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richreviews99 · 2 years

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American Psycho: A love-letter to toxic masculinity

Patrick Bateman. A vain, egotistical Wall Street yuppie.

Hobbies include listening to Huey Lewis and the News, dining at trendy restaurants, snorting countless grams of cocaine, and most notably, murdering homeless men and prostitutes.

Superficially, “American Psycho” is a shallow slasher film. So much of the content comes off as gratuitously violent when not properly examined. However, once we delve deeper and analyze the sub-textual themes in Bateman’s character, we realize he is an extreme metaphor for feminist concepts like fragile masculinity and the toxic male ego.

The film criticizes New York city’s yuppie masculinity embodied by Bateman and his friends. The plot suggests that the rigid gender and social roles they adhere to ultimately lead to anxiety and madness (fragile masculinity). In a world where you’re not allowed to be yourself, true identities hide away and turn perverse from neglect. At least, that’s what happens to Patrick Bateman. As the film progresses, we watch his mask slip away, revealing the blood thirsty killer beneath.

In the movie’s opening scene, Bateman and his colleagues sit around a table in an ultra-chic, ultra-expensive restaurant called Pallette. A member of his entourage comments, “God, I hate this place. It’s a chick’s restaurant. Why aren’t we at Dorsia?” The other man says, “Because Bateman won’t give the maitre d’ head.”

This introduces the viewer to the way Bateman’s circle thinks. They are rich, entitled, status-driven men who care more about appearances than anything else.

In Bateman’s world, masculinity is limited to one particular style with clearly defined rules. There is very little wiggle room for self expression. The film reaffirms this concept by making most of the male characters non-distinguishable. Bateman often finds himself mistaken for other investment bankers and never corrects those who mistake his identity.

As the film progresses, we come to realize that that for him, this is an advantage. His lack of perceived individuality makes it easy to hide his crimes in plain sight, especially as his murder rampages become more frequent and more gruesome.

The assertion these yuppies subliminally remind each other is that there is only one right way to be a man if you want to be in their club. In the end, everyone knows of each other, but no one truly knows each other.

In the film, anyone who deviates from these standards and shows a measure of otherness, such as Bateman’s gay colleague, Luis Carruthers, finds themselves at the bottom end of the pecking order. Although Carruthers pretends to be straight, everyone can sense he doesn’t belong in their circle and treats him accordingly.

In another instance, when Bateman encounters a homeless man on the street, Bateman kills him for being “such a loser”. This is his first on-screen kill, signifying his complete disgust and disregard for anyone who is not like him.

In contrast, his second kill is his competition, Paul Allen. Bateman is jealous of Allen because Allen is richer than him, more successful than him, and he can get a table at any fashionable restaurant in town. Allen also consistently insults Bateman publically and has a superiority complex.

Since Bateman has such a fragile ego, he resolves to kill Allen to a) assert his social standing, and b) get even with Allen for daring to compete with him. His unhinged reaction to Allen and the homeless man both signify Patrick’s toxic male ego.

While the homeless man’s murder represents Bateman’s disgust for those who don’t fit his standards, Allen’s murder represents his competitiveness with those who do.

Everything Patrick does in this film stems from his complete hatred for the weak, his obsessive perfectionism, and his social circle’s obsession with greed, power, drugs and women. All of this has its roots in toxic expressions of masculinity.

American Psycho’s genius is its commentary on a time of excess. A time when people like Bateman could use their privilege to hide their evil in plain sight. It’s a commentary on a world that bred a man like Donald Trump, so in many ways, this message resonates more with our generation than the film’s original audience.

American Psycho asks us to look beyond the surface. What we find may not be pretty, but at least it’s real.

#american psycho #movie review #feminist #critic #film critique

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