I want no one to get away, but even expressing this provides no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I’ve gained no new insight into myself as a result of my telling. This confession has meant nothing
American Psycho is one of those rare movies that improves with time. When I saw it for the first time, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t very keen about it, and I wasn’t sure what the snag was. What type of film was it attempting to be, or what kind of film was it trying to be? After several viewings, however, I see the film for what it truly is, a satirical masterpiece
The film is equal parts of Dark Comedy, Character study, Violent Exposure and Social Commentary and if you try to lump the film into just one of these categories, it can fall pretty flat
What draws me back to the film is its ambiguity, and how it may take on different tangents depending on whatever lens you watch it through. From a superficial reading of the film, themes like apathy, appearance vs reality, and, most obviously, Greed is noticed.
However, the most significant and dramatic element in American Psycho is the discussion of Collective vs Personal Identity.
So what is collective identity and what does it have to do with American Psycho?
But before we get into it, here's a quick recap of what happens during the plot.
We follow the life of Patrick Bateman, Set in Manhatten and what is presumed to be the late 1980s into the early 1990s or the yuppie era, a WallStreet type yuppie with a purposefully non-descriptive job whose financial success is only matched by his greed, obsession with material commodities, and well, himself. It’s worth noting that, up to this point, Bateman has managed to keep his murderous tendencies apart from his professional pursuits. He has also been shown as an incredibly jealous individual who places a premium on social position and the look of money.
Now, The plot’s repetition does not imply that everyone in the film is a moron.
In American Psycho, we are shown a society in which everyone is a part of the materialistic yuppie lifestyle. Everyone can be mistaken for someone else, or, more interestingly, everyone who is presented has their personal identity linked to their communal identity.
The definition of personal identity is self-explanatory. It’s the way we distinguish ourselves from other people. There have been many interpretations of personal identity in the realm of metaphysics and identity philosophy but for now, let’s not worry about the mechanics of what the unique identifiers are in personal identity
We, as freely active humans, are the source of any collective identity’s strength. By definition, collective identity is the amalgamation of many, many individual identities into a single universal identity; however, we as individuals retain our personal identities regardless of the collective identity’s movement. Now, what if the collective identity evolved into something more encompassing? What if the collective identity of the group melded with that of the individual, and personal and collective identities coexisted?
it’s a thought exercise that I find fascinating and it really manifests in American Psycho
Let’s think about the narrative with this topic in mind: the fusion of collective and personal identity. Is it really that unexpected that almost everyone in the movie looks the same? Gets it really that unexpected that everyone in the movie is mistaken for someone else at some point? This isn’t just an instance of someone wearing the same in the realm of Wall Street yuppies as shown in American Psycho.
This exaggeration of collective identity in American Psycho, I believe, is precisely why this film is such a satirical masterwork.
