Bateman Forever: A Love Story

American Psycho is my favorite movie of all time. I watch it at least twice a year, and I can quote nearly every line, verbatim. The first thing people see when they come into my house is the giant poster of nude, blood-flecked Christian Bale wielding a chainsaw. I can't listen to "Sussudio" on the radio without grinning like a maniac. I've wanted to dress as Patrick Bateman for several Halloweens now, but I just can't find the right raincoat (nor have I recreated that perfectly moussed coif). I am completely devoted to this movie, but it was not love at first sight.

But this shirt certainly was.

I first saw the movie near the end of high school. Following the guidance of Bravo's Scariest Movie Moments series, I had created a list of films to beef up my education in horror. American Psycho had been featured on the show, spotlighting the "Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?" scene. The commentators briefly discussed it as a dark, satiric take on 80's culture. I was already fascinated with serial killers, I liked 80's music, and like any 17-year-old girl, I'd sit through anything with Christian Bale in it, so of course I sought it out as soon as I could.

An hour and half later, I watched the end credits roll by with a thousand-yard stare. I was shaken up and dizzy, as if I'd just gotten off a boat and was struggling to regain my footing. I hit eject on the remote and stated to an empty room, "I don't know how to feel about any of that."

I would realize later that the film really shocked me, and all my teenage "edginess" was completely unprepared for the assault. It was revulsion padded with confusion with a few moments of uncertain, helpless laughter in between. But for weeks afterward, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I went over and over in my head what that bizarre fever dream of a movie could possibly mean. How could a movie I didn't even like completely consume my thoughts?

Before I knew it, I was buying the DVD and watching it again, and again, and then again. Quite out of nowhere, I realized I was in love.

I discovered it was a comedy--a hilariously over-the-top, yet tight-lipped satire--and suddenly the most unsettling moments were seen anew with unhinged glee. I realized that Patrick Bateman was not the suave seductive vampire Lestat, nor the charismatic troublemaker Alex de Large. No, for all his chiseled looks and expensive furniture and restaurant reservations and mountains of cocaine, Bateman's a fucking bore. He really is "an idea of a Patrick Bateman." He's a mass produced, plasticine imitation of a human being, with all the personality of a perfume ad. He is the ultimate poser and the worst kind of hipster, following "the pleasures of conformity and the importance of trends" with unchecked devotion and preaching shallow humanitarian buzz words with saccharine insincerity, before lecturing you about Phil Collins' greatest hits being of works of musical genius. Tell em why, Pat!

And of course he does fit in, so much so that he is constantly mistaken for other people, hence he makes a perfectly elusive killer. But the idea that such a bloodthirsty unstoppable murderer could be hiding in plain sight and also a bit of a buffoon is pretty damn funny. The biggest joke of all is that everyone around him is so self-absorbed they don't notice his murderous behavior even when it's right in front of their faces.

I was in my senior year of college when I finally got my hands on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and it only intensified my fascination with Patrick Bateman. I was studying creative writing and still fancied myself to be edgy, so against my professors' tastes, a lot of my writing was influenced by what some would call pop trash, like Chuck Palahniuk or Stephen King. It didn't take much for me to get hooked on Ellis' deadpan style and hostile perspective. The book is a horrifying experience for many reasons, not the least of which that you're seeing everything from an obsessive psychopath's broken point of view, detail by excruciating detail. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Bateman murders his co-worker Paul (Jared Leto) with an impeccably polished axe while Huey Lewis and the News plays on the stereo. It's a shocking, bizarre scene, but it's also one of the film's funnier moments; personally, I can't watch it without a big smile on my face. In the book, the scene is exactly the same, only placed under the psychotic microscope of Bateman's eye, and I was struggling not to vomit.

The novel is notably criticized for its pornographic nature in its vivid descriptions of both sex and violence, and that's not without merit. Every page is hyper-detailed, and it's something akin to torture getting through some of the bloodier interludes (most people point to the rat scene...I'm more squeamish towards the Bic lighter). While the violence is intense and upsetting, it's nothing compared to the agony of listening to Patrick describe everyone's outfit down to the pattern on their socks. For being a book that allegedly outraged the nation when it was first released, it's a fairly thick novel that has spends great lengths being pretty damn boring, with only a handful of violent moments that come and go within a page or two. If it were released today, I feel the criticism would be aimed the other way around.

