‘American Psycho’ (2000)

I have seen American Psycho 3 or 4 times and the last time was last night. I have always found the film a difficult and dangerous ride of horror and black comedy but balanced by its acknowledged attempt at a critical demolition of the splicing of American aspiration — the “American Dream” — with psychopathy, materialism, and male violence, endemic to the narrative of the novel (1991) by Bret Easton Ellis. Yet last night I still got the jokes, the sarcasm, the very darkest humour, and the assault on crass materialism and its shallowing of the human soul into and towards the abyss of violent madness. I still got the brilliant monologues on pop culture and the analysis of musical albums in the collection of Patrick Bateman our quintessential yuppie and psychopathic protagonist. I still got the point of the majority of the film. But. I now found myself having a very serious issue — which I have never had before — with the direct and indirect abuse, violent abuse, and extreme levels of violence towards the female victims of P.B. Yet I had no issue with the axe attack upon Jared Leto by Christian Bale to a song by Huey Lewis. Considered to be somewhat of an iconic film scene. In a weird way, I was accepting violence of men upon men — reminiscent of The Fight Club (1999) out a year earlier — but the violence against women could no longer be tolerated in the film. I was shocked that I had accepted it without comment as part of the internal narrative and as the aesthetic portrayal of (satirical?) murderous madness for so long. <a href="https://medium.com/counterarts/american-psycho-2000-44ab22ecdacc">Read More</a>