While initially gaining attention upon the novel's release, Bateman's influence expanded among Gen Z. The film's cult following among young viewers propelled Bateman into the realm of a cultural icon.[2][3][4][5] The rise of internet culture and social media platforms has propelled Bateman's character into the realm of memetic culture. Memes featuring Bateman's iconic quotes, facial expressions, and memorable scenes have proliferated across various online communities, further cementing his status as a cultural touchstone.[6][7]
Biography and profile
At the beginning of American Psycho, Bateman is a 27-year-old successful specialist in mergers and acquisitions with the fictitious Wall Street investment firm of Pierce & Pierce (also Sherman McCoy's firm in The Bonfire of the Vanities).[8] He lives at 55 West 81st Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, on the 11th floor of the American Gardens Building, where he is a neighbor of actor Tom Cruise. In his secret life, Bateman is, or hallucinates to be, a serial killer, murdering a variety of people, including colleagues, the homeless, and prostitutes. His crimes, including rape, torture, necrophilia, and cannibalism, are graphically described in the novel.[9][6][7]
Bateman was born on 23 October 1961 and comes from a wealthy family.[10][11][12][2][3] His parents have a house on Long Island, and he mentions a summer house in Newport. His parents divorced sometime earlier, while his mother became sick and now resides at a sanatorium. His father, who first appeared in Ellis's preceding novel The Rules of Attraction, grew up on an estate in Connecticut, and now owns an apartment in the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan. He is assumed to be dead as he is mentioned only in the past tense during the novel.[13]
In Mary Harron's2000 adaptation, however, it is mentioned that Bateman's father "practically owns" the company that Bateman works at, implying that Bateman's father is still alive. Bateman's younger brother Sean attends Camden College and is a protagonist of The Rules of Attraction, in which Patrick Bateman was first introduced. Bateman attended prominent Phillips Exeter Academy for prep school. He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Business School, and then moved to New York City.[14][4]
By the end of the novel, he believes he is about to be arrested for murdering a colleague named Paul Allen (Paul Owen in the novel) and leaves a message on his lawyer's answering machine confessing to his supposed crimes. When he runs into his lawyer at a party, however, the man mistakes him for somebody else and tells him that the message must have been a joke, as he had met with Allen only days earlier. Bateman realizes that the punishment and notoriety he desires will be forever out of his reach, and that he is trapped inside a meaningless existence: "This is not an exit".[15][11][12]
Personality
As written by Ellis, Bateman is the ultimate stereotype of yuppiegreed; wealthy, conceited, and addicted to sex, drugs, and conspicuous consumption. All of his friends look alike to him, to the point that he often confuses one for another. They also often confuse him for other people.[16] While Bateman delights in obsessively detailing virtually every single feature of his wealthy lifestyle, including his designer clothes, workout routine, business cards, alcoholic drinks, elaborate high-end stereo and home theater sound system, he cannot recognize his own friends, work colleagues, or acquaintances.
Bateman is engaged to an equally wealthy, shallow woman named Evelyn Williams and has a mistress on the side named Courtney Lawrence, the girlfriend of Luis Carruthers, a closeted homosexual whom Bateman despises, and has regular liaisons with prostitutes and women he encounters at clubs, many of whom end up being his victims. The one woman (and possibly the one person) in his life for whom he has anything approaching feelings is his secretary, Jean. He feels that she is the only person in his life who is not completely shallow, so he cannot bring himself to seduce or kill her. He casually acknowledges her as "Jean, my secretary who is in love with me" and introduces her in the narration as someone whom he "will probably end up married to someday".
