American Psycho book. There’s a lot of unknowns that the author leaves up to the reader, but at no point did I get the impression the whole thing was a hallucination. It can go a lot of ways from an interpretation standpoint, but there is no definitive ending in either the book or the movie (I believe the movie is even made more ambiguous on purpose).
There’s just as good of a chance that he killed everyone and got away with it because he’s rich and powerful (a satirical characteristic of 80’s “power” businessmen the book was trying to expose).
Most assume he killed at least the prostitutes, because there are callbacks and some police records indicating that in the background. It’s only very slightly questionable if he killed his peers/business associates.
Here’s an article that breaks it down from the movie standpoint
I’ll call out an excerpt from the end:
A popular theory is that Patrick did in fact kill everyone he copped to in his phone call to Harold, including all the ones we saw with our own eyes — that is, except for Paul Allen. This theory is most likely the closest to the truth when we take into account Paul Allen’s vacant apartment, with no signs of Patrick’s murderous rampage to be found. This theory would also explain Harold’s claim that he just had lunch with Paul Allen, so there is no way Bateman could have killed him.
On the flip side, another theory is that Patrick killed everyone, including Paul Allen. We do know that Patrick has a vendetta against Paul Allen, yet another pretentious yuppie with a superior business card. It is also possible that Harold had lunch with someone he thought was Paul Allen — we know how common it is for Bateman’s superficial crowd to mistake each other for someone else.
Both primary competing theories on the movie are that he killed almost everyone, or everyone. In the books it’s similar, even less ambiguous that he killed at least several people.
I would say the less popular and less supported version of the story is that he hallucinated everything. It’s kind of one of those theories that makes sense, but the “facts” in the story don’t add up and force a break of character. It also fights against the narrative of the author who was intending it to be a satire of the power-mad, power-hungry, grab-them-by-the-pussy businessmen of the 80’s, and what they could get away with.
I know everyone’s exhausted by politics, but truthfully, people like trump, the playboy “billionaire” tycoons of the 80’s was who Patrick was supposed to be emulating.
And we all know trump could shoot someone on 5th ave and get away with it at this point.
Looks like the author knew their stuff.
Interesting, I didn’t even know there was a book. The article you linked mentions the film writers said the book was meant to be ambiguous and they wanted that same angle for the movie. I found it hard to not think Bateman was completely detached from reality by the time he gets to the ATM, though I thought it was at least somewhat believable to that point iirc.
The movie (and book I guess) seems to be told from the perspective of Bateman (he narrates and is in almost every scene) so I thought it seemed up in the air if anything was real or just his imagination. I took from it that he himself definitely cannot tell what is fantasy and reality and you were along for the ride with his perception. His murders and their aftermath were pretty outlandish ie dragging the body bag with a huge blood trail past the doorkeeper, the collection of bodies that all mysteriously vanished overnight, the overdramatic helicopter spotlights into his windows during the meltdown phone call, etc. I think the only realistic murder really was the hobo where he could just leave the guy there. And if some were fake idk why any of them would be real.
I have the image of Bateman being just permanently aloof and fitting the ‘dweeb’ description his lawyer gave while nothing happened but him staring off into the distance daydreaming/hallucinating all of his batshit fantasies or maybe scribbling ferociously into his calendar.
In the book, it’s fairly clear that he did kill everyone but only got away with it because 1) nobody can tell anybody else apart because everyone looks the same and 2) everybody is so self-centered that even if they did know a murder took place, they didn’t bother to report it.
It’s very heavily implied in the book that the landlady covered up Paul Allen’s (and multiple other prostitutes’) murder, presumably to maintain the property value of the apartment. Unfortunately, a lot of the clues don’t translate well into a movie:
- The apartment only recently became available to rent
- Bateman notes that the paint on the walls is still fresh, barely dried
- Bateman notes that there’s a lot of potpourri laid out, as though to cover up a smell
- Iirc the furniture was also brand new
- The landlady immediately knew who Bateman was and asked him to leave
Yup, I agree with your points. It’s where I landed too. I always just try to see it from the perspective of people who like the hallucination theory.
