IndexRevealing What Mental Illness Patrick Bateman HasBateman's obsession with himself rivals what others think of himConclusionBased on Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 novel of the same name, Mary Harron's American Psycho introduces audiences to Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a Wall Street yuppie with a deliberately anonymous job whose financial success is matched only by his greed, obsession with material possessions, and himself. At the beginning of the film it is revealed that, in addition to his lust for wealth and aesthetics, Patrick Bateman is a serial killer. Harron's film delves deep into the "dark side of consumerism..." revealing Patrick Bateman's aspirations for conformity through his (male) identity. The purpose of this essay is to examine the number of themes that can be seen from a nominal interpretation of the film, such as appearance vs reality, oblivion and indifference, and what mental illness Patrick Bateman has. Specifically, the main focus of this essay will be on the male gaze through Patrick Bateman and the theme of personal vs collective identity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To proceed with the topic of personal vs. collective identity and consumerism, it is important to understand the image of masculinity Patrick Bateman (and the other yuppies) projects in the film. Released in 2000, American Psycho was released during the height of beta male comedy. Beta male comedy protagonists lacked the suave, confident personality of male protagonists decades earlier, yet their desire for any form of sexual encounter was overlaid with comedy (e.g., Jim Levinstein in American Pie). “For all their bizarre humor, beta male comedies emphasize the masochistic suffering of male characters.” Although set about ten years before American Pie, American Psycho reintroduced audiences to a dominant, alpha, sexually active heterosexual male of the 1950s and 1960s (albeit a serial killer). Steven Cohan's Masked Men discusses how Hollywood in the mid-20th century represented masculinity as a masquerade in different genres. In “The Spy in the Gray Flannel Suit,” Cohan insists that there is nothing under the mask… the masquerade is subjectivity,” Cohan discusses the theory of the mask with a soldier-spy in a well-pressed suit, “the the male mask is worn to achieve normative performance-oriented phallic heterosexual male sexuality. This relationship between masculinity and sexuality can also be applied to the horror genre in the form of “psychopath” or “split subject”. In Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Carol J. Clover observes that in slasher films, violence is often the root of voyeurism resulting from the male gaze. This “psychosexual fury” is always linked to sexual repression. However, while Clover's theory could be applied to Norman Bates from Psycho, it cannot be applied in the same way to Patrick Bateman. Revealing what mental illness Patrick Bateman has For Patrick Bateman, a figure who has habitual sex, the desire for a heterosexual romance is "crowded out by violence and narcissism". One thing Patrick Bateman loves more than murder is if himself, particularly how others see him. He fetishizes himself and is obsessed with his own “physical condition… like the female 'hard bodies' he objectifies, he also makes his own body like an object.” Bateman for himself is established during the famous “morning routine” scene. Slow pan and tracking shots of a beautiful apartmentdominated by white. The first shot with Bateman shows him walking to a toilet to urinate while introducing the audience to where he lives, his name and his age (in that order). In the next shot, he stares at himself through a glass poster of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables that becomes the first of many reflective shots peppered throughout the film that show Bateman's obsession with himself and his duality. Les Misérables is mentioned throughout the film and shows the yuppie agents' disconnection from reality. They see the show as a status symbol, a sign of wealth because they can afford the expensive tickets. Meanwhile, the story is exactly the opposite. It's about class tension, and how the excess and wealth present in the upper class causes anguish and rebellion in the lower class, and how this causes a collapse within society. In the film Paris in the early 19th century is a parallel to New York in the late 20th century, the same problems are found in both cities only now the upper class fascinates the lower class without even realizing it. In Masculinity in fiction and film: Representing men in popular genres, Brian Baker theorizes that the shot of Bateman taking out an ice mask to wear, "... undermines the previous shot sequence." Baker believes it because the “mask concept” is finally introduced as the “dominant visual signifier” which is followed by probably the most famous shot of the film. Bateman, shot in close-up, removing his herbal mint face mask as the voice-over narration continues with the "There's an Idea Patrick Bateman" monologue. As Bateman sheds his “mask,” much like a snake sheds its skin, his narration ends with “I'm just not there,” announcing to the audience that the Patrick Bateman his colleagues and friends see is not real. Baker also notes a certain shot composition that is seen repeatedly in American