Despite his affluence and high social status, Bateman is constantly plagued by unsettling feelings of anxiety and low self-esteem. He kills many of his victims because they make him feel inadequate, usually by having better taste than he does. He is hated by others. His friends mock him as the "boy next door", his own lawyer refers to him as a "bloody ass-kisser... a brown-nosing goody-goody", and he is often dismissed as "yuppie trash" by people outside his social circle. Bateman often expresses doubts regarding his own sanity and he has periodic attacks of psychosis, during which he hallucinates. It is left open to reader interpretation whether Bateman actually commits the crimes he describes, or whether he is merely hallucinating them; he is, therefore, an unreliable narrator. The screenwriterGuinevere Turner confirmed that, at least in the film, Patrick Bateman isn't imagining every act of violence: “Anything that seems unreal in the film to you personally might be unreal. But somewhere under everything you see, no matter how implausible it seems, real murders in some form are taking place.”[17]
In the climax of the story, Bateman calls his lawyer and leaves a lengthy, detailed message confessing all of his crimes. He later runs into his lawyer, who mistakes him for someone else and dismisses the confession as a joke, while also claiming to have had dinner with one of Bateman's victims after he had supposedly killed him, leaving the supposed reality of Bateman's acts open to audience interpretation.[18]
Although Bateman often claims that he is devoid of emotion, he also describes experiencing moments of extreme rage, panic or grief—being on the "verge of tears"—often over trivial inconveniences such as remembering to return videotapes or trying to obtain dinner reservations. In the middle of dismembering a victim, he breaks down, sobbing that he "just wants to be loved". He takes psychotropics, including Xanax, to control these emotions. He publicly espouses a philosophy of tolerance, equality, and "traditional moral values" because he thinks it will make him more likable, but is actually virulently racist, homophobic, and antisemitic.
Bateman compensates for his anxiety through obsessive vanity and personal grooming, with unwavering attention to detail. He buys the most fashionable, expensive clothing and accessories possible, including Salvatore Ferragamo, Alan Flusser and Valentino suits, Oliver Peoples glasses and Jean Paul Gaultier, Louis Vuitton, and Bottega Veneta leather goods, as a means of effecting some "control" over his otherwise chaotic life. Likewise, while often being confused about people’s names and identities, he categorizes them by what they wear and how they look because they are more easily "understood" in terms of labels and stereotypes. Bateman's apartment also is firmly controlled in terms of look and taste, with the latest music, food, and art.[19]
Bateman kills and/or imagines having killed more or less indiscriminately, with no preferred type of victim, targeting any woman, man and animal who gets in his way (in one instance, a child), and no consistent or preferred method of killing. Women mostly for sadistic sexual pleasure, often during or just after sex. Men because they upset or annoy him or make him feel inferior. In the case of the child (a murder omitted in the film), Bateman wished to see if he would enjoy it but found it unsatisfactory since the child's death would not affect as many people as an adult would. Periodically, he matter-of-factly confesses his crimes and/or fantasies to his friends, co-workers, and even complete strangers ("I like to dissect girls, did you know I'm utterly insane?") just to see if they are actually listening to him. They either are not, or they think that he is joking.[17]
Outside American Psycho
Bateman made his first appearance in Ellis's 1987 novel The Rules of Attraction (in which Sean, his brother, is the protagonist); no indication is given that he is a serial killer. Bateman also makes a short appearance in Ellis's 1998 novel Glamorama, with "strange stains" on the lapel of his Armani suit. Bateman also appeared in the American Psycho 2000 e-mails, which were written as an advertisement campaign for the movie. Although they are often mistakenly credited to Ellis, they were actually written by one or more unnamed authors and approved by Ellis before being sent out. American Psycho 2000 served as a sort of "e-sequel" to the original novel. The e-mails take place in 2000, a little over a decade since the novel. Bateman is in psychotherapy with "Dr M". He is also married to Jean, his former secretary. They have a son, Patrick Bateman Jr. (P.B.), who is 8-years-old. In the story, Bateman talks about therapy, trying to get a divorce from Jean, his renewed feelings about murder, and idolizing his son. In the end, it is revealed that the "real" Bateman, who "writes" the e-mails, is the owner of the company that produces the movie.[20]
Bateman appeared in Ellis's 2005 novel Lunar Park, in which the fictionalized Bret Easton Ellis confesses that writing American Psycho felt like channeling the words of a violent spirit rather than writing anything himself. This ghost—Bateman—haunts Ellis's home. A character also comes to Ellis's Halloween party dressed as Patrick Bateman, and a copycat killer is seemingly patterning himself on Bateman. Toward the novel's end, Ellis writes the last Bateman story as a way of confronting and controlling the character, as well as the issues Ellis created Bateman as a means of countering. Bateman, for all intents and purposes, dies in a fire on a boat dock.