It certainly helps to see the movie before reading the book, just for a sense of place and tone, or at the very least some sense of separation. It helps to put a face and some hint of personality, however little there may be, to Patrick Bateman before delving into his head. It helps to already be committed to the character before listening to him drone endlessly about Whitney Houston and Louis Vuitton. It makes the idea of this person all a little less terrifying, especially when you find your inner monologue is beginning to sound eerily like his (that goes away once you're done with the book... eventually).  You need to feel safe with him if you want to enjoy his madness, from a literary standpoint, anyway. Enjoying American Psycho is similar to enjoying Paradise Lost, in that if you can humanize and identify with the devil to some degree, you're better able to entertain his philosophies, no matter how blasphemous they may be. In any case, it's not a book I really recommend to people.

For my part, I am empowered by Patrick Bateman. That may seem strange to say, with me being a woman and the book being called one of the most misogynistic novels of all time, but it's true. Being a sullen, insecure English major with a lot of time to smoke pot and brood while reading it, I liked the idea of liking something dangerous, of possibly being something dangerous. I embraced the fantasy of seeming harmless on the surface but being capable of terrible atrocities. Not that I ever wanted to actually kill anyone, but the idea that I was secretly violent gave me a strange confidence, and the feeling of confidence eventually burrowed in and ingrained itself as something more based in reality. My self-image as a predator mellowed into something less threatening, but no less capable. Bateman gave me that taste of the overinflated, unearned, incomprehensible, MALE swagger. For as pathetic and anonymous and inconsequential as he is in his world, his delusional sense of superiority rarely wavers, never questions itself. I strive every day for that kind of resolution with self, though I try not to be nearly as pretentious about it, and with a decidedly feminine touch (and without the murderous streak).

And speaking of gender, I happen to believe Ellis when he said he intended to write a feminist novel. Patrick Bateman is not a tragic hero. He is barely a narrator, he has no redeemable qualities, he's not even cool. He is not an ideal for anyone, hence the presence of "psycho" in the title. Bateman is a pampered, deluded, cruel, and cowardly man with bloodthirsty tendencies. He is just the worst. To me, it's pretty empowering to know that just beneath the high-and-mighty face of that beastly kind of man is a sniveling self-involved loser who will one day end up in pieces on his office floor, sobbing on someone's voicemail.

What a dork.

Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner pulled an amazing movie out of a dense, demented, unfilmable novel. They streamlined it into an elegantly twisted downward spiral and exposed it for exactly what it was: a funhouse mirror of the angry American male. Not just rich yuppies with too much power and free time, but a caricature of the entitled, hateful, greedy, impotent Man. The guy who is angry and ignorant yet wears the facade of the righteous, and sees himself as the ultimate example of what is true and just and all-American. Remind you of anyone?

Despite all that awfulness, I still love Patrick Bateman. I love him the way other horror fans love Freddy and Michael and Jason, with a loyal, fanatic affection. Sure he's a stoic babbling monster, but he's my monster just the same. Sometimes you don't know why you fall in love, you just know when it's right.

Being the theater geek that I am, I've been anxiously following the development of the musical adaption of the film. The show was first developed in London a little over a year ago, and after a great deal of hard work and dedication, really talented people have come together to make something that sounds pretty damn cool, and it's going all the way to the city that inspired it! What seems like a bizarre combination feels oddly fitting, given Patrick's fondness for music, and the fantastic nature of the killings lend themselves to more theatrical staging. The show's first preview performance on Broadway is mere hours away and I wish everyone involved the absolute best. Though I may never make it up to New York to see it, every fiber of my being wants that show to do well.

I am thrilled to live in a time when not only is my favorite guy's name suddenly getting tossed into political articles and satirical videos, not only is a deserving work of literature finally being reexamined, but best of all, I get a rocking new soundtrack to obsess over! Yes, I've pre-ordered it.

(As I was placing the finishing touches on this post, iTunes informed me that my soundtrack had arrived fully downloaded. My weekend is going to be fucking great.)