Psycho, each shot of a naked Patrick Bateman is always from below and behind his waist. Even for a Rated-R film, the penis is “completely denied and removed from the field of view,” the way each “naked” shot is composed is such that it suggests nudity. Baker does not elaborate further on this idea of ​​nudity, but Carol J. Clover's theory of "gender discomfort" could help elaborate Baker's ideas of nudity. Clover writes, "the idea of ​​a killer driven by psychosexual fury, particularly of a gender-challenged male, has proven enduring..." Bateman is more comfortable in his "birthday suit" than in his Armani because he considers himself a Greek - a kind of god every time he looks at himself naked. In a scene focused on the male gaze, Bateman places a video camera in the corner of the room and begins to have sex with two prostitutes. Baker describes the scene using harsh language to highlight Bateman's power, "...Bateman fucks a prostitute...", he is the dominant alpha male in the whole scene but his intent is neither on the girl he is " fucking" nor on the other one who is filming. in the video, but all of Bateman's attention and “longing gaze” are focused on the spectacle of his reflection staring back at him in the mirror as he flexes, poses heroically, and fixes his hair. Even though this sequence is about his "charismatic" side, we still see hints of Bateman's darker side. First, the camera view is black and white, denoting Bateman's black and white sides. The lighting comes from the left side of the frame and causes Bateman's shadow to be cast on the wall behind them, as if to say that Bateman's darker side is also present in the room. It even appears that Bateman's shadow is strangling the prostitute's shadow while having sex with her. Hishard body is visible and is not performing for the diegetic camera in the real scene but is performing for the camera that is filming the movie American Psycho. He is not breaking the fourth wall, but is instead performing for the audience while fetishizing himself. In the last sex scene of the film, Bateman is caught trying to eat alive one of the women he is having sex with. He tries to eat her, while he is "eating her out" and as another woman notices in horror, the sex scene ends abruptly and turns into a "murder show". As the second prostitute begins to flee the apartment (Paul Allen's apartment) Bateman enters the scene, completely naked except for a new pair of white sneakers and doing his best leather-face impression while brandishing a buzzing chainsaw , covering his entire penis. time. This scene is a nod to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre which misunderstands the purpose of horror films, instead of being invested in the story in the atmosphere, Bateman just puts it in the background while he trains showing how desensitized he is to violence. This is also how he treats pornography, watching it absentmindedly. The chainsaw murder scene also has a paradoxical framing, when it relates the phallic symbol of the chainsaw to the phallic symbol of the chainsaw blocking Bateman's phallus, both used to "kill" women. Bateman's obsession with himself rivals what others think of him when asked by his girlfriend. (played by Reese Witherspoon) because he wants to stay in his father's company responds aggressively: "Because... I... want to... fit in..." This is first noticed when even before the public learns Bateman's first name, he and his colleagues all have the same fashion style and the same credit card when paying at lunch, and Bateman introduces himself through where he lives; “I live in the American Gardens building on W. 81st St. on the 11th floor… my name is Patrick Bateman.” The film is steeped in consumerism, from each of Bateman's “identikit colleagues” to Bateman trying to make a dinner reservation at an upscale restaurant. Consumerism and greed are important themes throughout the film, as is the simple narrative between appearance and reality. However, after watching the ending several times, one can see that it is the perfect embodiment of the central theme of personal versus collective identity. The ambiguity involved in the ending offers the audience two choices: either Patrick committed all the murders shown (and especially Paul Allen) or he didn't and the murder scenes the audience witnessed were simply delusions of violence in the mind of Bateman. David Greven believes that Bateman "undoubtedly committed the murders and everything the audience saw in the film happened as presented", except of course moments like the ATM needing a stray cat. If Patrick Bateman actually killed all the people in the film, how does the lawyer make it clear that he had dinner with Paul Allen in London? The answer is constant misidentification. This abundant plot occurrence occurs in a world where everyone is part of the materialistic, yuppie culture. Everyone is easily mistaken for someone else or, more interestingly, everyone introduced has their own personal identity synonymous with that of their collective identity. Personal identity is quite self-explanatory, it is how people identify themselves apart from others, it is what makes us unique and independent actors on earth. Collective identity is therefore the antithesis of what makes a person unique: it is a shared sense of belonging to a particular group. “Collective identity is the phenomenon in.