In media
Though Christian Bale had been the first choice for the part by both Ellis and Harron, the role amused him after his agent told him that the role would be a "professional suicide". The producers also offered the part to the likes of Keanu Reeves, Edward Norton, and Brad Pitt. Leonardo DiCaprio was set to play the character, but Ellis (as explained in the American Psycho DVD) decided he would appear too young, especially immediately after Titanic. In addition, his managers thought the role was "too violent" and could potentially hurt his career. Bateman was also portrayed by Dechen Thurman, a brother of Uma Thurman, in the 2000 documentary This Is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis. Michael Kremko played Bateman in the standalone sequelAmerican Psycho 2, in which the character is killed by a would-be victim. Aside from the character appearing in the film, the sequel has no other connection to the previous film and has been denounced by Ellis.[21]
Scenes with the character were shot for the 2002 film adaptation of The Rules of Attraction. Ellis revealed in an interview that director Roger Avary asked Bale to reprise the role, but Bale turned down the offer, and Avary asked Ellis himself to portray Bateman. Ellis refused, stating that he "thought it was such a terrible and gimmicky idea", and Avary eventually shot the scenes with Casper Van Dien. The scenes, however, were ultimately cut from the final version of the film.[22] In a 2009 interview with Black Book, director Mary Harron said, "We talked about how Martian-like [the character] Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave, and then one day [Christian] called me and he had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy."[23]Doctor Who star Matt Smith[24] played the role in the 2013 stage musical version of the novel, with music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik and a book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, at London's Almeida Theatre.[25] In 2016, Benjamin Walker portrayed Bateman in a Broadway production of the musical, which ran from March 21 – June 5, 2016.
In the television series Riverdale, Kevin Keller (portrayed by Casey Cott) performs in a musical production of American Psycho as Bateman in the sixth season episode "Chapter One Hundred and Twelve: American Psychos".[1] In the Showtime series Dexter, protagonist Dexter Morgan, himself a serial killer, uses the alias "Dr. Patrick Bateman" to acquire M-99 for the use of incapacitating his victims.[26] There is a recurring character in the video game Criminal Case named Christian Bateman (a combination of the names Christian Bale and Patrick Bateman) modeled after the character. American rock duo Local H released their song "Patrick Bateman" as the lead single from their 2020 album Lifers.[27]Metalcore band Ice Nine Kills released a single titled "Hip to Be Scared" based upon the film adaptation for their album The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood.[28] Bateman was an influence to the titular character in Who's Watching Oliver and was compared to the main character in Continuance.[29][30] In February 2024, it was announced a remake of the 2000 film was in development. A screenwriter was being sought after, and the film will take place in modern times.[31] In October 2024, the film was revealed to be a new adaptation of Ellis' novel to be directed by Luca Guadagnino from a script by Scott Z. Burns, with Austin Butler cast as Bateman in December.[32][33][34]
Related Research Articles
American Psycho is a satirical horror novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first-person by Patrick Bateman, a wealthy, narcissistic, vain Manhattan investment banker who lives a double life as a serial killer. Alison Kelly of The Observer notes that while "some countries [deem it] so potentially disturbing that it can only be sold shrink-wrapped", "critics rave about it" and "academics revel in its transgressive and postmodern qualities".
Bret Easton Ellis is an American author and screenwriter. Ellis was one of the literary Brat Pack and is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique, as a writer, is the expression of extreme acts and opinions in an affectless style. His novels commonly share recurring characters.
Roger Roberts Avary is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his work with Quentin Tarantino on the script for Pulp Fiction (1994), for which they won Best Original Screenplay at the 67th Academy Awards. Avary has also directed films such as Killing Zoe (1993) and The Rules of Attraction (2002), and wrote the screenplays for Silent Hill (2006) and Beowulf (2007).