It’s like the Ferris Bueler was in the head of his friend and wasn’t real theory. At first glance, kinda explains a lot. But it’s absolutely not true, and the are breaks in the movie that would happen if it were, additionally the director said that wasn’t true straight up.
But people still believe it. I try not to antagonize, but to show how unlikely that theory is to hold up.
I really should watch this movie.
It’s actually pretty funny a lot of times, I didn’t realize it’s supposed to be part black comedy going into it. Definitely an entertaining movie
That’s why my better version of male trip power fantasy is the tough-as-nails delta operative Captain Martin Walker, of Spec Ops: The Line.
From now on I’ll base my personality on Christian Bale’s character in The Machinist
Excellent movie. Good choice!
It seems so overlooked, but it’s probably my fave that he’s in.
Let’s go on s fishing trip!
I base mine on his dark Knight performance
I guess it’s Jack from Newsies for me. Already got the pic of Santa Fe, flat cap, parents, etc.
Bale
Stick a cross in it and the transformation is complete.
Bayle
Bail
BailPail
BAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEE!!!
Straw Sheep
Well, just for others who might do the same:
I thought it would be an interesting read, so I searched and it looks like this was never a real article: https://knowyourmeme.com/news/no-christian-bale-did-not-roast-sigma-bale-idolizers
Which would be very much in the spirit of the movie.
Now to zoom out one extra level, imagine the article was A.I.-generated drivel. It’s probably not but go with the premise: Patrick Bateman has entered A.I. hallucinations! What is the real Patrick Bateman vs the A.I.-generated hallucination one?
Sounds like a fanfic sequel elevator pitch.
Would suddenly “finding” a personality be the very epitome of not having a real and genuine personality?
I took it to mean like finding yourself, where it’d be more of a process than sudden
cool I guess you’re both right
sadly it’s fake as far as I know
Sigma male --> trans woman pipeline is real
(At least was for me)
I doubt it was since the whole sigma thing is pseudoscientific junk made to push inceldom
My recollection is that Sigma male was originally a joke to belittle people that really believed in that bad-wolf-study idea of Alpha and Beta males. Shortly after taking “alpha male” seriously became a meme, listicles and memes started popping up about the secret, even more powerful Sigma variant. Since it has truly no basis in science, I figured sigma was a joke pull from either Six Sigma or maybe even the villain from Megaman X. Now I’m curious if research will find anything on the origins, I need to do some digging.
Anyway, it all gets immediately much funnier when Ligma males come onto the scene shortly after.
A Google search suggests it was invented by a far-right guy called Theodore Robert Beale.
Well for me it was just teen Internet joke, and I really liked the idea “men who don’t care about others opinions and live life however he wants” and I usually wasn’t misogynistic or something. Like I wasn’t perfect, probably did had some bad thinkings during that periods but never was straight up bigoted. Eventually I found out I might be trans.
What’s a sigma?
People made so much fun of the alpha male bullshit that they had to start using a different Greek letter…
Greek letter often used in mathematics and physics, and other branch of science. Some Internet subculture adopted it to make their own identities. If you are asking about “sigma male” it is pseudo identity where someone who identifies as a man is like “I don’t care about others opinions and I will live however I want” it is good as a joke, but many many almost majority (or loud minority idk, I’m not into that anymore) are bigoted towards anyone different and use “being sigma male” as an excuse to that. It is useless in real world because you don’t need separate identity for personality type, just live. Ironic that people who unironically group themselves and others into that whole “alpha/beta/sigma” groups are the ones who say gender is not construct (gender=sex) while their whole categorizations of assigning greek letters to personalities are social constructs.
I thought it was just a meme used for mocking people that think like that. Usually with overly ridiculous examples, a bit like an evolution of “its not gay if you are wearing socks” type of things. Essentially mocking people that feel insecure about their masculinity.
It was invented by those people. Then, they got promptly mocked for it.
lmao, that’s harsh!
So a method actor is telling people to get their own personality??
Does he even have his own?
Same default as everyone else: asshole.
