Blog #9

American psycho was the topic of our class meeting on November 16, 2010, or more exact the themes of Consumerism and Identity. I have never watched American Psycho before but from the scenes we watched in class it pinpoints to those very themes. Patrick Bateman is a successful and rich lawyer who has a need to kill other human beings. This is when the problem of identity comes in, that is linked to his consumerism. Patrick is a composite of many things, not really being a person but a result of outside influences like the media, advertisements, magazines, movies, the Internet. He hides his real self through a fake exterior, not showing his inner desire to kill because in our society that is not viewed as a normal way to act. Everything Patrick quotes or uses in his daily language with his friends comes from outside sources. He is a product or assembly of many influences of society, even the people and things around him like his friends, his career, where he lives, etc. He adapts his "normal" persona in order to "fit in" with all the others. He talks about TV shows and music, anything clichéd because he can't find it in himself to express emotion. The only time Patrick has any reaction to anything anyone says is when he analyzes what type of new or expensive merchandise they have. An example is the scene where all the lawyers are showing off their new business cards and when it comes to Paul Allen's extremely classy card, Patrick begins to sweat profusely almost in a trance like panic with shaking hands soley based on the fact that Paul had a better card than him. This says a lot about his character. Even in the beginning of the movie in the shower scene Patrick describes himself as not being there, how he likes having things in order and taking care of himself through diet and rigorous exercise. It's his "regime of the self" where he only cares about himself and is a part of the performance aspect of himself, the side he wants to display to other people in order to be accepted. He even said it in another scene how the only two feelings he ever feels are greed and disgust, which he portrays throughout the film; an example being when he kills the homeless man in the alley for being pathetic and without a job. He is making a socio-economic distinction here where he is the wealthy one flaunting his superiority and money over the helpless and poor man living on the street. Patrick doesn't feel pity on the man, just disgust. He hates and looks down on the excesses of society, who he views as a waste of space. American Psycho's ideas on Consumerism actually reminds me of another movie, Fightclub who realizes and sees the constructs of Consumerism taking hold on our society. Here is a scene that explains:

Here Brad Pitt explains the eroding nature of our modern concept of society and identity. We define ourselves through the things and objects we buy. That is exactly how Patrick is defined, as layers and layers of constructs of a pre-existing world along with the growing philosophies of a modern, media based, brain-washed society. Patrick doesn't have a real identity and he acknowledges that in the beginning of the movie. The same way Patrick hides his inner psychotic and socially unacceptable desires he must hide that side of himself in order to be accepted by the society.