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Known for his versatility and physical transformations for his roles, he has been a leading man in films of several genres. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Forbes magazine ranked him as one of the highest-paid actors in 2014.
The Rules of Attraction is a satirical black comedy novel by Bret Easton Ellis published in 1987. The novel follows a handful of rowdy and often promiscuous, spoiled bohemian students at a liberal arts college in 1980s New Hampshire, including three who develop a love triangle. The novel is written in first person narrative, and the story is told from the points of view of various characters.
Less than Zero is the debut novel of Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1985. It was his first published effort, released when he was 21 years old, and still a student at Bennington College. The novel was titled after the Elvis Costello song of the same name.
American Psycho 2 is a 2002 American slasher film directed by Morgan J. Freeman from a screenplay by Alex Sanger and Karen Craig. Starring Mila Kunis and William Shatner, it is a stand-alone sequel to the film American Psycho. Kunis portrays a criminology student who seeks to advance her career by murdering her classmates.
Glamorama is a 1998 novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis. Glamorama is set in, and satirizes, the 1990s, specifically celebrity culture and consumerism. Time describes the novel as "a screed against models and celebrity".
The Rules of Attraction is a 2002 black comedy drama film written and directed by Roger Avary, based on Bret Easton Ellis' 1987 novel. The story follows three Camden College students who become entangled in a love triangle; a drug dealer, a virgin, and a bisexual classmate. It stars James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Ian Somerhalder, Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth, Kip Pardue, and Joel Michaely.
Lunar Park is a mock memoir by American writer Bret Easton Ellis. It was released by Knopf in 2005. It was the first book written by Ellis to use past tense narrative.
Glitterati is an American film directed by Roger Avary. Filmed in 2001, it remains unreleased due to various legal, ethical and music licensing concerns.
Rat torture is the use of rats to torture a victim by encouraging them to attack and eat the victim alive.
American Psycho is a 2000 satirical psychological horror film directed by Mary Harron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Guinevere Turner. Based on the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis, it stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a New York City investment banker who leads a double life as a serial killer. Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Chloë Sevigny, Samantha Mathis, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, and Reese Witherspoon appear in supporting roles. The film blends horror and black comedy to satirize 1980s yuppie culture and consumerism, exemplified by Bateman.
Story of My Life is a novel published in 1988 by American author Jay McInerney.
American Psycho is a 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis.
Fictional portrayals of psychopaths, or sociopaths, are some of the most notorious in film and literature but may only vaguely or partly relate to the concept of psychopathy, which is itself used with varying definitions by mental health professionals, criminologists and others. The character may be identified as a diagnosed/assessed psychopath or sociopath within the fictional work itself, or by its creator when discussing their intentions with the work, which might be distinguished from opinions of audiences or critics based only on a character appearing to show traits or behaviors associated with an undefined popular stereotype of psychopathy.
Imperial Bedrooms is a novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis. Released on June 15, 2010, it is the sequel to Less than Zero, Ellis' 1985 bestselling literary debut, which was shortly followed by a film adaptation in 1987. Imperial Bedrooms revisits Less than Zero's self-destructive and disillusioned youths as they approach middle-age in the present day. Like Ellis' earlier novel, which took its name from Elvis Costello's 1977 song of the same name, Imperial Bedrooms is named after Costello's 1982 album.
American Psycho is a musical with music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik and a book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. It is based on the controversial 1991 novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, which also inspired a 2000 film of the same name, that starred Christian Bale. Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s, American Psycho is about the daily life of Patrick Bateman, a young and wealthy investment banker who is also secretly a serial killer.
The Shards is a 2023 autofiction/horror novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis, published on January 17, 2023, by Alfred A. Knopf. Ellis's first novel in 13 years, The Shards is a fictionalized memoir of Ellis's final year of high school in 1981 in Los Angeles. It was first serialized by Ellis as an audiobook through his podcast on Patreon. The novel's narrator, Bret, relates the story of the events of his senior year of high school in 1981, of he and his close circle of friends' acquaintance with new student Robert Mallory and the tragedy that followed.
The following is a list of unproduced Luca Guadagnino projects in roughly chronological order.
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