“AN IDEA OF A PATRICK BATEMAN”: The Paradox of American Psycho’s Renaissance
The American Psycho has been reborn.
Released in 2000 to a sea of critical acclaim and the adoration of a cult following, the film American Psycho has long since established itself as a critical work in the American cultural lexicon. Though not unfamiliar with popular reception, the film’s recent revitalization in pop-culture has found itself driven by a new fuel of appreciation or more specifically, a rapidly developing online obsession with its protagonist, Patrick Bateman. With the help of social media, Bateman has attained cult figure status. His popularity continues to soar amongst millennials and Gen Z. Beyond the reconfirmation of American Psycho’s cultural significance, the ramifications of this online Bateman-mania extend beyond the boundaries of the internet. Bateman has gotten lost in the waves of popularization, his persona growing to operate as a tool for discriminatory political weaponization. The internet’s idea of a Patrick Bateman reflects a fundamental conflict in audience reception, one which stems from the film’s ethos itself.
Aforementioned, American Psycho’s surge in popularity is not to be misattributed to the broader body of the film. Rather, the spirit of American Pyscho’s newfound vogue is driven through its protagonist, Patrick Bateman. Though this obsession with Bateman is not necessarily novel, the character’s new online popularity has revealed a foundational textual conflict. Through memes and shit-posts, the character of Bateman has been re-positioned by his digital interpretation, growing to exist as a figure defined equally from his reception as by his own existence.
A sea of online interpretations have detached Patrick Bateman from the context of American Pyscho. Distilling the character down to a symbolic image of bigotry and of hate, sections of alt-right social media venerate the character. In this political weaponization, Patrick Bateman has become entrenched in his own iconography, diluted down to an iconographic symbol of misogyny, capitalism, and hate. This symbolification has stripped Bateman of his contextual existence in American Psycho, as the interpretation of his very image has grown inextricable from outer associations. At its core, however, this pseudo-deification of Patrick Bateman appears to reject the central message of American Psycho itself. Fundamentally, American Psycho is a satire, a film meant to critique Bateman and thus the “yuppie” capitalists of 1980s Wall Street. In the quest for status and recognition as defined by extreme capitalistic greed, Bateman relinquishes all forms of self and the individual, growing to represent a nothingless void, a non-entity. As Bateman himself admits,
“There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping you and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there… ”
Despite his aspirations towards the appearance of capitalistic perfection, Bateman still fails to be seen by his colleagues, his individuality so nonexistent that the other characters of the film neglect to notice him. So unnoticeable, in fact, that not even his outrageous series of murders can get his colleagues to care about him. The reception that has driven Bateman towards cultural canonization appears to deny this internal message of the film, instead fulfilling Bateman’s actualization of persona and making Bateman into the kind of capitalist figure he aims to be. Thus, disregarding Bateman's existence as a non-entity or “some kind of abstraction”, the conservative adoration of Bateman actualizes his character, manifesting a being completely separate from the context of the film.
Through his online reception, Bateman has grown to represent something larger than himself, his presence bearing an assumed association with the greater system he was meant to satirize. No longer merely a character, Patrick Bateman has found himself a weapon of ideology; a symbol of online alt-right groups, the ultimate “sigma male” and kingpin of misogyny.
However not all of Patrick Bateman’s newfound popularity stems from this genuine alt-right veneration; some employ his presence as a means to critique the very groups who deify him. Regardless, however, of his political weaponization, Bateman has remained a central figure of contention, the body of American Psycho growing to function through his presence, a consolidation of the film’s significance in its central protagonist.
However, with this imposition of competing ideology, the reception of Patrick Bateman seemingly does reflect back a type of abstraction, presenting a blank canvas for viewers to imbue with their own perception. After all, doesn’t this assumption of qualities beyond himself uphold Bateman’s very lack of a unique self?
Through his renaissance, Patrick Bateman has found himself in a paradoxical relationship with his own existence. With the consolidation of his complex role as a cultural figure, Bateman’s selfhood has fallen into the hands of the viewer, giving the audience the power to reshape and mold his existence. By no means monolithic, the diversity of perception serves to define Patrick Bateman divergently, both upholding and undermining his satiric, abstract presence.