American Psycho Review
The Reagan 80s: a time period defined by surface, cut throat capitalism, Wall Street, cocaine, AIDS, night clubs, bad music and serial killers. This is the thesis of Bret Easton Ellis’s most controversial novel, American Psycho, which when published in 1991, garnered an F review in Entertainment Weekly (Lyons), put Ellis on the FBI’s watch list, and infuriated a radical feminist named Tara Baxter (Waters).
Ellis had only published two previous novels before American Psycho made him infamous: Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction. Both dealt with similar topics of greed, excess, and surface. Less Than Zero, published while Ellis was still attending Brown in 1987 (Waters), was a novel about a teenage boy named Clay who returns to LA for Christmas break, only to discover his “friends” have become drug addled zombies, snuff film producers, and prostitutes. The Rules of Attraction was about a love triangle between three apathetic college kids who view sex as an extracurricular activity, one in which they participate more than actual classes (which are dropped like dying flies). Finally, American Psycho was about the infamous Patrick Bateman, Wall Street yuppie, whose extra curricular activities included clubbing; snorting coke; dining at New York’s finest restaurants; purchasing overpriced sunglasses, suits, brief cases, Evian water, Walkman headphones; and murdering prostitutes, animals, co-workers, and the homeless.
With graphic, detailed, and vivid descriptions that include sadomasochism, decapitations, eviscerations, dismemberment, and torture, it is no wonder American Psycho garnered so much controversy. Sadly, in today’s culture (that has created a genre of film called torture porn--see Saw and Hostel, or rather, don’t), such a novel would not cause most to bat an eye lash. But in 1991, before the novel was even published, the controversy was nearly as hostile as the protagonist (antagonist?) of the novel. Tara Baxter, a radical feminist, read portions of American Psycho out loud in a B. Dalton’s bookstore, which led to her arrest. “After her jail and court date, Baxter went around California and poured blood on 27 copies of the novel at every bookstore she could reach” to protest scenes in the novel that depicted deplorable acts of violence against women (Waters). Of course, these scenes were read out of context, but that probably wouldn’t have made much difference, considering Baxter’s radical attitudes. Baxter had this to say about the author:
“There are better ways of taking care of Bret Easton Ellis than just censoring him. I would much prefer to see him skinned alive, a rat put up his rectum, and his genitals cut off and fried in a frying pan, in front of -- not only a live audience - but a video camera as well. These videos can be sold as ‘art’ and ‘free expression’ and could be available at every video outlet, library, liquor, and convenience store in the world. We can profit off of Ellis' terror and pain, just as he and bookstores are profiting off of the rape, torture, and mutilation of women” (Waters).
In making such a statement, Baxter proved herself to be just as sick and twisted as she thought the author to be, completely undermining her criticism of the novel. While Baxter’s statement is hostile, rude, and inappropriate (in context), the graphic, deplorable scenes of violence in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho serve a purpose: to define the inhumanity of a society that puts its value in objects instead of people. Or rather, treats people as objects. There is a disturbing line from a chapter entitled “Tries to Cook and Eat Girl” in which Patrick Bateman refers to a girl as “meat” and “shit” (Ellis 345). This quotation: provocative, offensive, but true. In a postmodern society that places the value of objects over people, this is a universal truth, or rather, an illusory truth, since there is no actual truth and nothing really matters, including morals, values, principles, compassion, or compromises. People are not special. They do not have hopes and dreams or souls. They are meat. They are shit.
Patrick Bateman is not the only sociopath in the novel. In fact, they populate the streets of New York City, the law firms, the finest restaurants and clubs. They are soulless individuals who do not care about others, only advancing themselves, only possessing, and accumulating more wealth. They are individuals who use others to their own advantage. In American Psycho, they are Wall Street yuppies, the upper class, the bourgeoisie, who destroy and use the unfortunate (homeless, prostitutes, children) so they can live in excess. Whether Tara Baxter realizes it or not, she may fit in perfectly in Ellis’ dark satirical world.
One reoccurring theme throughout the novel is that Patrick Bateman and his yuppie friends often mistake their co-workers for other co-workers, since there is no distinct individuality, only conformity to an ideal surface. No one really knows who anyone else is; as Patrick Bateman states, “Inside doesn’t matter” (397). They are so self-absorbed that they do not take time to notice anyone outside themselves or their possessions, unless a source of ridicule or competition. Patrick Bateman, competing for the Fischer Account (which is never clearly explained, except for the fact that it is the best account), literally axes a co-worker named Paul Owen in the face, in order to get ahead. Talk about cut throat capitalism!
Most of American Psycho’s criticism has come from the fact that it depicts scenes that are disgusting, vile, crude, and just plain immoral. Of course, what these critics don’t realize is that the novel itself is a looking-glass, reflecting a society that is itself disgusting, vile, crude, and just plain immoral. Maybe some critics are more disturbed by the fact that they see themselves in Ellis’ characters than any real criticism of the graphic content. To quote Stephen King: “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered” (148). What the novel does not do, to any extent, is shy away from truth or sugar coat the ugliness of a society obsessed with surface and possessions; a society overcome by greed. In the late 70s and in the 80s, America experienced a string of serial killers (i.e. Bundy, Gacy, and Manson), that both terrified and fascinated Americans. Nothing quite captures America’s attention like murder---and material possessions.
This is exactly why Patrick Bateman, the antihero of the novel, is a serial killer. For one, the novel is set in a time period, the 80s, gripped with greed, consumerism, Reagan economics, and fear (serial killers, war, AIDS). What most readers of American Psycho do not realize, or fail to realize, is that the murders and sex scenes are not the only thing described in pornographic detail. Patrick Bateman is a character sick with obsession; obsession with all the wrong things. In many scenes, Bateman describes, in pornographic detail, his wardrobe, his apartment, brands of bottled water, his music collection, the food at his favorite restaurants. These are the things that consume not only Patrick, but his cohorts. In fact, one could say that a surface obsessed society creates monsters like Bateman. In a society gripped by fear, whose only solace is found in possessing and dominating, there is no where to go but down; into madness, psychosis; anything to try and feel, to escape the void. In the chapter “Tries to Cook and Eat Girl,” Ellis underlines the only real thing that can fill the void. Scene: Bateman attempts to turn a dead girl into meat loaf, but then he starts to cry: “The smell of meat and blood clouds up the condo until I don’t notice it anymore. And later my macabre joy sours and I’m weeping for myself, unable to find solace in any of this, crying out, sobbing ‘I just want to be loved’” (Ellis 345). This scene is at the same time utterly disturbing, and in some sick, morbid way, touching. There is only one thing that can fill the hole in Bateman’s consumer-obsessed soul: love. But, living in the society in which he does, love is an illusory concept, just like truth, compassion, and morals. In a postmodern society, there is only one truth: nothing matters. In a postmodern society, there is no love and there is no escape from one’s emptiness, as the last lines of the novel seem to indicate: “THIS IS NOT AN EXIT” (Ellis 399).
Works Cited
Lyons, Gene. "American Psycho Review | Book Reviews and News | EW.com." Entertainment Weekly's EW.com. Entertainment Weekly, 08 Mar. 1991. Web. 21 Sept. 2011. <http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,313575,00.html>.
Waters, Tom. "Bret Easton Ellis - Interesting Motherfuckers." Acid Logic - Humor Pop Culture Zine. Acid Logic, 2005. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. <http://www.acidlogic.com/im_bret_easton_ellis.htm>.
Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho. New York: Vintage, 1991. Print.
King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. New York: Scribner, 2000. Print.
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